By Emma Page
Greenpeace activists on board the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior disrupted an industrial longlining fishing operation in the South Pacific, seizing almost 20 km of fishing gear and freeing nine sharks — including an endangered mako — near Australia and New Zealand.
Crew retrieved the entire longline and more than 210 baited hooks from a European Union-flagged industrial fishing vessel, including an endangered longfin mako shark, eight near-threatened blue sharks and four swordfish.
The crew also documented the vessel catching endangered sharks during its longlining operation.
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The at-sea action followed new Greenpeace Australia Pacific analysis exposing the extent of shark catch from industrial longlining in parts of the Pacific Ocean.
Latest fisheries data showed that almost 70 percent of EU vessels’ catch was blue shark in 2023 alone.
The operation came ahead of this week’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, where world leaders are discussing ocean protection and the Global Ocean Treaty.
On board the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Georgia Whitaker said: “These longliners are industrial killing machines. Greenpeace Australia Pacific took peaceful and direct action to disrupt this attack on marine life.
“We saved important species that would otherwise have been killed or left to die on hooks.
“The scale of industrial fishing — still legal on the high seas — is astronomical. These vessels claim to be targeting swordfish or tuna, but we witnessed shark after shark being hauled up by these industrial fleets, including three endangered sharks in just half an hour.
Rainbow Warrior crew disrupt longline fishing in the Pacific. Video: Greenpeace
“Greenpeace is calling on world leaders at the UN Ocean Conference to protect 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030 from this wanton destruction.”
Stingray caught as bycatch is hauled onboard the Lu Rong Yuan Lu 212 longliner vessel in the Tasman Sea.
The Rainbow Warrior is in the South Pacific ocean to expose longline fishing and call on governments to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and create a network of protected areas in the high seas.
Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling on the New Zealand government to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and help create global ocean sanctuaries, including in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
New Zealand signed the agreement in 2023.
More than two-thirds of sharks worldwide are endangered, and a third of those are at risk of extinction from overfishing.
Over the last three weeks, the Rainbow Warrior has been documenting longlining vessels and practices off Australia’s east coast, including from Spain and China.
Emma Page is Greenpeace Aotearoa’s communications lead, oceans and fisheries. Republished with permission.
- The Rainbow Warrior III will be in Auckland on July 9 — the day before the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original RW by French secret agents — and will host open days on July 12-13 and July 19-20.
