Surfbirds News

The Sea Turtle Restoration Project and the International Game Fish Association are two of the 281 non-governmental organizations from 62 countries joining 1,007 scientists from 97 nations calling for the moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific as an interim measure until such time as permanent marine protected areas can be put into place.

“Leatherback sea turtles urgently need the help of the United Nations,” said Dr. Jim Spotila, whose 2000 article in the scientific journal Nature alerted the world to the threat of extinction of the leatherback.. “A network of sustainable use high seas marine protected areas is key to saving the turtles.”

The call for MPAs is driven by the need to address the crisis of industrial longline fishing in the Pacific, which annually catches or kills as many as 4.4 million billfish, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals each year. Recent scientific reports warn that the population of adult female nesting Pacific leatherback sea turtles have declined by 95% since 1980 and the species could go extinct in the next 5-30 years if the threat of longlines are not reduced significantly.

“Longlining is an unsustainable type of fishing that indiscriminately kills sea turtles, marine mammals and billfish so it makes good sense for those working to protect these species to work together,” explained Jason Schratwieser, Fishing and Science Director of the International Game Fish Association.

“For so many years, ocean protection groups have been working in isolation. The current crisis has united us around the solution of sustainable use high seas MPAs,” concludes Robert Ovetz, PhD, Save the Leatherback Campaign Coordinator with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project.

A recent study published in the scientific journal Ecology has found that the population of large predatory fish such as billfish, sharks and tuna have declined by as much as 87% since the 1950s.

Jason Schratwieser, Fishing and Science Director of the International Game Fishing Association, warns that this rapid decline is threatening lucrative recreational fishing and tourism whose revenues far exceed that of industrial longline fishing. “In Hawai’i, for example, the value of recreational fishing far exceeds that of longline fishing. If billfish, sharks and other large game fish continue to be killed, it will have significant economic repercussions for many coastal nations that attract lucrative recreational fishing tourism.”