Environmental activist group Greenpeace is praising Australia canned tuna producers for their commitment to ending the use of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs).
According to the group, “the majority of tuna brands on Australian supermarket shelves” are now favoring pole-and-line methods for catching tuna that is sold in their cans.
“For those brands to have negotiated directly with the fishing companies to ensure they only source from responsible fishing methods is a dramatic turnaround,” said Nathaniel Pelle, Greenpeace Australia’s Pacific oceans campaigner.
Greenpeace has long criticized the use of FADs as being too dangerous to marine life such as sharks, sea turtles and juvenile fish, and has issued rankings of tuna companies both in Australia and other countries based in part on whether the companies employ fishermen who use FADs. Pelle said the move by leading tuna companies away from such methods is a welcome sight.
“Tuna’s the most popular seafood product in Australia and, with several tuna stocks being in a precarious state, the environmental significance of this dramatic change is hard to overestimate,” said Pelle. “When we first introduced the (Australia) guide in 2010 most brands couldn’t even tell us what species of tuna was in their cans, let alone where it came from or how it was caught.”
