May 3, 2023

Disclaimer: I am not allowed to mention the name of a certain organization I founded and led for 45 years, thus I am forced to refer to them by another name. So, I am calling them the Sea Pretenders. If I refer to them by their real name, I will be cited for trademark violations.

The Australian government has announced some great news for conservationists. The marine protected area around the remote Macquarie Island may be expanded. There is a public consultation period that will close on 22 May 2023. So everyone who likes and cares about penguins and whales, dolphins and seals should comment.

While this is great news for conservation, it is not great news for the fishing industry, and mate, they are royally pissed. 

According to Austral Fisheries CEO David Carter “The redesign of the park represents a serious overreach by the minister that will send shockwaves through the Australian communities and regions who rely on marine estates for employment, tourism and recreation.”

Ohh, that is distressing – shock waves!!!!  Certainly not on and around Macquarie Island, where I bet some 4 million penguins will be super excited by the prospect of more fish and fewer fishing boats.

Seafood Industry spokesperson Veronica Papacosta said that Australia’s primary producers should be extremely concerned by the precedent that the announcement sets and the ability for a sitting minister’s agenda to be “hijacked” by conservation activists.

Finally, when a government minister is doing something positive, the fishing industry accuses the Minister of being hijacked. Maybe the truth is she just likes penguins better than corporate fish killers.

Papacosta continued. “The Australian seafood industry welcomes any conversation on sustainability because we are deeply committed to a sustainable ocean. As fishers, our priority is the ocean. It’s our future and the future of generations to come. However, this is an attack on one of the world’s most sustainable, well-managed fisheries. The fact this is happening to two of the world’s most progressive, and forward-thinking fishing companies is a disaster.”

Of course it’s not an attack on fisheries and there is nothing sustainable about toothfish poaching. Austral Fisheries and the Australian fishing industry may believe their own propaganda about progressive blah, blah, sustainable, blah, blah, fisheries, but the global conservation community is not taking the bait, well except for Jeff Hansen and those who work for him. That lot has swallowed the bait, hook line and sinkers. I mean you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. 

Australia’s federal government is zoning off an area “roughly the size of Germany” surrounding Macquarie Island Marine Park, according to ABC Net, to protect its resident 4 million penguins (including the rare royalty penguin); a wide range of seabirds, including the albatross, which uses the shores as breeding grounds; about 100,000 seals; whales; and a variety of fish.

Fishing will be banned in the majority of this protected area, which has tripled in size.

That would be absolutely awesome.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation applauds the Australian government and the Honorable Tanya Plibersek MP and the Minister for the Environment and Water. Fishing needs to be banned. Penguins, seals and whales need the fish more than fancy restaurants need expensive Chilean Sea Bass.

The fish that Austral Fisheries wants to keep exploiting is the Toothfish. The marketing name is Chilean Sea Bass even though it is not from Chile and not a bass.

One NGO that has been absolutely silent on the Macquarie issue is the Australian group that I am not allowed to name, thus forcing me to refer to them as the Sea Pretenders organization.

This group has made a deal with the devil by collaborating with Austral Fisheries, a company that is 50% owned by the Japanese Maruha Daichiro fishing company.

In fact, the Australian Sea Pretenders led by Jeff Hansen has become so closely aligned with Austral fisheries that he and David Carter are now cycling buddies.

In an interview David Carter states that the partnership with the Sea Pretenders has benefited Jeff Hansen’s group. Carter admits to helping Hansen to get charitable status. Austral Fisheries also sold a vessel to the Sea Pretenders for a discount and donated tons of diesel fuel. In return Hansen has openly supported Austral Fisheries “sustainable” toothfish industry even though there is nothing sustainable about Antarctic toothfish.

And I will be quite surprised to hear Hansen say anything about the expansion of the Macquarie Island Marine Reserve.

A feature in the June 16, 2020 edition of CEO Magazine on Austral Fisheries CEO David Carter stated that “as part of their advocacy for sustainable oceans, Austral Fisheries has partnered with Sea Shepherd to remove the seas of illegal fishing.”

In December 2022, I resigned from the Australian Board of Directors of the organization I am not allowed to mention because of the collaboration between Austral Fisheries and the group I can’t mention, the group that rhymes with Sea Leopard led by David Carter’s cycling buddy Jeff Hansen.

The organization that I founded always intervened against illegal fishing, but we have never supported legal fisheries and fish was never served on our vessels. Our position was that there is no such thing as sustainable industrialized fishing. The word sustainable is simply a marketing phrase for business as usual. Toothfish are endangered, it’s as simple as that and there can be no justification for a carbon intensive endangered fishing industry that catches a fish in remote waters and transports it by air to high end restaurants in Paris, London and New York.

Austral Fisheries needs to get their bogus sustainable asses out of the waters surrounding Macquarie Island and let it be what it needs to be, protected from the greed and destruction of industrialized fishing.