“Out of sight, out of mind”, this seems to be the motto of European diplomacy to perpetuate an industrial model which ravages marine ecosystems and threatens the food sovereignty of the coastal states of the Indian Ocean. At the heart of the issues: tropical tuna.
To support this key sector of European industrial fishing, the European Union (EU) is deploying, a few days before an international summit, the full range of its diplomacy, including shameless stratagems and bad faith, to perpetuate a model of neocolonial predation of Indian Ocean resources.
While the EU has just adopted a directive on the duty of vigilance, the environmental and human costs associated with this market cannot be ignored: destructive fishing practices, tax evasion, human rights violations, political pressures… The ecological situation is critical in the Indian Ocean, a major hub of this trade: two of the three targeted species of tropical tuna are overfished, and the third has been fished beyond scientific advice for years.
These steel monsters use DCPs
Political discussions to remedy this situation are also in an unfortunate position, both the interests of the coastal states of the region (Kenya, Madagascar, etc.), on the one hand, and the “distant” fishing powers (EU, China, Japan, etc.). ), on the other hand, are divergent; the latter often parasitizing the interests of the former.
The Seychelles, for example, at the heart of the tuna fishing zone, supports foreign vessels, particularly European ones, which are domiciled there and supplies the tuna cannery of the multinational Thai Union (which notably produces the Petit Navire, John West and Mareblu, omnipresent in Western supermarkets), but denies the demands of local fishermen, sacrificed in the face of foreign multinationals who have made the Indian Ocean their new El Dorado.
French and Spanish vessels are clearly identified as the major culprits of this imbalance: undisputed world leaders with thirty-nine of the fifty largest tuna vessels, they have been competing in imagination for years to increase their catches despite the running out of resources, while enjoying the unconditional support of the European Commission and their respective governments and administrations. Measuring up to 116 meters long, these steel monsters use fish aggregating devices (FADs) by the thousands to maximize their catches.
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