What’s my Tuna Commission why? My passion for maritime advocacy comes from a love for albatrosses and seabirds. I grew up in a country where we have more seabirds than land birds! New Zealand is the seabird capital of the world. Even where I live in the Hauraki Gulf, we’ve got 25 species of seabirds, so spending time at sea, seeing these birds on the water, is just a wonderful experience. They basically live at sea, but of course have to come back to land to breed, so are vulnerable in both realms. We know that seabird populations are still being driven down by fisheries bycatch and one in particular — our Antipodean Albatross, will be extinct in 20 years if we can’t get better protection in this Commission. It’s why Seabirds are on the agenda this year.
This Commission meeting is my seventh in this role for BirdLife. For somebody coming here for the first time, it might be confusing. There’s a lot happening, there’s all sorts of discussions and lots of side meetings. But it’s actually all about making connections with people. Although people are here to represent their countries or their NGOs, at the end of the day, they are all just people, and they have the same sorts of ideas, passions, and concerns as everyone else. It’s just about trying to get everyone to agree on how to manage that.
Of all these commission meetings I have attended so far my favourite memory was attending a Commission meeting in the Marshall Islands. We went to a little island with a whole lot of the members, and enjoyed a picnic for the day. It just was a chance to talk to people on a normal, human level, and get to know them personally, to see these fisheries delegates as people first. To be out of a conference room, on the water in the very environment being talked about in the meeting, was just beautiful.//ENDS
