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Greenpeace lifts the lid on
John West's tuna
ON Wednesday 28 October, 2015, Liverpool;
Greenpeace activists installed an enormous, provocative, sculpture outside tuna
company John West's Liverpool HQ, to protest against the company's destructive
fishing practices and to highlight John West's owner Thai Union's links to human
rights abuses.
The towering tuna tin is flanked by huge
effigies of threatened marine life, including sharks and sea turtles;
reflecting John West's broken sustainability promise to consumers; while at the
heart of the installation, the tuna tin is ripped open to reveal a screen
showing short campaign films including chef and campaigner Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and vox pops from the people of Liverpool.
The sculpture was created by pioneering art collective the Mutoid Waste Company,
which has previously produced artworks for the 2012 Paralympics Closing Ceremony
and Glastonbury Festival.
John West has been under fire since Greenpeace
revealed 3 weeks ago that it had broken its promise to consumers to ensure that
at least 50% of its tuna was caught sustainably by the end of 2014. And despite
a further commitment to be 100% sustainable by the end of 2016, the company has
so far achieved a dismal 2%.
Since the revelations, over 70,000 people have signed a Greenpeace petition
calling for an end to unjust and unsustainable tuna, which volunteers will hand
over to the company management later today.
Louise Edge, Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace
UK, said:- "Looking out of their office window here in Liverpool today,
John West's management will be unable to ignore the harm they're causing to our
oceans and their owner's links to human rights abuses. And many of their staff,
just like the British public, will be rightly concerned that John West is a
company which doesn't keep its promises; and that it doesn't think twice about
catching and killing sharks and turtles if it means they save a few quid.
John West claims to tell its customers 'the story behind every can'. Well
sitting on their doorstep is a macabre monster of a tuna can which has many
stories to tell: stories like John West's continuing environmental destruction
which is killing threatened marine life; and tales of Thai Union's links to
human trafficking and the exploitation of workers."
Celebrity chef and campaigner Hugh
Fearnley Whittingstall, whose Fish Fight TV series was instrumental in achieving
John West's original sustainability commitment back in 2011, features in one of
the films. In it he says:- "John West has treated us all with total
contempt… it's not just insulting, it's extremely cynical.
If John West want to restore even a shred of credibility to their tattered
reputation, I think they've got to do a couple of things pretty much straight
away. They need to stop using the kind of Fish Aggregation Devices that are
ensnaring so much endangered marine life and they need to call on their parent
company, Thai Union, to drive out human rights abuses from the Thai fishing
industry."
The films also lift the lid on issues in the
Thai fishing industry, including John West's owner Thai Union's links to human
rights abuses, such as bonded labour and human trafficking.
The Thai fishing industry is currently under
scrutiny for its fishing practices, labour rights abuses and human trafficking;
including from the US government and the EU. While the CEO of Thai Union has
previously condemned human rights abuses in the industry, he recently stated:-
"we all have to admit that it is difficult to ensure the Thai seafood
industry's supply chain is 100% clean."
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC), said:- "Slavery is rife in the Thai fishing industry. Yet again we
see the connection between environmental degradation and workers' rights abuses
in a global supply chain. John West and Thai Union need to take responsibility,
and play their part in ending slavery and ecological destruction in the Thai
seafood industry.'
Greenpeace's Louise Edge continued:- "Today's action in the UK is just one of several taking place in countries
around the world, including the US and Thailand, targeting Thai Union's tuna
brands. Thai Union can't afford to wash its hands of the huge problems of
environmental destruction and exploitation of workers in the Thai fishing
industry.
John West must meet its sustainability commitment now and call on Thai Union to
clean up its act; proving its supply chain is free from human rights abuses and
using its weight in the Thai fishing industry to put an end to the disgraceful
exploitation of workers and the oceans."
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