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Late Breaking News |
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| Date: August 13, 1998 2:58 pm Contact: Greenpeace Andrew Davies 202-319-2432 |
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Latest News Releases
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Pilfering "Pirate" Picks A Pot Of Plundered Pollock | ||
| LEXINGTON, KY - August 13 - As the political debate rages on over the
future of factory fishing trawlers off America's shores, Greenpeace activists today
dropped a huge banner over the corporate offices of Long John Silver's. The restaurant
chain is one of the nation's top buyers of factory trawler-caught Pollock. The 30 foot by
40 foot banner reads, "Long John Silver's Stop Plundering the Seas -- Ban Factory
Trawlers." Today's protest came after numerous attempts by Greenpeace to impress upon the company the havoc factory trawlers continue to wreak on the environment and small scale fishing communities. The decline of the Bering Sea Pollock stocks - the primary fish used by the company - is a chief indicator of the environmental and economic dangers that lie ahead. "Long John Silver's not only buys fish from factory trawlers, but has actively fought against legislation to ban these floating factories which are destroying our precious ocean resources," said Greenpeace Fisheries Specialist Niaz Dorry. "Today, we are here to say factory trawlers are economically unsustainable and environmentally destructive." Factory trawlers have nets as long as four football fields that can catch millions of pounds of fish in a single day. These giant vessels waste hundreds of millions of pounds of unwanted "bycatch" each year. They are destroying the marine food chain, driving the decline of other marine species, and depriving America's small-scale fishing communities of their livelihoods. A Greenpeace report, released earlier this week, highlights the similarities between the industrialization of the farmlands over the past few decades and the industrialization of the oceans currently underway. "Claims by Long John Silver's that factory trawlers are the most efficient way to fish and provide quality products for the consumer are poor excuses for plundering the oceans," said Dorry. "They are putting business sense before common sense. That thinking will leave us with a future without fish." Greenpeace campaigners have spent much of the summer on a national bus tour bringing attention to oceans issues and the impact of factory trawlers. Last month, progress on legislation to ban factory trawlers was slowed under mounting pressure from the Seattle-based factory trawler industry and Senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.). Greenpeace is the leading independent organization which uses peaceful and creative activism to protect the global environment. ### |
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