This vessel is not one of the newcomers.It's a Papua-New-Guinea-flagged ship, fishing in their territorial waters.So it's subject to catch limits and regulations that are amongst the strictest in the Pacific,designed to ensure that tuna fishing remains sustainable.But New Guinea's fishermen are concerned about the increasing numbers of foreign vessels now fishing for Pacific tuna.They were the first nation to propose that the high-seas pockets beyond their national waters be declared marine reserves,as now advocated by Greenpeace.After our cameraman left the Esperanza,Greenpeace continued their journey, and captured these images of the world's biggest purse seiner,with a capacity almost four times larger than the New Guinea vessel.It's a Spanish ship fishing for Pacific tuna to stock European supermarkets.The presence of such large vessels, from countries that have already over-fished their own tuna stocks,has riled the operators of local fishing fleets,perhaps with some justification.Some biologists have recently warned that tuna populations in the Pacific will be crashing within five years unless urgent action is taken.
