Overfishing and dying oceans are in the media spotlight as never before. Will it change anything? 

With:

Will Anderson, double Bafta winner and producer/director of Keo Films and Channel 4’s Fish Fight

Quentin Clark, head of sustainability and ethical sourcing at Waitrose

Ian Campbell, OCEAN2012 UK co-ordinator working on the 2012 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy

Mike Kaiser, professor of ocean sciences at the University of Bangor

Next week we will be joined by the Guardian’s Luke Harding and the BBC’s Angus Roxburgh to discuss their experiences reporting from Russia and whether the country is a Mafia State.

There are two third party events next week; on Monday you are invited to join the Unreported World team as they launch their autumn series. On Wednesday Communications Inc will be bringing together a panel to discuss whether increased media attention on the state of our oceans can help save them.
 

Follow us on Twitter and catch up on any events you missed on the Forum blog or download our podcasts on iTunes.

Short film screening of Deadly Catch, followed by a discussion with an expert panel and audience Q&A. 

One of the single biggest factors in ocean degradation is overfishing. Fish stocks have declined dramatically, with as much as 90% of big fish gone in some parts of the global ocean. More than one billion people rely on fish as their main source of protein globally. As catches decline and quotas and rules are tightened in response, there has been a huge increase in illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) or “pirate” fishing.  

Pirate fishing is estimated to make up almost one-fifth of the global catch, and respects neither national boundaries nor international attempts to manage ocean resources. The recent seizure of £4 million worth of seafood in the Spanish port of Las Palmas, allegedly caught illegally in west African waters and headed for dinner tables in Europe, serves to highlight this growing criminal trade, which exploits lax regulations at ports and on the high seas, and often involves serious human rights infringements.

The evening will reveal the extent of the problem of pirate fishing, which takes place in both the developed and developing world. Discussion will focus on the many issues surrounding pirate fishing, including its dramatic impact on poorer coastal states, where hundreds of thousands of people rely on fish for food and livelihood. How EU subsidies are still benefitting illegal fishing operations, and how port states are being seen as the frontline in combating this activity. We will be exploring possible solutions and the importance of the role of the media in exposing the impacts of pirate fishing as a crime, comparable to international drugs smuggling.

This is the second in a series of events in 2011 at the Frontline Club focussing on the global ocean.The first event, “Death of the Oceans” took place May 11th and discussed all the stressors threatening ocean health and abundance. The video can be viewed here.

With:

Chaired by Tom Clarke, science correspondent Channel 4 News. Tom Clarke’s beat varies from the pharmaceutical industry to climate change. Since joining Channel 4 News in 2003, he has covered energy and the environment in from the Arctic Circle, seen some of the world’s most endangered whales in Russia’s far East, and followed the growing pains of the UK’s landmark Climate Change Bill. Tom started out as a scientist studying insects in the America’s deep south. After leaving the lab, Tom trained in journalism in New York. He worked as a science producer for American National Public Radio before returning to the UK to work for the science magazine Nature.

Domitilla Senni, policy adviser to the Pew Environment Group since 2006, began her work with environmental NGOs in 1987 when she joined Greenpeace as the Italian coordinator for the international Antarctic campaign. She then moved to become political coordinator of Greenpeace International Mediterranean campaign. She coordinated the International NGOs Steering Committee on Food during the 1996 FAO Food Security Summit. She then served as Executive Director of Greenpeace Italy from 1997 to 2004.   She also worked as a consultant to WWF, the Third Millennium Foundation and Oceana. She has been a member of the Italian Ocean Commission and the National Council for the Environment established by the Ministry of Environment, and policy advisor on multilateral environmental agreements to the former Minister of Environment, Edo Ronchi.

Andy Hickman is the Oceans Campaigner at the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and coordinates EJF’s community surveillance project in Sierra Leone, working with local fishing communities to document illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. He is also the Project Coordinator for an EU funded programme to support the development of co-managed Marine Protected Areas in West Africa. Prior to joining EJF, Andy worked as a secondary school teacher on the Teach First program. He studied social sciences at King’s College London, has a postgraduate law degree, and has worked as a freelance journalist focusing on environmental issues including ship breaking, water mismanagement and fisheries.

John Pearce is a Senior Consultant at MRAG Ltd.  He has over nearly twenty years experience in fisheries management, the problems of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing and related options for monitoring, control and surveillance.  His experience covers both practical and theoretical elements of the IUU problem. On the practical side this has included the planning, training and implementation of various MCS activities such as port state control programmes, fisheries patrolling, observer programmes and vessel monitoring systems.  On the theoretical side, his work has included the development and implementation of risk assessment systems to assess the chance that products of illegal fishing may enter the supply chain, the EU funded COBECOS programme (Costs and Benefits of Control and Operating Strategies) and the first study to undertake a world-wide analysis of illegal and unreported fishing. His experience covers a wide variety of fisheries both inside and outside EU waters including tuna fisheries in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, fisheries in the Antarctic and high seas deep water fisheries.  In this capacity he has worked as part of the UK delegation or as an invited expert to IOTC, ICCAT, WCFPC, bilateral UK Fisheries Commissions and the Marine Technical Advisory Group of the International Commission for Land Use and Ecosystems at which he chaired the Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported Fishing subgroup.

EJF is a UK charity working internationally to protect the natural environment and human rights. We work with grassroots environment and human rights campaigners in some of the world’s poorest countries, such as Sierra Leone, where we build local capacity to protect the environment upon which communities depend.

