The Clinton administration, led by Vice president Al Gore, has the support of five major environmental organisations including Greenpeace and WWF US to make changes to the U.S. Marine Mammal protection Act (MMPA). These changes would accept an annual kill of 5,000 dolphins out of the 10 million dolphins in the eight million square mile Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) yellowfin tuna fishery as biologically insignificant. On the other side, a group of 24 animal welfare and animal rights groups are calling the proposed legislation the «dolphin death bill» and insisting that «the only acceptable quota for dolphin kills is zero». The bill’s supporters argue that the narrow scope of the present "dolphin safe" criteria encourages environmentally unsound fishing practices. They argue that the U.S. influence on other fleets in this international fishery is diminishing due to the U.S. failed approach of using GATT/WTO illegal unilateral trade barriers to solve the problem. The bill, which is expected to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives this autumn purposes changes to the definition of «dolphin safe» on the labels of canned tuna.
- "dolphin safe" -
The existing «dolphin safe» label does not mean no dolphins - or other marine
mammals - were
killed, just that fishermen didn’t encircle any with purse seines or use driftnets. In
1994, the U.S.
declared its market closed to anything except «dolphin safe» tuna and onerously
regulated its own
fleet out of the ETP yellowfin tuna purse seine fishery, reducing the ETP fleet
from 35 to 4 boats in
a three year period.
Back in the seventies and eighties more than a 100,000 dolphins were killed each year as bycatch in the ETP and dolphin stocks were threatened. To correct this situation, the fishery’s management body, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), set up a fisherman’s education program with the support of the countries taking part in the fishery. Its task was to perfect release techniques, educate the fishermen, set per-boat dolphin bycatch quotas and enforce them through an observer scheme. As a result of the IATTC’s efforts, dolphin mortalities dropped to less than 4,000 per year although fishing activity by the international fleet on large tunas associating with dolphins remained steady.
Data from other tuna fisheries that receive the «dolphin safe» label by default indicate marine mammalinteractions and kills an issue. For instance, in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and the Bay of Biscay, preliminary data indicates that the number of dolphins killed per ton of tuna may be 7 to 17 times higher than in the ETP.
- in excess -
The ETP yellowfin purse seine fishery is listed as a «Category I» fishery under
the MMPA which
means that interactions between fishermen and marine mammals are substantial.
Other U.S.
fisheries are allowed takes of marine mammals under the MMPA, many in excess
of the takes in
the ETP which, when measured on a per stock basis, are under 0,2% of every
stock. Latin
countries embargoed under the U.S. «dolphin safe» program complain that
Congress enacted
amendments in 1994 to the MMPA to allow U.S. fishermen to take species listed
as endangered
in domestic fisheries while promoting a «zero tolerance» standard on their high
seas tuna fishing
neighbours to the south. «If the general provisions of the MMPA on marine
mammal bycatch were
applied to the tuna fishery in the eastern Pacific, the fishermen would be
permitted an allowance of
approximately 55,000 dolphins annually as biologically insignificant», commented
Teresa Platt of
the San Diego, California-based Fishermen’s Coalition to the International
Harpoon. «We must
change an inconsistent U.S. policy that penalizes fishermen who committed to
and reached a
higher standard of dolphin protection».
To bring the bycatch in the eastern tropical Pacific down to an ecologically insignificant level was still not good enough for the animal rights groups. And their wish for a total ban on dolphin sets suited U.S. tuna canneries who experienced hard competition from tuna imported from countries with cheaper labour. The dolphin rights group Earth Island Institute and the H.J. Heinz Corporation (owner of Starkist Tuna) got together and invented the dolphin safe label, a concept that soon conquered Capitol hill which added the clout of a trade ban to it.
The new criteria for the «dolphin safe» label proposed in the International Dolphin Conservation Program Act will lift embargoes from the ETP countries participating in the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission’s program. The bill will also uses the on-board observers to certify that only fish from sets of the nets with no dolphin mortality will be given the «dolphin safe» label. But when it comes to «dolphin safe» tuna from other areas you will still be wondering.
- greenwash -
Met with the prohibition on encircling dolphins, the U.S. boats were forced to try
out new fishing
techniques for the eastern Pacific tuna fishery. They set their purse seines on tuna
not associating
with dolphins. The results were depressing.
