During the time that I’ve spent working for Greenpeace, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness some amazing positive movement in the US seafood sector.

Major retailers like Target and Costco have adopted new policies that are making an impact on both the industry and on the planet. Companies like Safeway and Wegmans have taken progressive, public stands on important political and environmental issues like marine reserves and Antarctic protection measures.

Many other companies, such as Costco, Trader Joe’s, and Walmart have dropped unsustainable species from their inventory in favor of more responsible seafood products. In fact, over the last four years, ten of the retailers analyzed in Greenpeace USA’s Carting Away the Oceans report have discontinued orange roughy, a bottom-dwelling species that is simply unfit – due to a combination of mismanagement and the fish’s own life history – to support an industrialized fishery of any size.

This is real progress.

The voices of American consumers, coupled with the emergence of sustainability champions within the retail industry, are having a profound effect on the way we fish and the way we shop. Still, change isn’t easy: not for consumers, and not for companies.

Even in the face of undeniable scientific evidence, some seafood companies – like Chicken of the Sea, for instance – continue to do everything they can to avoid discussing the real issues.  This frustrates anyone who is aware of the reality of what is happening to our oceans, as the destructive actions of this company are harming our planet more and more with each passing hour.

It’s not just Greenpeace that’s taking issue with Chicken of the Sea and its stubborn refusal to stop trashing our oceans.

Not only have nearly 60,000 people signed a petition demanding that the company change its ways, but a member of the United States House of Representatives has called for a ban on fish aggregating devices (FAD’s), and the New York Times has already predicted our campaign to be a success. Sadly, every day that Chicken of the Sea keeps stalling is another day that our oceans suffer. The company is perfectly capable of making the changes that US consumers are demanding – just look at what it has done in the United Kingdom.

Chicken of the Sea is a subsidiary of the massive multinational seafood corporation Thai Union Group, which also owns John West, a tuna brand in the UK. John West has already publicly pledged to transition to sustainable procurement methods, such as FAD-free purse seining and pole-and-line, and has provided metrics and time-bound milestones for doing so (although they are admittedly less ambitious than those of other UK tuna brands). Chicken of the Sea, however – a brand wholly owned by the very same company that has promised to provide sustainable tuna to the UK market – refuses to do the same for consumers in the United States.

Does Thai Union feel that American consumers don’t deserve sustainable tuna? Or perhaps the company is simply buying time, relying on the same boilerplate industry rhetoric that eventually failed them in the UK, until it is no longer feasible to tow that line in the United States? The bottom line is that Chicken of the Sea knows better and can do better, but is simply choosing not to do so – and our oceans are suffering because of it.

Image: Crew of the Taiwanese longliner Li Chyun No. 2, set 180 kilometers of longline in the Central Pacific. 09/22/2011 © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the founding of Greenpeace, and as I write this, thirty passionate and dedicated Greenpeace activists are here with me in American Samoa (a territory of the United States in the South Pacific Ocean) on board the Esperanza. We’ve come to this far-flung tropical port as part of our efforts to convince tuna companies like Chicken of the Sea to adopt sustainable procurement policies and to source tuna responsibly. This means ceasing the use of conventional longlines, ending the industry’s reliance on fish aggregating devices (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9u_juYdRI8), also known as FADs, and shutting down illegal fishing operations in the high seas pockets of the Western and Central Pacific.

FADs are floating objects that serve as giant fish magnets, attracting all kinds of marine creatures as well as the target fish, skipjack tuna. Everything is then scooped up in giant nets; the tuna is retained, while the unwanted animals are discarded, dead or dying. Countless sharks, billfish, rays, and baby bigeye and yellowfin tuna are slaughtered in this manner every year due to the indiscriminate nature of this fishing practice.  

Longlining (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9u_juYdRI8) is the other highly destructive and wasteful way tuna gets from the Pacific to your table. Longlines are just that, miles and miles of baited hooks strung off long lines. They ensnare sea birds, turtles, sharks and all manner of other ocean creatures which drown at the end of these deadly hooks. Nearly 30 percent of the total catch of these longline vessels are non-target animals, and by the time the longlines are pulled out of the water, virtually all of these unlucky creatures are already dead.

