Taiwan — Today, Taiwan’s Kaohsiung District Court found the captain and chief officer not guilty in a case involving allegations of human trafficking and labor exploitation aboard Da Wang, a Taiwanese-owned, Vanuatu-flagged tuna fishing vessel that exported its fish globally.

The case dates back to June 2019, when a 19-year-old Indonesian fisher, Sunoto, was reportedly struck in the back of the head while working aboard the Da Wang and was found dead in the cabin the following morning. Prosecutors in the case said the vessel’s captain and first officer used violence and coercion to exploit migrant fishers aboard.

Manny (pseudonym), a Filipino fisher who is also a victim and witness in the Da Wang forced labour case, said the verdict was deeply heartbreaking and disappointing to him. He said, “The captain assaulted and beat people on board every day. He was responsible for Sunoto’s wrongful death and should be held accountable under the law. If there is an opportunity to appeal, I will appeal the case all the way.”

Shay Kuo, Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia’s Taipei Office, said: “Despite multiple testimonies and indications pointing to forced labour and violence aboard the vessel, the court’s decision highlights the difficulties of gathering evidence and establishing proof at sea, underscoring the challenges facing the maritime regulatory system. Seven years on, full justice remains out of reach. To prevent further victims and broken families, the Taiwanese government must strengthen oversight of fishing vessels and require seafood companies to take responsibility for human rights abuses throughout their supply chains.”

Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the Union of Indonesian Migrant Workers (SBMI) first documented allegations of severe labour abuses — such as violence, excessive working hours and wage-related abuses — aboard the Da Wang in its 2019 investigation. [1] 

Sari Heidenreich, senior human rights adviser for Greenpeace USA’s Global Fisheries campaign, said: “This heartbreaking verdict cannot be the end of the story. A migrant fisher lost his life, and other workers reported serious abuses, including forced labor, aboard the same vessel. This case exemplifies the uphill battle that fishers face to achieve justice and remedy. Responsibility does not end with vessel operators. All of Big Seafood, which includes companies buying and trading seafood, must be rigorous in their due diligence to ensure that forced labor and abuse are not happening anywhere in their supply chains and that, if they do, victims have access to swift and meaningful justice and remedy.”

The Da Wang case exposes the widespread problem of seafood supply chains remaining profitable while the migrant workers who catch the fish bear the greatest human cost. 

The Greenpeace global network’s Beyond Seafood Campaign has called for concerted action by all stakeholders and governments along the seafood supply chain to end isolation at sea. This includes:

• Free, accessible, and secure Wi-Fi on all fishing vessels to allow fishers to have contact with their families, unions, and governments.
• Capping time at sea to maximum three consecutive months to reduce the risk of human rights abuse, forced labor, and human trafficking.
• 100% human observers or electronic monitoring to ensure vital data on catch composition, bycatch, interactions with protected species, and overall fishing practices are reported by independent and impartial parties.

ENDS

Notes

[1] Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the SBMI first documented allegations of severe labour abuses aboard the Da Wang in its 2019 investigation, Seabound: The Journey to Modern Slavery on the High Seas.

Greenpeace East Asia passed the testimony of an onboard Indonesian fisher to Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency, who then took the evidence to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office for investigation. In April 2022, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office indicted nine people, including the vessel owner, captain, first officer and others, on charges including violations of Taiwan’s Human Trafficking Prevention Act.

Separately in the United States, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) against tuna caught by the Da Wang in August 2020 and a Finding against the Da Wang for forced labour in January 2022. In the same year, Greenpeace USA found tuna for sale by Bumble Bee in the U.S. that was sourced from the Da Wang during the alleged human trafficking and forced labor occured. Bumble Bee also faces a separate federal lawsuit brought by Indonesian fishers who allege that the company benefited from tuna harvested using their forced labor. 

Contacts

Vela Andapita, Global Communications Coordinator, Beyond Seafood campaign, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, +62 817 5759 449 (UTC+8), vela.andapita@greenpeace.org 

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

We all just witnessed one of the hottest summers ever around the globe. The trauma of watching massive forest fires, flash floods, and super typhoons is horrifying, to say the least. The horror of huge forest fires in Spain, France, Greece, Germany, Canada, and now Indonesia is an alarm bell we all need to wake up to. The frequency of super typhoons bringing destruction to  China, the Philippines, and Japan is another form of extreme weather patterns that scientists have warned us about for years. 

