Posts tagged "2010"

BP Oil Spill: Is The Seafood Really Safe? NRDC’S Gina Solomon: Where’s the Testing?

Doctors, researchers, scientists and citizens, like Dr. Solomon, are waging a silent battle against government agencies that are failing to fulfill their own organizational directives. As Project Gulf Impact gathers more firsthand accounts of how the Gulf of Mexico is being dangerously neglected, the situation in the Gulf grows worse. With new reports of oil washing onto shore and into the bayou, the numbers of affected life are increasing, not dropping. Several of our interviews have left us asking, why is organized, decisive action not being taken?

More information can be found in Dr. Solomon’s recent blog entries, linked below:

“Gulf Shrimp Testing: Is a Dozen Samples in 5000 Square Miles Enough to Reassure You?”

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/gsolomon/gulf_shrimp_testing_still_not.html

And “Six Months, Five Shrimp, and One Nasty Mess: Health & Seafood Safety Concerns from BP Spill Still Linger in Gulf Today”

Here: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/gsolomon/six_months_five_shrimp_and_one.html

Where she writes, “…the Federal government reopened 2,927 square miles of the Gulf to fishing and shrimping, just South of the Mississippi Delta. The Feds confirmed that the area was safe for shrimping by performing a “sniff test” for oil odors on five shrimp samples. They confirmed the sniff test with three composite samples of shrimp sent for chemical testing from an approximately 1,000 square mile area. No information was provided to the public on the size or location of the shrimping grounds or why so few chemical analyses were performed. This does not seem sufficient to assess the safety of the seafood coming out of the Gulf right now.”

Transcript of introduction:

“The seafood testing so far has been so frustrating because it has been so, really unscientific. It’s not that hard to do a basic seafood testing program. You go out and you figure out how many samples you need in order to have adequate statistical power to pick up a problem if it’s really out there, and then you go out and you do it. But what’s happening right now is this sort of sporadic, willy-nilly re-openings by different agencies, by state and federal government agencies, sometimes on the basis of really almost no testing results.”

Project Gulf Impact
www.projectgulfimpact.org

Duration : 0:4:43

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Fishermen Visit Obama’s Gulf Vacation With Concerns About Seafood Safety w/ Kindra Arnesen Part Two

Part Two

“On Sunday, August 15th, fishing families from across the Gulf Cost will gather in Panama City Beach, Florida, with a message for President Obama: The Gulf of Mexico is still infused with oil and dispersants from the BP disaster, threatening marine life, livelihoods, and the health of the American people.”

“Fishermen do not want to lose our credibility or deliver contaminated seafood to market and make people sick.” – Kathy Birren

“While President Obama and state officials claim that the Gulf is ‘open for business,’ these fishermen say the spraying of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico is ongoing and they’re concerned that seafood pulled from impacted waters is unsafe for eating.”

“The tissue testing of this seafood is inadequate and testing for the toxic dispersants is non-existent.” – Tracy Kuhns, Louisiana Bayoukeeper

“I think it is crucial for the public to be made aware of the concerns of the commercial fishermen. And if a commercial fisherman who makes his living off of those products doesn’t want to deliver them to the public, the public needs to know why.” – Chris Bryant, Commercial Fisherman

Duration : 0:14:46

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Fishermen Visit Obama’s Gulf Vacation With Concerns About Seafood Safety w/ Kindra Arnesen Part One

Part One

“On Sunday, August 15th, fishing families from across the Gulf Cost will gather in Panama City Beach, Florida, with a message for President Obama: The Gulf of Mexico is still infused with oil and dispersants from the BP disaster, threatening marine life, livelihoods, and the health of the American people.”

“Fishermen do not want to lose our credibility or deliver contaminated seafood to market and make people sick.” – Kathy Birren

“While President Obama and state officials claim that the Gulf is ‘open for business,’ these fishermen say the spraying of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico is ongoing and they’re concerned that seafood pulled from impacted waters is unsafe for eating.”

“The tissue testing of this seafood is inadequate and testing for the toxic dispersants is non-existent.” – Tracy Kuhns, Louisiana Bayoukeeper

“I think it is crucial for the public to be made aware of the concerns of the commercial fishermen. And if a commercial fisherman who makes his living off of those products doesn’t want to deliver them to the public, the public needs to know why.” – Chris Bryant, Commercial Fisherman

Filmed by Gavin Garrison and Heather Rally

Duration : 0:13:44

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EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN MINDORO BY MARIO MAGAYON

http://www.wwf.org.ph/newsfacts.php?pg=det&id=181

Europe Accepts Responsibly-caught Coral Triangle Tuna

The first-ever Philippine shipment of handline-caught tuna with catch certificates recently entered the European market.

This first batch of fresh / chilled loined tuna caught in Mindoro came with catch certificates ensuring their traceability and verifying that they were from registered boats operating in legalized areas using highly selective fishing gear.

“This positive development comes just after the EU banned untraceable tunas from entering its ports at the start of this year,” says WWF Coral Triangle Programme Tuna Strategy Leader Dr. Jose Ingles. “It clearly proves that small-scale fisheries using responsible catching methods like handline tuna fishing can fare well in global markets through proper certification and compliance.”

The traceability system was developed and facilitated by the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and approved by the EU earlier this year. These traceable tuna came from Mindoro through a project partnership with WWF, the local government, and the private sector, as a response to the stringent catch certification policy imposed by the EU in light of growing consumer demand for sustainable seafood products.

With this first shipment, it is now possible to trace back the tuna loins to the fisher, the boat, and the exact location of the fish aggregating device where the fish was caught.

“European countries make up the biggest fish market in the world, and with this catch certification system in place in the Philippines, we can look forward to an effective convergence of economic opportunities and environmental sustainability,” adds Dr. Ingles.

Tuna in the Coral Triangle, which spans the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, adds considerably to the economies of many developing nations and supports the livelihoods of millions of people in this region and beyond.

The Coral Triangle contains spawning and nursery grounds and migratory routes for commercially-valuable tuna species such as bigeye, yellowfin, skipjack and albacore, producing more than 40% of the total catch for the Western Central Pacific region, and representing more than 20% of the total global catch.

Concludes Dr. Ingles, “This scheme is an effective step towards eliminating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU), which has been increasing worldwide, resulting in the declining catches of a growing number of fish stocks.”

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WWF is the world’s largest and most experienced conservation organization. Help us come up with practical environmental solutions by visiting wwf.org.ph/howhelp.php or calling 895-6294. Together, we shall face environmental adversity – to leave our children a living planet.

For more information:

Paolo Mangahas
Communications Manager, WWF Coral Triangle Programme
pmangahas@wwf.org.my

Gregg Yan
Information, Education and Communications Officer, WWF-Philippines
920-7923/26/31
gyan@wwf.org.ph

Duration : 0:4:36

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