Getting major U.S. brands like Chicken of the Sea to switch to responsible fishing methods – to stop using FADs and longlines – is a crucial step in salvaging fish stocks and restoring the Pacific Ocean.

It’s a huge ocean out there, one that supplies oxygen and food for much of the globe. The Pacific provides the U.S. – the world’s largest tuna market – with 60 percent of our tuna.  Millions of people from Asia, Australia, North and South America and island communities rely on the Pacific for food and jobs. We need to protect the Pacific and we need to protect it now. The very future of millions of people and their children depend on us doing the right thing.

That’s why we’re here in American Samoa, to convince leaders and industry to do the right thing. American Samoan Congressman Eni Faleomavaega issued a warm welcome to us, highlighting the destruction that has been visited upon these waters and upon local communities through overfishing.

Congressman Faleomavaega stressed the need to put a stop to three ocean problems – transshipping; illegal, unreported and underreported (IUU) catches; and the use of FADs – and implored the tuna industry to change their ways if we are to safeguard tuna, and tuna industry jobs, for future generations.

The oceans are in crisis, and fish populations are dying off. Bluefin tuna are on a one-way road to extinction, north atlantic cod have all but disappeared. Of the three main commercial tuna species for the global canned tuna market (yellowfin, bigeye, and skipjack), bigeye has been classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and yellowfin as a near-threatened species. Pacific stocks of skipjack are now the world’s last fully functioning tuna fishery, but are already showing serious signs of decline.  

Island nations have established their solidarity in closing key areas of the high seas to destructive fishing, and some tuna companies are heartily supporting them (see http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/John-West-victory/).

In fact, in the UK, every major tuna brand has made a commitment to responsible fishing, such as pole and line fishing and FAD free purse-seine nets.

Despite an emphatically angry response to our campaign here in the United States, Greenpeace could be the best friend the fishing industry has at the moment. We are actually fighting for the same thing – a tuna industry for tomorrow. We want jobs and fish for the future, but with the way stocks are currently being mismanaged and plundered, this vision of a healthy and productive tuna industry may be little more than a dream. To make matters worse, as the tuna disappear from these waters, American jobs are being lost. Congressman Faleomavaega points out that both Bumblebee and Chicken of the Sea have chosen to export their fish processing operations, taking them to low-wage economies like Thailand instead of investing in the Pacific. Hundreds of jobs in American Samoa have disappeared as a result which has harmed the economy.

It is particularly fitting to be in the Pacific at this time, Greenpeace’s 40th Anniversary. Greenpeace sprang from humble beginnings in Pacific 40 years ago, and we have a powerful history in this ocean, from the evacuation of Rongelap and protesting French nuclear testing to the tragic bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

Today, Greenpeace is taking action around the globe to defend our oceans and the Pacific: on the water, bringing our message to people everywhere – the UK, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, back on the mainland and here in American Samoa. 

As is often said, the oceans do not separate us, they connect us.

I look forward to embarking from here tomorrow and continuing this journey across the Pacific where we will be searching for illegal fishing vessels, bearing witness to ecological crimes, and doing whatever we can to protect our flagging tuna stocks. Our oceans cover almost three quarters of this planet we live on; it is up to all of us to step up and save them.

On Wednesday morning, hundreds of commuters, surfers, and local residents were greeted by the sight of the Greenpeace thermal airship soaring above the La Jolla beach, only a few miles from Chicken of the Sea’s San Diego headquarters. The airship displayed banners that highlighted the destructive practices of Chicken of the Sea and chastised the company for the needless deaths of sharks, billfish, turtles, and other animals killed on the company’s longlines and in its purse seine nets.