If this was not enough, we also witnessed flooding in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Hawaii (USA), South Korea, China, Japan, and Peru. Parts of North Africa, including Morocco, have faced back‑to‑back heatwaves on top of drought, with temperatures reaching 44 to 46°C in provinces from Marrakech and Beni Mellal to Laayoune and Dakhla.

All of this happened even before El Niño was expected to intensify toward the year’s end. And all of this happened.  The full impact could potentially be much worse than what happened so far.

While so much of the destruction of nature and human life is happening every week, too many of our governments are acting without the urgency this crisis demands. There is still a huge emphasis on making more profits, including more oil exploration and continued wars, combined with insufficient action towards addressing the core issue of climate change. In fact, some countries, are still rusted on to a ‘drill, baby, drill’ approach, but there there are also many others that are ready to plan for and implement a transition away from fossil fuels.

So there is a tendency to get distracted and forget about the consequences of our mistakes. That is why we document these climate emergencies so we can do our best not to repeat them in the future. This blog is an attempt to record the results of the combined inaction of our governments and the race to preserve this beautiful planet.

France: The wildfires affected France, particularly in the north and south of the country, burning 115,000 hectares. The wildfire season was classified as the worst in the country since 1949. Beachgoers sit on the beach of Moutchic in Lacanau, southwestern France on July 24, 2026, as clouds of smoke rise into the sky from a wildfire. The fire raged in the northern part of the Arcachon Basin in Gironde, southwest France.

Spain: The forest fire burned 25,000 hectares across Madrid and neighbouring Avila province, forcing more than 60,000 people (a downwardly revised figure) to flee their homes, according to authorities, who labelled the fire the “worst in history” for the Madrid region.

Philippines: Tropical cyclones and monsoon rains sweeping across the Philippines triggered widespread floods. Residents were evacuated to higher ground with their belongings in Barangay Sta Ana, San Mateo, Rizal, Philippines, on 17 August 2026.

Japan: Unprecedented heavy rain in Japan claimed the lives of 8 people, leaving thousands at Narita airport and cutting power to more than 20,000 households in Chiba prefecture.

Tunisia: Ash and the remains of destroyed trees as fires ravage the forests of Sakiet Sidi Youssef in the Kef region, near the border with Algeria on 24 July 2026. At least 900 fires broke out in Tunisia over 72 hours, as the country grapples with an intense heatwave. Firefighters battled two major blazes, one of them in the northwestern region of Sakiet Sidi Youssef.

United States of America: All of New York State, including New York City, and parts of New Jersey are under an Air Quality Advisory due to the smoke from more than 100 wildfires burning in Canada. The Tri-State is seeing visible smoke and hazy skies across the state and spikes in smoke-related pollution. Fine particle pollution from wildfire smoke can cause shortness of breath, coughing, dizziness, or fatigue, and can aggravate heart and lung diseases and other chronic health issues.

India: The flood situation in Assam, India, turned critical as it claimed 80 lives, displacing about 2 million people across 200 villages.

Algeria: As firefighters work to put out a wildfire in Bordj Okhriss, located approximately 150 km southeast of Algiers. For several days, Algeria has been facing a wave of exceptionally intense wildfires.

From protests against oil and gas in the Black Sea, to documenting drought impacts in Germany. Here are a few of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

Bulgaria – Greenpeace activists from five countries painted “NO GAS + OIL” on the side of the abandoned tanker “Kairos”, part of Russia’s shadow fleet, anchored off the coast of Burgas, Bulgaria. The activity protested against the toxic dependence on oil and gas, which funds wars, fuels corruption, and endangers marine ecosystems and local communities.

Germany – During a forest tour in Reiersdorf, Brandenburg, Greenpeace highlights the extreme fire risk posed by pine monocultures, showing how structurally diverse mixed forests with deadwood cool the ground and naturally prevent wildfires.

