“The destructive fishing that happens in the Indian Ocean can’t be ignored by brands and retailers here in the United States,” said Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar. “It is clear that Thai Union will do anything to make a dollar, including attempting to catch every last fish available and exploiting vulnerable workers at sea.”
Over the coming weeks, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza will remove destructive fishing gear including Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) from fishing operations in the Indian Ocean that supply Thai Union. FADs attract tuna, along with a host of marine life including threatened sharks and juvenile tuna, which are then all scooped up in massive fishing nets.
In the first operation of its kind, Greenpeace has already removed and disabled a FAD in Thai Union’s supply chain and will continue to remove more in an operation scheduled to last for many weeks.
Thai Union has been rocked by repeated links to human rights abuses in its supply chains as well as destructive fishing practices. [1] The use of FADs by companies like Thai Union is a serious driver of overfishing. Some tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean, such as Yellowfin, are on the brink of collapse due to overfishing.
“Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have already called on Thai Union to clean up its act,” said François Chartier, Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace France. “The company has heard that call and while it’s taken small steps in the right direction, Thai Union’s written promises are barely papering the cracks of its fractured image.”
Greenpeace’s campaign, launched in October 2015, has called on Thai Union to stop using FADs and ensure its entire global supply chain is free from human rights abuses.
“The tide is turning on companies who think they can continue plundering the oceans and turning a blind eye to exploitation in their supply chains,” Chartier said. “People want to know that the tuna they’re buying doesn’t come at the expense of the oceans and those who work on them. If Thai Union doesn’t want to clean up the dirty tuna in its supply chains, then we are going to do it for them by taking action from sea to shelf.”
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Notes to editors:
[1] Recent investigations, including by the New York Times [http://nyti.ms/1Ktzi9q] and Associated Press [http://apne.ws/1Q4OJ7R], have found labor rights and human rights abuses in Thai Union’s supply chains. Despite taking some measures in response to these findings, Thai Union’s CEO Thiraphong Chansiri has said “We all have to admit that it is difficult to ensure the Thai seafood industry’s supply chain is 100% clean”. [http://bit.ly/1qGdsuy]
Greenpeace is calling on Thai Union to put in place strict, comprehensive, and transparent procurement standards across all of its supply chains that guarantee, through third party verification, that all of the seafood it uses is free from human rights and labor abuses.
Photos from the Esperanza available here: http://photo.greenpeace.org/
Media contacts:
Perry Wheeler, Greenpeace USA Media Officer, mobile: 301-675-8766, [email protected]
Luke Massey, Press & Communications Officer, Greenpeace UK, mobile: +44 (0)7973873155, [email protected]
Myriam Fallon, Seafood Communications Coordinator, Greenpeace USA (San Francisco), mobile: 1.708.546.9001, [email protected]
