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According to freed slaves from a Taiwanese Shark finning Vessel

Pretoma invites you to read the press article published in this week edition of The Tico Times, Freed Asian Sailors Talk

Environment Commission DOES NOT vote on bill 17.383 to demote Las Baulas National Park.  Now, the decision lies with our new President, Laura Chinchilla.  Read more in the Leatherback Newsletter.

RANDALL ARAUZ
Goldman Environmental Prize, 2010
Recipient.  Central And South America

Speech pronounced during the Award Ceremony, at the San Francisco Opera House, April 19, 2010.

Randall Arauz receiving his award at the 2010 Goldman Prize ceremony / Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

“When I started Pretoma over 14 years ago, I had no idea WE were going to go so far!  And I say “we”, because over the years a team of dedicated conservationists has performed the most diverse of tasks to fulfill our mission, which is to protect, and restore, endangered marine wildlife.

Sadly, shark finning is far from over.  Global shark population declines are estimated at 90%, mostly due to shark finning.  Governments are drafting “Shark Action Plans” in an effort to reverse the negative trend on shark populations.  But NOTHING has been done YET, to actually curtail shark mortality.

More than 100 foreign longline shark finning vessels still operate illegally in private docks of Costa Rica.  Recently, investigative journalists have exposed drug trafficking and indentured servitude alongside shark finning at these private docks, whose operators take advantage of lax customs enforcement.

So what’s next?

As with many pressing environmental problems, we have the scientific knowledge to solve them.  We must act now!

To restore shark populations, it’s going to take the protection of critical shark habitats through the creation of Marine Protected Areas, and it’s going to take strong fisheries regulations.

At PRETOMA we support small scale sustainable fishermen.  We won’t stand for huge industrial foreign fleets wiping out the world’s shark populations!

This is where everyone can help us make a difference.  I urge you to call on your representatives to make educated decisions, and support all measures possible to protect sharks.  Tell your friends about the problem, especially if you know politically influential people.  Sharks need all the help they can get, from all sectors of society.

I would like to thank the Goldman Foundation for this award.  It is the fruit of many years of hard work by many people.  I hope this award serves as an inspiration to other small NGOs working with few resources.  It is sometimes overwhelming to battle major economic interests on shoestring budgets, and disappointment may come easily, but we must hang in there!

I would like to thank my parents and siblings, my lovely wife Isabel and two kids, Daniel and Grisel, as well as Pretoma’s supporters and partners – Todd Steiner, Ricardo Soto, Georgina Domberger, Mario Boza, and 1999 Goldman Prize winner Jorge Varela.

Muchas gracias a todos.  Now, its time to get back to saving sharks!  I hope you decide to join us!”

—-Watch the Goldman Foundation’s Video detailing Randall Arauz and Pretoma’s work

Randall Arauz, President and founder of Pretoma (Programa Restauracion de Tortugas Marinas) was announced as a 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize winner today in San Francisco, California.  The award recognizes his tireless work to draw international attention to the inhumane and environmentally catastrophic shark finning industry, and his unrelenting campaign to halt the practice in Costa Rica.

“Shark finning is not only cruel; it is irresponsible and unsustainable fishing at its highest degree” said Arauz during the filming of the award video detailing his work. “In spite of this, it has been close to impossible to attain any international binding management and conservation measures to curtail this practice.”

Announced every April to coincide with Earth Day, the Goldman Environmental Prize honors grassroots environmental heroes from the six inhabited continental regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk.

Watch Randall Arauz’s Goldman Award video detailing his work in Costa Rica.

Article only available in Spanish

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News
 
Millions of marine turtles have been killed over the past two decades through entrapment in fishing gear, according to a global survey (click here to read full study).
 
Described as the first global synthesis of existing data, the study found especially high rates of “bycatch” in the Mediterranean and eastern Pacific. Six of the seven sea turtle types are on the Red List of Threatened Species.

Writing in the journal Conservation Letters, researchers advocate much greater use of gear safe for turtles. These include circular hooks rather than the conventional J-shaped hooks on long fishing lines, and hatches that allow the reptiles to escape from trawls.

“We conservatively estimate that the true total is probably... in the millions of turtles taken as bycatch in the past two decades” Dr Bryan Wallace

Turtles must come to the surface to breathe. When they are caught in a net or on a fishing hook, they cannot surface, and drown. Lead researcher Bryan Wallace said the state of the world’s turtles was an indicator of the wider health of the oceans. “Sea turtles are sentinel species of how oceans are functioning,” he said. “The impacts that human activities have on them give us an idea as to how those same activities are affecting the oceans on which billions of people around the world depend for their own well-being.”

Dr Wallace works in the global marine division of Conservation International and at Duke University in the US.

The raw material from the study came from records of bycatch – incidental catches in fishing gear – from different regions of the world. Over the period 1990-2008, records showed that more than 85,000 turtles were snared. However, those records covered a tiny proportion of the world’s total fishing fleets. “Because the reports we reviewed typically covered less than 1% of all fleets, with little or no information from small-scale fisheries around the world, we conservatively estimate that the true total is probably not in tens of thousands, but in the millions of turtles taken as bycatch in the past two decades,” said Dr Wallace.

Three types of fishing gear are identified in the survey – long-lines, gillnets and trawls.

Modern long-line boats trail strings of hooks that can be 40km long, usually in search of high-value species such as tuna and marlin. Gillnets are usually stationary, and use mesh of a set size in an attempt to target certain species of fish.