The non-dolphin associating tuna is much smaller and weights only one fifth of
that associated with
dolphins. And instead of dolphin bycatch, fishermen experienced greater
bycatches of sharks,
other fish and turtles, all ending up as discards. Using this «dolphin safe» but
ecosystem deadly
approach, 26,000 baby tunas, 28 sharks, 24 wahoos, 103 mahi, 6 rainbow runners
and 0.2 sea
turtles were sacrificed for every dolphin saved, according to the scientists of the
Inter-American
Tropical Tuna Commission. «What it boils don to is, what are we willing to
sacrifice for a
dolphin?» commented the Commission’s scientist Dr. Martin Hall.
Al Gore thinks the price is too high. In a recent letter supporting the International
Dolphin
Conservation Program Act, he stamps alternative fishing methods to dolphin sets
as
«environmentally unsound» saying the bycatches involved are «unacceptable» and
posing «long
term threats to the marine ecosystem».
As a result of the prohibition on dolphin sets in the eastern tropical Pacific, the U.S. Pacific tuna fleet has declined by fully one third. The bulk of the fleet now operates in the western Pacific on skipjack tuna. «Moving vessels from a closely regulated fishery to an unregulated fishery isn’t a solution. «It’s greenwash», stated Traci Romine of Greenpeace.
- WTO forced change in U.S. fisheries policy -
The broad coalition gathered behind the proposed changes to the U.S.
dolphin/tuna laws has not
come about as a result of a new insight into what is beneficial to the total marine
environment. The
new World trade Organisation (WTO), which replaced the General Agreement on
Tariffs and
Trade (GATT), gave sufficient bite to force changes to U.S. law by ruling the
U.S. uni-lateral ban
on tuna imports GATT illegal. The U.S. faces the possibility of sanctions on their
export products
if U.S. laws are not brought into compliance with international trade agreements.
The U.S.
therefore badly needed a deal with its neighbours on internationally accepted
standards for
«dolphin safe» - but more importantly, it needed to reach concensus with major
green groups and
U.S. tuna fishermen in order to make changes to federal legislation. The deal
came to reality when
the U.S. met with the eleven other ETP tuna fishing countries in Panama late last
year. The
agreement they reached at the meeting brings the existing voluntary cooperation
in the IATTC a
step forward and turns it into a binding international agreement. Additionally,
more stringent
dolphin protections were added which will reduce the allowable take by the
fishermen in steps
from a cap of 0.2% to 0.1% of the dolphin stocks.
Among the 25 organisations behind the advertisement are the Animal Welfare Institute, the Humane Society of the United States, the Earth Island Institute, the Sierra Club, The friends of the Earth, as well as the ecoterrorist organisation Sea Shepherds. Noted by its absence in the International Fund for the Animal Welfare.
Rumour would have it that Newt had been nervous about coming out in support of it. He was receiving worried telephone calls from celebreties in Hollywood. Following the urging of the Humane Society of the United States and animal rights groups, which oppose the bill on the dolphin rights stand, Pierce Brosman, the new 007, called the Speaker. Gingrich took Brosnan’s call and listened to 007's concerns about the «Dolphin Death Bill» as the legisilation has been nicknamed by the animal rights oposition.
«Newt is nervous?» asked Teresa Platt of The Fishermen’s Coalition when adressing Alliance for America Fly-In for Freedom participants in D.C. in mid-June. «Al Gore and Greenpeace are on board and Newt is nervous? Would someone please explain politics to me?»
- a very small fringe group -
Lucily the rumors of Newt’s nervousness were short-lived when the Speaker
responded to a
question by Platt at a forum held at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in
Washington, D.C. A
standing-room-only crowd of Alliance of America Fly-In participants heard the
Speaker pledge
his support for the Act when he stated, «My understanding is that we have a bill
that’s broadly
supported .... , a bill that .... actually is a perfect example of what we’re trying to
do, because
rational environmentalists have endorsed the bill, and we have effectively isolated
the extremists
into, I think, a very small fringe group, because it’s a bill that’s practical, that
makes sense, and in
fact, in the long run, is going to be to the better for .... not just the dolphins but
.... the fish and also
the sea turtles. And I think it’s designed in a way that’s actually a very
common-sense, very
practical, very scientifcally sound bill. And I think ... it’s on track to be passed in
the House and
sent to the Senate. I think it’s a good bill and I think it will pass».