Netherlands – Activists from Greenpeace Netherlands have modified the names of several train stations following yet another tropical day this summer. Stations were renamed to ‘Hotterdam Centraal’, ‘Amsterwarm Centraal’, ‘Grillversum Media Park’, and ‘Smelthogenbosch’. With temperatures soaring well above 30°C and a record number of tropical days, the campaign highlights the reality of the climate crisis caused by fossil fuels and emphasizes that these extreme weather events are no longer exceptions. The action calls on politicians to take decisive steps toward phasing out fossil energy ahead of the Climate March in Amsterdam on September 12.

Denmark – Danish fjords, lakes and coastal waters are plagued by oxygen depletion due to decades of pollution from industrial pig farming. Greenpeace Nordic is on an expedition to measure and document the extent of the problem, as well as nitrogen pollution, which originates mainly from pig manure spread onto the fields.

Germany – Drought impacts Rhine River’s water level in Germany. The river Rhine shown here with a very low water level in Cologne.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, please visit our Media Library.

New York – As the fifth round of negotiations concludes at the United Nations in New York, an ambitious Global Tax Treaty – also known as the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation – remains within reach. Major improvements to the zero draft text are still needed, however, to deliver global tax rules that will help solve the connected climate, nature, and inequality crises, rather than letting corporate polluters and the super-rich off the hook.

Nina Stros, Global Senior Policy Expert, Greenpeace International Political Unit said: “Global South demands for fair and inclusive international tax rules are starting to shape the text of the Framework Convention, and that is real progress. But without trust and a commitment from all parties to negotiate in good faith, we risk an empty treaty that fails to address problems everyone acknowledges exist. The most ambitious version of the Global Tax Treaty can only be built on truly international tax cooperation, where every voice counts, including those of the communities hit hardest by the climate crisis, not just predominantly those of the wealthiest polluters and their patrons.

“Outside these negotiating rooms, people are living through extreme weather and rising bills, paying for a crisis they did little to cause, while the wealthiest polluters keep profiting. Too many countries are losing revenues to tax havens. The Global Tax Treaty is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to correct the unfairness and the dysfunctions of existing tax agreements and the broken corporate tax system. It’s time for every country to step up and bring concrete solutions that work for people and the planet.”

Key takeaways from INC-5 include:

• A strong Global Tax Treaty is still a long way off, but the developments from this session were encouraging. Negotiations moved from the abstract to the concrete. The draft text is moving towards a fairer allocation of taxing rights over multinational profits, which could overhaul the unfair and undemocratic system currently shaped by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
• Global South countries showed strength and unity, many coming together to defend strong language on fairer allocation of taxing rights and to push for more robust articles, including on taxing high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) and on harmful tax practices. Some emerging and middle-income economies played a bridge-building role, including regarding the article on sustainable development; arguably a sign of wider shifts in global power and of a growing understanding that this treaty is instrumental in delivering other UN agreements, like those under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
• Wealthy nations, particularly in Europe, favoured complaining over proposing solutions. Despite countries championing climate action in other global forums, European countries mostly stayed silent on sustainable development here, and many called for changes that would defend the status-quo of corporate and super-rich tax-dodging. They must move from complainer to solution-seeker, not only to rebuild trust with the Global South and unlock ambition, but so that their own people benefit from the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could be reclaimed by holding the wealthiest polluters to account.
• Momentum is building towards environment-aligned tax and spending. Several Global South countries signalled they would bring forward new proposals to strengthen the treaty’s environmental tax and sustainable development provisions in Article 4, which some Global North countries have expressed interest to explore. With more ambition, this could lay the legal foundations for global and national progressive polluter taxes, while ensuring that governments’ tax and spending policies support global climate and environmental agreements.
• Heightened discussions on Article 6, concerning the taxation of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), particularly across G77 countries, showed that cross-regional cooperation and alliances hold a significant potential for a bolder outcome.

There was also broad support among countries for bringing civil society and other stakeholders into future Conference of Parties (COP) meetings, which will be vital to raise ambition and hold countries to account through this process as it moves towards delivering the treaty.

Negotiations for the Global Tax Treaty will continue until mid-2027. The sixth round of negotiations will be held in Nairobi from 30 November to 11 December 2026, followed by three further rounds of negotiations next year. Greenpeace will continue to attend, urging every country to be guided by the realities their people face outside the negotiating room, and to hold negotiators to the promise this treaty represents.

ENDS

Contact:

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org