The researchers suggest that several areas of the world account for particularly high levels of bycatch – the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean for all types of gear, together with trawling operations off the west coast of Africa.

Modifying fishing gear can have a dramatic impact on the size of bycatch. Shrimp trawls fitted with turtle excluder devices (TEDs) catch markedly fewer of the reptiles. A grid prevents anything large from entering the back portion of the net, and a hole above the grid allows accidentally snared animals such as turtles to escape. A number of countries now require that shrimp boats must use nets fitted with TEDs.

The circular long-line hooks also reduce bycatch of birds such as albatrosses. However, some fleets have resisted adopting selective gear because fishermen believe it will reduce their catch. In many parts of the developing world, the gear is not available.
 
Marine turtles face other significant threats. Debris in the oceans, such as plastic bags, can also cause drowning, while development in coastal regions can affect nesting and reproduction. Some turtles are still targeted for meat, and their shells used for tourist souvenirs.

Numbers of adult leatherbacks – the largest species, growing to more than 2m long and capable of journeys that span entire oceans – are thought to have declined by more than 75% between 1982 and 1996.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Photo: Scalloped Hammerhead Shark

Hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini) are very close to being listed under Appendix II of CITES during the Conference of the Parties (CoP 15), held in Doha, Qatar.  Even though the proposal submitted by the United States and Palau Islands to regulate the international commerce of hammerhead shark products enjoyed the support of the majority of the Parties (75 in favor, 45 against, 14 abstentions), it was not enough to reach the mandatory 2/3 majority.

Many Latin American countries supported the proposal, such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Honduras, as well as other countries from the rest of the world, such as the European Union, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Australia, among others.  Unfortunately, an opposing minority, led by China and Japan, the former being the main global shark fin consuming nation and the later the greatest opponent to the protection of any species under this convention, successfully blocked the proposal.  Among the opposing parties in Latin America outstand Guatemala and Venezuela, while Mexico abstained.  Other opposing countries include Indonesia, Senegal, and Singapur.

Fortunately, there may still be hope for the hammerhead shark.  The possibility exists that the vote may be opened again during the Plenary Session of the Convention during the morning of Thursday, March 25.  Since it was such a close vote, a change of position of only a few countries could make the difference.  Thus, we call on the countries that voted against the proposal, like Guatemala, or Mexico that abstained, to reconsider their position and vote “YES”, so that hammerhead sharks may receive the international protection they deserve.

On January 18 multiple conservation NGOs got together and placed a paid advertisement in La Nación, Costa Rica’s largest newspaper that detailed the imminent problems the country faces when it comes to protecting its marine resources and how the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute’s (Incopesca) board of managers caters to private interests because it is composed of members of the fishing sector.  Six weeks later the fishing sector responded with its own paid advertisement.  Now Pretoma’s president Randall Arauz has responded with a personal letter to the editor, published on March 22.

An Urgent Reform

We, national environmental NGOs, declare that the root of many of the problems we find in marine conservation, like the slaughter of turtles by the shrimp trawl fleet, the illegal use of private docks by the international fishing fleet, illegal fishing around Cocos Island, is attributed to the conflict of interest that exists in the heart of Incopesca’s board of managers, an entity that’s composed of businessmen from the industrial fishing sector.

In response to our paid advertisement on January 18^th, the “fishing sector” published their own paid advertisement on February 25^th, claiming that we lie and are really enemies of Costa Rica.

It’s curious that now this sector does not except the data that Pretoma has collected on the environmental impact of the national shrimp fleet and how it calls these studies “manipulated”.  From 1995 to 2005, Pretoma undertook three studies on-board national trawls, in projects in cooperation with Incopesca, the Puntarenas’ Fishermen’s Union (CPP), and the Independent Shrimp Fishermen’s Union (Unipesca), financed at the time by national (Conicit and Micit) and international (USAid and NFWF) entities.

The “fishing sector” continues to affirm that the protection the shrimp trawl fleet provides to sea turtles constitutes a model for Latin America; however, the USA has embargoed the exportation of shrimp from Costa Rica four times since 1999.

It also affirms how it, along with environmental groups and the FAO, support the correct way to manage the use of shark resources in Costa Rica.  What they fail to say is how conservation entities support the system that requires sharks to be landed with their “fins naturally attached”, a system that Incopesca firmly opposed and it was necessary for the State Attorney to intervene on three separate occasions in order for its implementation.

If it was for Incopesca, Costa Rica would still be running around “tying” shark fins onto bodies and looking ridiculous in the process.

Speaking about the creation of Responsibly Fished Marine Areas and the intention to create one of these in the Golfo Dulce where the shrimping sector agrees not to trawl, what the fishing sector does not say is how it bought the political will through a payment of one million dollars to the owners of the 57 shrimp fishing licenses – despite there being only four boats that operate in the Golfo Dulce – as compensation to no longer fish there.  But as these are private funds, Incopesca’s board of managers denies any ties in this negotiation.

In 2008 only one foreign tuna boat was captured fishing illegally at Cocos Island, but a Minae, Coast Guard, and Marviva report notes that 905 national boats were sited illegally fishing during this same period, along with the confiscation of 217 fishing gear set-ups.

The good thing about the paid advertisement is that it strengthens our position because it clearly exposes that the “fishing sector” and Incopesca’s board of managers are one and the same.  Only by eliminating this conflict of interest will we arrive at real marine conservation.

Click here to read – Crontollership Court criticizes Minaet for poor of The Leatherback National Park (Spanish version only)

Article publish on Friday 5, 2010 by La Nación, a major newpaper in Costa Rica.