International & Trade

February 11, 2015 — As families around China prepare for Lunar New Year celebrations next week, shoppers in one southeastern city can add another delicacy to their shopping list: “patriotic fish.”

Photos of shoppers in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, thronging around cases of frozen fish and sea urchins circulated in China on Wednesday. This was no ordinary seafood, however. It was from Mischief Reef, which has been controlled by China since 1994 but is part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

“You can steam it, make soup, braise, slice or fry it — it’s all possible!” Lin Zailiang, 82, a former government official who heads the fish-farming program, told the gathered shoppers. Behind him, a blue billboard advertised the products as “South China Sea ‘Patriotic Fish’ — the Third Season.” The entire 8,300 pounds of seafood sold out in two hours, according to the state-run China News Service.

But Mr. Lin, white-haired and wearing a garland of orchids around his neck, also made it clear that the program was about more than just providing delicacies for the table.

Cultivating fish at Mischief Reef, called Meiji Reef by the Chinese, is equivalent to “safeguarding national sovereignty,” Mr. Lin was quoted as saying. “Because once there are residents there — us — it becomes our territory, according to international ocean law.”

Read the full story from The New York Times

 

February 10, 2015 — The United States has removed South Korea from its preliminary list of illegal fishing countries, the government said Tuesday.

"The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published its final report that said it was removing its preliminary designation of (South Korea) as an illegal fishing nation," the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said in a press release.

South Korea was put on the list that names nations for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in 2013.

The European Union has also designated South Korea as an IUU country and is expected to publish its final list soon.

The ministry hopes the European Union will follow suit.

South Korea has taken a series of measures aimed at curbing pirate fishing by its vessels in far seas after the designations.

Read the full story here

February 4, 2015 — The Philippines protested to Beijing on Wednesday after a Chinese coast guard ship allegedly rammed and damaged three Philippine fishing boats at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila also said it lodged a separate protest with Beijing over the collection of endangered giant clams by Chinese fishermen, destroying in the process coral outcrops at Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines.

The reported Jan. 29 ramming is the latest incident involving the territorial rift. In February last year, the Philippine government summoned China's top envoy in Manila to protest what it said was the firing of a water cannon by a Chinese government vessel to drive away Filipino fishermen from Scarborough. China ignored the protest and called its sovereignty there "indisputable."

The Chinese Embassy did not issue any immediate comment on Wednesday.

"The Philippines strongly protested China's continuing actions to harass and prevent Filipino fishermen from legitimately pursuing their livelihood in that area," the Philippine foreign department said in a statement Wednesday.

"Philippine fishing vessels have been routinely, continuously, peacefully and sustainably fishing in the Philippines' Bajo de Masinloc," the department said, using the Filipino name for Scarborough, a rich fishing ground and storm shelter.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [PNG Post Courier] — February 4, 2015 — Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu are facing a European Union (EU) tuna import ban if they do not take action on illegal fishing.

The three Pacific nations have received yellow cards from the EU for non-compliance with its laws designed to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency director-general James Movick last week told the ABC's Pacific Beat program that in the case of Solomons Islands, virtually all their fisheries exports were going to Europe.

He said it was essential Pacific fisheries worked with the agency to meet all aspects of EU fishing regulations as a ban would be catastrophic for the region's tuna industry.

"It would be virtually impossible to develop alternative markets within the six-month period, plus there would be a reputational issue if you're banned in one market then certainly the level of scrutiny in another market would presumed to be higher," he said.

Sol Tuna managing director and Pacific Islands Tuna Industry Association chairman Adrian Wickham said the industry in Solomon Islands was taking the European Union's warning seriously.

He said tuna industry representatives in the Solomons met with the fisheries minister last week and were assured the government was taking all the necessary steps to avoid a yellow card.

Mr Wickham said the government was planning to pass a bill to ensure better regulation of the nation's fisheries industry.

"It is all about process and procedures and reporting systems and one of the most important instruments that has to be put in place is the new fisheries act," he said.

"We are assured by government at the prime minister's level even, that the new fisheries bill will be tabled in parliament at the next sitting."

Mr Wickam said he believed by working with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Solomon Islands would be able to avert an EU ban on the nation's tuna.

He said the Solomons had provided the EU with an action plan.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.

 

February 2, 2015 — U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed bringing together the country's food safety operations into one agency to better monitor food quality in a move that would reshape the Food and Drug Administration.

