The thirty-four nations of Greenpeace and the diverse cultures represented within the organization's international fisheries campaign worked together to draft these principles for ecologically sound fisheries. From the Philippines to Iceland, Canada to Tunisia, Chile to Holland, these draft principles represent a compilation of Greenpeace campaigner perspectives. Greenpeace welcomes your comments and suggestions for improvement. Humanity depends for its survival on the healthy functioning of the planet's ecosystems. The oceans are the origin of life on earth and are home to much of the earth's rich evolutionary heritage of life forms and species.
Oceans provide many essential services such as regulating climate and cycling nutrients.
They are vital sources of food, medicines and livelihood, and of cultural and spiritual values which give meaning to human societies. The oceans sustain us, but we are not sustaining them. The diversity of life in the world's oceans is being dramatically altered by the excessive exploitation of fish and other marine species. Most commercially targeted fish populations and many associated marine species are in decline. In addition, marine and coastal ecosystems, as well as habitats vitally important for fish breeding and rearing, are being rapidly degraded.