After months of preparation (and excitement), the Greenpeace Australia Pacific team has set sail on the magnificent Rainbow Warrior III, cruising out of Cairns – and away from the sunny and tropical weather. We’re off on our mission to document and bear witness to the devastation wreaked by industrial fishing in the Tasman, in search of the boats that come from around the globe to pillage our blue backyard.

In our research into destructive industrial fishing in the local high seas, we’ve made a huge discovery and exposed the enormous number of blue sharks that are caught every year. In 2023, almost half a million blue sharks were caught by longliners in the West & Central Pacific – a stretch of ocean just beyond the horizons of our Australian shores. This is the highest number since records began in 1991!

If you stacked all of those sharks nose to tail they would reach further than the international space station – and back. Or they would be as tall as Mt. Everest 110 times!

Our analysis was covered in the Sydney Morning Herald and has already forced the new Environment Minister, Murray Watt, to consider going to the upcoming United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC). And if you haven’t already done it, you can send him an email saying it’s time to bring the Global Ocean Treaty into law.

Tell the government to act within 100 days

Industrial fishing, climate change, and pollution are destroying the oceans. Australia can step up to be an ocean protector — but only if the new government brings the Global Ocean Treaty into law within its first 100 days.

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We’ve now reached the Lord Howe Rise and South Tasman Sea, the area we want to see protected as a global ocean sanctuary. As we continue our journey south, sailing down along the Lord Howe Rise, we’re excited to have already seen beautiful marine wildlife like sea birds and whales but are anxious for what horrors we might find when we come face to face with longliners and their indiscriminate catch, like sharks, turtles and dolphins.

Stay tuned as we continue to share the beauty and the devastation of what we find on our journey across the Tasman Sea.

Setting Sail to Expose The Tragic Toll of Shark Bycatch on Our Oceans