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The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is in the Mediterranean sea to expose threats to the sea and to campaign for a global network of fully protected marine reserves covering 40% of our oceans as an essential way to protect our seas from the ravages of climate change, to restore the health of fish stocks, and protect ocean life from habitat destruction and collapse. In this part of the tour the team carried out extensive underwater documentation and research including plankton sampling and survey and seagrass habitats monitoring.
In addition activists confronted a pirate fishing vessel using an illegal driftnet and a fleet of Turkish purse seine vessels targeting endangered blue fin tuna. The Turkish fleet comprised more than 200 purse seiners in total, with enough capacity to fish the entire 15,000 tonnes of blue fin tuna recommended as the maximum sustainable level by ICCAT scientists (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas). However Turkey has an allocated quota of less than 900 tonnes. Due to severe mismanagement, rampant over fishing and illegal activities, Greenpeace is calling for the blue fin tuna fishery to be closed until proper management is in place.