The proposal was put forward as part of the President's 2016 budget plan. The new agency would combine the food safety responsibilities of the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies.

"A single Federal food safety agency would provide focused, centralized leadership, a primary voice on food safety standards and compliance with those standards, and clear lines of responsibility and accountability that will enhance both prevention of and responses to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses," the budget proposal noted.

Read the full story from Reuters

February 2, 2015 — Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: This is a story about cod semen and the people who love to eat it.

Right now, fishing boats are pulling Pacific cod from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. According to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s guidelines, fishermen are allowed to catch up to 325,000 tons of cod this year.

A lot of that cod will become fish sticks or batter-fried filets.

But many processors in Alaska also remove the sperm sacs of male cod, a seafood product called cod milt. In Japan, a high-end market exists for cod milt, which goes by the unsettling literal name shirako, or “white children.”

Virtually unknown in the U.S. outside certain bold Epicurean circles, the male counterpart to caviar is a delicacy in Japan, where it is tempura fried, dipped in ponzu sauce or served in hot pot soup dishes typically enjoyed in winter months, according to Akiko Yakata, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s representative in Japan.

Though it routinely lands on “weirdest foods” lists outside the country, in Japan cod milt is prized for its mild, creamy flavor.

Like other culinary adventures such as a fugu, a fish that can be lethal if not prepared correctly, shirako isn’t for everyone.

Read the full story from Alaska Dispatch News

February 3, 2015 — Sustainable means to utilise ocean resources without causing damage to them and their marine life would come up for deliberations during the four-day World Ocean Science Congress-2015, beginning in Kochi, India on Thursday.

Eminent oceanographers, naval exponents, environmentalists and maritime industrialists from across the world will attend the event to be inaugurated by Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam.

Union Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kalyanjibhai Kundariya will also participate in the congress while state Fisheries, Ports and Excise Minister K. Babu will preside over the function.

The World Ocean Science Congress, being jointly organised by Swadeshi Science Movement, Vijnana Bharati, Kerala chapter and Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Kochi, will have four plenary sessions, 13 technical sessions, exhibitions, a round table on shipping and ocean resources, besides a national fishermen’s meet.

Read the full story from The Hindu

BRUSSELS, Belgium — January 26, 2015 — The European Union blacklisted Sri Lanka Monday for failing to combat illegal fishing, officially banning imports of fisheries products from Sri Lanka-flagged vessels into the EU.

Officials said the decision to put Sri Lanka on the list was taken by EU fisheries ministers at their regular talks in Brussels.

Sri Lanka is the second biggest exporter of swordfish and tuna into the EU. The bloc said it only accepts stocks caught at sustainable levels and certified as legal by the exporting country.

The EU already warned Sri Lanka about breaking international rules on illegal fishing in November 2012.

Read the full story from The Island Packet

January 26, 2015 — The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development last week in Lansing hosted a delegation from the province of Jiangsu.

The trip follows a visit by the department's Director Jamie Clover Adams to China with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in 2013 that included meeting with Jiangsu officials. Last week, Clover Adams and a Chinese official signed an agreement about the partnership.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Island Packet

 

January 26, 2015 — “The nets go straight out of the bag into the sea,” said Isabel Marques da Silva, a marine biologist at Universidade Lúrio in Mozambique. “That’s why the incidence for malaria here is so high. The people don’t use the mosquito nets for mosquitoes. They use them to fish.”

Out here on the endless swamps, a harsh truth has been passed down from generation to generation: There is no fear but the fear of hunger.

With that always weighing on his mind, Mwewa Ndefi gets up at dawn, just as the first orange rays of sun are beginning to spear through the papyrus reeds, and starts to unclump a mosquito net.

Nets like his are widely considered a magic bullet against malaria — one of the cheapest and most effective ways to stop a disease that kills at least half a million Africans each year. But Mr. Ndefi and countless others are not using their mosquito nets as global health experts have intended.

Nobody in his hut, including his seven children, sleeps under a net at night. Instead, Mr. Ndefi has taken his family’s supply of anti-malaria nets and sewn them together into a gigantic sieve that he uses to drag the bottom of the swamp ponds, sweeping up all sorts of life: baby catfish, banded tilapia, tiny mouthbrooders, orange fish eggs, water bugs and the occasional green frog.

Read the full story from the New York Times