Response to Le Point’s allegations concerning European tuna fishing

18 June 2024

Journalist Erwan Seznec, a regular contributor to Le Point, seems to have taken a dislike to BLOOM.

 Following a first article in July 2023, in which we mentioned our alleged conflicts of interest and took legal action against Le Point and Mr. Seznec for defamation, a new article published on 12 April 2024, entitled “La guerre du thon est déclarée (et c’est la fête du greenwashing)” (“A war on tuna has begun (and it’s greenwashing time)”) is in the same vein.

Once again, Mr. Seznec’s article is nothing more than a succession of allegations, dubious approximations and gross errors, with the sole aim of inventing a story about BLOOM, in order to highlight alleged abuses attributable, according to Mr. Seznec, to “NGOs [which] demonstrate their determination to derail any policy aimed at relying on human genius“. The serious consequences of the immoderate deployment of this “human genius”, namely fishing techniques through the use of the notorious fish aggregating devices (FADs), are not addressed in any way by the journalist. As it happens, these European industrialists are French and Spanish companies that fish for tuna in the Indian Ocean, and as the French tuna fishers’ union, Orthongel, wanted to explain, the problem isn’t them, it’s the Chinese!

It’s worth noting that it’s these same French and Spanish tuna companies that are the only source of information for this article. The story seems a little too big not to be picked up. The timing of this “investigation” owes nothing to chance. From 13-18 May 2024, the annual meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) was held in Bangkok, Thailand, where the interests of European industrialists – who have also colonized the fisheries sector in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but also in part in Tanzania and Oman – are overwhelming. At the same time, this is also the region of the world where tropical tuna is the most overfished, and where European industrialists have the greatest impact.

Since its creation in 1996, the IOTC has regularly pointed the finger at the responsibility of European tuna fishers for the advanced state of degradation of tuna populations in the Indian Ocean, particularly due to their uncontrolled use of “fish aggregating devices” (FADs), which capture almost exclusively juvenile individuals (i.e. those that have not yet reproduced), alongside numerous fragile species of marine turtles and sharks. As late as 2023, several documents produced for the IOTC clearly show that if FADs were banned, or at least drastically controlled, the recovery of tuna populations would rapidly become a reality.

To delve into the details of this destructive industry, we suggest you read our series of “TunaGate” reports, which are slightly more structured, concrete and well-sourced than Erwan Seznec’s diatribe.

But according to M. But according to Mr. Seznec and the experts he quotes, such as Xavier Leduc – who is none other than the President of the highly unimportant Orthongel producers’ organization (which groups together the tropical tuna seiners of the Saupiquet/Via Océan, Sapmer and CFTO companies), President of the Union des Armateurs à la Pêche de France, and former CEO of one of France’s biggest trawlers, Euronor – this catastrophic situation is in reality due to a single man, who, according to Mr. Seznec, is the bearer of all evil. This man is a certain John Burton. It’s true that we know him well, since his interests in cane fishing in the Maldives (a fraction of whose catches are exported to the UK via his company World Wise Foods) justify our having exchanged views with him for many years, whether on the issue of tuna fishing in the Indian Ocean or on the controversial MSC label (read our response to Orthongel’s false and defamatory claims for more information). And yet, according to Mr. Seznec’s own statement, Mr. Burton’s company is worth “only” 96 million euros in sales in 2023 (which also includes tomatoes, potatoes, salmon, etc.), whereas tuna fishing in the Indian Ocean is worth 2.6 billion. That’s… 2,600% more! By way of comparison, CFTO, one of the three companies represented by Mr. Leduc, which only fishes for tuna (also in the Atlantic Ocean), generated sales of 101 million euros in 2021. No more recent data exists for this company, since (contrary to legal obligations) the CFTO has not published its accounts since (we had in fact taken the CFTO to the Commercial Court in 2021 to force it to publish its accounts for 2020). For Sapmer, another French company involved in tuna fishing in the Indian Ocean,[1] the figure is 80.4 million in 2021, and Via Océan (formerly Saupiquet; France’s third-largest tuna company) 19.4 million. To these French companies we can add the Spanish players, which are even more powerful in the region. One example is Albacora, with sales of 129 million in 2022, a company well known for its illegal activities (read our detailed response to Orthongel’s false and defamatory claims for more information) and whose majority shareholder is none other than Javier Garat, head of the all-powerful Europêche European fisheries lobby (considered one of the most climatically destructive and ecocidal lobbies at European level), who recruited the former French fisheries administrator against whom the Parquet national financier, or PNF, a French institution tasked with investigation and prosecution in instances of financial crime, opened an investigation for taking illegal interest in December 2022, following our revelations. But move along, good people, these honest companies have nothing to do with the problem. The problem is the illegal Chinese fishers and the pole-and-line fishers in the Maldives, and above all that diabolical Mr. Burton, who dared to steal a few market shares from French and Spanish interests [2].

As we explain in our response to the Orthongel press release, BLOOM has never received a penny from John Burton. Just as we have never received a penny from fishing or retail companies. Everyone is working separately, in complete independence. What’s more, if some of our studies don’t go Mr. Burton’s way, that’s obviously not a problem. We’ll continue to argue with him when justified and win our battles, much to the dismay of French and Spanish manufacturers, who obviously have little to reproach us for stooping so low.

Notes

[1] The company also fishes for toothfish and lobster in French Southern waters. The company recently sold off its tuna vessels, see our detailed response to Orthongel’s false and defamatory claims for more information.

[2] As part of the On The Hook campaign, in which BLOOM participated at the launch in August 2017, but has not been an active member for at least two years.