EJF also campaigns internationally, producing award winning films and high quality advocacy reports to increase awareness of links between environmental degradation in the developing world, to decisions taken by consumers, companies and policy makers here internationally, hence our campaigns on illegal fishing in West Africa, on cotton and shrimp production, and on pesticides.

Highly commended as Campaigner of the Year in 2010 by Ethical Corporation Magazine, EJF is a small, dynamic and extremely cost-effective charity that makes a big impact. In our first decade our campaigns have attracted support from many high profile individuals including artists (Rachel Whiteread, Damien Hirst), fashion designers (Christian Lacroix, Luella Bartley), and actors (Johnny Depp, Ashley Jensen). EJF’s patron’s include Rachel Whiteread Emilia Fox, Iain Banks and Benedict Allen.

Picture credit: Environmental Justice Foundation.

By Mariah Hamalainen 

 “We are facing a complete collapse of ocean ecosystems, globally”, said Professor Charles Sheppard at the Frontline Club on Wednesday evening during a panel discussion on the state of the world’s oceans.

The oceans have been exhibiting the effects of global warming since the late 1970s and a quarter of all coral reefs have died but there has been little awareness of the crisis among the media and the public in general until recently.

High-profile campaigns including Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall’s Fish Fight and Project Ocean at Selfridges are encouraging people to take a look at the state of the oceans and what can be done to reverse the evident collapse of this delicate ecosystem.

The panel discussion – chaired by Guardian’s environmental correspondent Fiona Harvey – took the audience through many aspects of the destruction of this vital resource: Overfishing; pollution; climate change and global warming; overpopulation; greedy multinational fishing companies; destruction of coral reefs.

“Half of the humanity lives within a hundred kilometres from the ocean” professor Sheppard said. Although millions of people derive their livelihood directly from the oceans, little is done to stop the destruction.

“We in Britain don’t [yet] directly see the problem. We have Tesco’s between us and the environment.”

Greenpeace’s Richard Page shed light on some of the positive developments on the ocean front, as well as what needs to be done to safeguard the future of the global waters;

“The single most effective tool against ocean destruction is the creation of marine reserves” he said.

He also called for the media to play their part in mobilising the public;

One of Greenpeace’s victories was the moratorium on whaling. This could not have been done without the media; when people saw the pole being stuck on a whale it had an immediate impact. The media has an incredibly important part to play if we are to save our oceans.

The panel strongly agreed that consumer power cannot be underestimated:

“Change in demand from consumers would have a huge impact” Dr Alex Rogers said. 

Lobbying for policy changes, demanding that the fish we eat is from sustainable fisheries, and reducing the overall impact we have on the planet are all steps towards the right direction.

As Professor Sheppard said: “If we manage the oceans well, it is food for free”.

The world’s oceans are in a state of crisis and decline, with the continuing affliction of climate change, overfishing and other pressures.

The Oceans have a vital role as the earth’s circulatory system. But if the current state of decline continues it will reach a point where it can no longer function effectively and our planet will be unable to sustain the ecosystems that support humankind.

The Fish Fight campaign fronted Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Sir David Attenborough’s Horizon on The Death of the Oceans? have put the spotlight on the state of our oceans.  To ahead of the release of new scientific findings from IPSO the Frontline Club will kick off the first of a series of events with a panel of experts discussing what is happening to our oceans and what can be done about it.

In association with Communications Inc

Chaired by Fiona Harvey, the Guardian environment correspondent.

With:

Don Hinrichsen, award winning writer and editor and author of Our Common Seas and Coastal Waters of the World, Trends, Threats and Strategies. He is currently the senior development manager for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London and writes frequently on environment, population and resource issues for a variety of publications in the US and Europe.

Dr Alex David Rogers, professor in Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford and senior research fellow at the Institute of Zoology, London. His research focuses on the diversity, ecology, conservation and evolution of marine species. A founder member of the IPSO project (International Programme on the State of the Ocean), bringing together world leaders in ocean science with the aim of winning policy change to save the health of the global ocean;

Richard Page, one of Greenpeace International’s leading oceans campaigners with primary responsibility for coordinating the organisation’s campaign for a global network of marine reserves covering 40% of the oceans.  With Greenpeace for 18 years he has been heavily involved with the marine reserves campaign since its inception in 2003, both helping develop policy and implementing political and active campaign work;

Professor Charles R C Sheppard, professor at the department of Biological Sciences University of Warwick and tropical/marine environmental adviser for Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Commissioner for UK Overseas Territories. He has been a participant on Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change since 2002, fellow of Linnean Society of London, Conservation Fellow of Zoological Society of London and advisor to several tropical country governments on marine environmental affairs.

As awareness of the crisis afflicting the world’s oceans grows, in part as a result of campaigns such as The Fish Fight fronted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, tomorrow evening we will be bringing together a panel of experts to discuss the problems and how we can begin to resolve them.

Next week we will be joined by award winning journalist Bill Neely of ITV News as he reflects on the past two decades covering stories from the troubles in Northern Ireland to the uprising in Libya. An evening of inspiration and insight into the craft of journalism.

Screenings in the month ahead include Amnesty! When They Are Free, which is an unprecedented look into the world of human rights organisation Amnesty International and its ability to affect change since its inception fifty years ago. Donor Unknown documents the funny, moving and provocative journey of JoEllen Marsh as she sets out to find her father and discovers 12 half-siblings and explores the strange power of genetic connections.

And if you are a member of the Club, don’t forget our member’s social evening on Thursday, which is sponsored by Chivas Regal and is a great opportunity for old and new members to meet and mingle.

Follow us on Twitter and catch up on any events you missed on the Forum blog or download our podcasts on iTunes.