On Thursday, Greenpeace personnel hand-delivered a petition to the company. Signed by over fifty-six thousand concerned consumers across the country, the seven-hundred page document spelled out the growing demand for Chicken of the Sea to abandon its wasteful ways and to adopt more sustainable and responsible practices.

The degree of support for the campaign for Chicken of the Sea to reform has been immense, and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds. From the Atlantic to the Pacific and from all fifty states, thousands of people have voiced their concerns in the form of letters, petitions, phone calls, social media, and more. There is no doubt that the U.S. consumer public is irate over the damage done by Chicken of the Sea and its reliance on destructive and indiscriminate gear like conventional longlines and fish aggregating devices.

These activities are still just the beginning on Greenpeace’s efforts. The damage done by this Chicken of the Sea is massive, and we must see real change from the tuna industry in the here-and-now if we are to resuscitate our ailing oceans and to rebuild our tuna populations.

Greenpeace will continue to communicate the reality of the situation to the American public until Chicken of the Sea publicly pledges to reform its procurement policies and to become a true leader within the industry.

Tuna is an important part of the American diet – it’s an affordable and convenient source of protein – but right now, the damage being done to our planet by companies like Chicken of the Sea is simply too great to accept. The American consumer deserves a sustainable tuna option, and if tuna companies in markets like the UK are willing and able to transition to a better system, our domestic producers must stop duping the American public and do the same. Learn more at tunasecrets.com

Contact Chicken of the Sea right now.

StarKist, Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea are scrambling to keep their dirty little secret under wraps – but it’s too late.

All three companies sent us cease-and-desist letters in an effort to squash a 140-second animated parody depicting a fish, a bee, and a bad-tempered mermaid reveling in their destructive practices. Yes, that’s right – they’ve made legal threats against Greenpeace over a cartoon.

Watch the video that these tuna companies don’t want you to see.

Bumble Bee has even based some of its alleged claims on our statement that the company employs “destructive fishing methods.” So, let me get this straight – are you saying that you’re the kind of company that doesn’t consider killing endangered turtles to be destructive? Because the longline vessels that catch your albacore do exactly that.

To compound matters, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) – a muck-dwelling seafood industry lobby group that has been backing the status quo on behalf of environmentally irresponsible bottom trawlers, longliners, and other companies for years – has apparently hired an outside consultancy to confuse the issue with a PR campaign targeting Greenpeace. It seems the old guard will stop at nothing when it comes to keeping their skeletons buried.

Rather than focusing on the real issues, these tuna companies and their proxies at NFI are trying to create a smoke screen and hide the real issues from consumers. Unfortunately for them, we have a right to know the reality behind our seafood options and to make informed and educated decisions at the seafood counter – and in the end, no corporate skullduggery or sleight-of-hand can change the fact that we have the truth on our side.

Fact: Purse seines that use fish aggregating devices (FADs) have bycatch rates up to 1000 percent higher than FAD-free purse seines.

Fact: Tuna longliners regularly kill turtles, sea birds, sharks, and other animals – hundreds of thousands of them a year.

Fact: FADs increase the incidental catch of baby bigeye and yellowfin tunas to an intolerable degree. Approximately 15-20 percent of canned “light” tuna that was caught by skipjack seiners in the Pacific Ocean is thought to actually be juveniles of these two highly vulnerable species.

Fact: Chicken of the Sea, StarKist, and Bumble Bee sell thousands of tons of tuna caught in FAD-associated purse seines and on longlines every year.

There’s just no way around it.

I personally don’t want to support any company that makes money off of dead sharks, turtles, and sea birds. There are better ways to catch tuna than with indiscriminate, highly destructive gear like traditional long-lines where no mitigations to avoid endangered bycatch is used.

A sustainable tuna industry is not only possible – it is absolutely necessary if we are to have healthy oceans in the coming years.

So, for those of you reading this who work for Bumble Bee, StarKist, Chicken of the Sea or NFI, hear this: we will not be silenced. Your legal chicanery will not dissuade us. The public deserves to know the truth, and your days of hiding your dirty little secret are over.