International & Trade

November 7, 2014 — A prominent player in Fiji’s fishing industry says, there is no other way of explaining what he believes is the collapse of the tuna industry.

ecause of that, long time export award winning Fiji Fish has opted to give up its fishing licenses and focus on other areas of the sector.

This could ultimately see the number of locally owned tuna fleets depleting even further to just six out of the sixty licenses issued every year.

A veteran of the fisheries sector, when you mentioned the name Graham Southwick 10 years ago, the first thing that came to mind was “Tuna”.

Read the full story from Fiji One News

 

November 3, 2014 — Tasmania's fisheries industry wants to pioneer a new niche in the seafood business by focusing on sardines.

The state is renowned for its harvest of rock lobster, abalone and scallops but they are all being fished to maximum capacity.

Sardines are now found in increasing numbers along the Tasmanian coastline due to changes in the East Australian Current and experts say the product has huge potential.

Neil Stump from the Tasmanian Seafood Council said traditional seafood stocks in Tasmania were under pressure.

"There probably won't be any substantial growth in those fisheries, in the near future anyway," he said.

During the election campaign the State Government promised to open new fisheries and in its annual report the Primary Industries Department said it was working to implement that policy.

Read the full story from ABC News

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by Eugene Gerden — Nov 3, 2014 — MOSCOW — The Russian government plans to abolish mandatory laboratory tests of fish, directly landed at Russian ports, according to a press announcement of the Russian Ministry of Agriculure.

It is reported that this proposal has already received a support of Russia’s Vice Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and may come into force after November, 17 this year.

The new proposal has already been welcomed by Russian fisherman. According to Alexander Fomin, head of the All-Russian Association of Fish Producers and Exporters, laboratory tests for processed fish products should be abolished or reduced to a minimum. At the same time, according to him, there is a need to continue to use such practice in the case of live and chilled fish. According to the Association, about  90% (3.2 million tonnes) of fish, supplied to the Russian coast comes in processed form.

The need to abolish mandatory laboratory studies for fish, supplied to the Russian market, has already been announced by the All-Russian Association of Fishery Enterprises, Entrepreneurs and Exporters, the Russian Pollock Association, and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

This has also been supported by Rosrybolovstvo. According to Vasily Sokolov, Rosrybolovstvo’s deputy head, these tests should be abolished if risks of contamination of fishery products are minimal. 

The same position is shared by the Federal Veterinary And Phytosanitary Monitoring Service (Rosselkhoznadzor). According to Nikolai Vlasov, deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor, the current scheme may be replaced by another one,  when a captains certify  the catch by himself in a special Mercury electronic system.

In this case, according to Vlasov, the State Veterinary Service will inspect a batch only one time – either when unloading at the plant for processing, or at the end of the transport chain.

The abolishment of mandatory laboratory tests will be associated with significant savings for fisherman. According to German Zverev, President of the Pollack Association, only in 2012 total costs of fisherman, associated with this amounted to 3.6 billion rubles (US$100 million).

The mandatory testing also greatly increased the number of days it took to get fish from russian vessels into markets, with sometimes a single offload taking many days before the product could be released.

Due to this, many of vessels preferred to supply their products for exports, instead of the domestic market.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

October 30, 2014 — Around 200 vessels carrying an unspecified number of fishermen could not be contacted by the relevant authorities or their community amid a great deal of panic across the Sindh-Balochistan coastal areas caused by the powerful tropical cyclone Nilofar.

Strong winds and torrential rains are feared to hit the coastline over the next three days and the vulnerable areas have been identified as Karachi, Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin and Tharparkar districts.

Several hundred members of the fishermen community in Thatta and Sujawal districts were seen desperately seeking assistance of the Maritime Security Agency, Coast Guards, fisheries department and non-governmental organisations to know if their family members could be contacted.

It was gathered that around 200 vessels carrying several thousand fishermen had left the coastal villages of Thatta for fishing in the deep sea many days before Nilofar developed in the Arabian Sea.

Thousands more who had set off later and were fishing not far from the coast timely received the cyclone warning and returned home, sources in the community said.

Those yet to to be contacted are residents of Keti Bunder, Kharo Chhan, Ghorabari, Jhangisar and other coastal areas of Thatta and Sujawal districts, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) leader Noor Mohammed Thaimor said.

Read the full story here

October 28, 2014 — It's a grim, but familiar, picture. Waves of black sludge lap at the sandy shore, while seabirds coated in oil struggle to lift their wings. On September 24, more than 5,800 gallons of oil spilled into Quintero Bay, Chile when intake hoses broke free from an oil tanker at the Monobuoy Terminal.

The devastation is tragic. Rescuers have already captured more than 50 birds — including penguins, sea gulls, pelicans, blanquillo birds, hualas, cormorants, and coots — many of which have already died from ingesting oil. Countless numbers of marine creatures that rescuers cannot reach are still dying.

The seeping oil is also devastating the livelihoods of hundreds of people in the fishing and tourism industries, who rely on the health of the oceans for their income and food. Local health officials are forbidding the consumption and sale of seafood from the area, with serious consequences for the local economy. Meanwhile, the Chilean National Fishing and Aquaculture Service (Sernapesca) is currently assessing damages to artisanal fisheries.

Oceana in Chile is calling on the Chilean government to investigate the incident and punish the company responsible for this disaster. Sernapesca has already filed a criminal lawsuit against the responsible parties. Additionally, Oceana predicts that Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP), who owns the oil operation, is guilty of gross negligence: The company initially reported the spill as slightly less than 800 gallons, and it was thus classified as a minor spill. In reality, about 5,800 gallons of oil spilled into the bay.

Read the full story at the Huffington Post

October 28, 2014 — The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has introduced a fish that eats mosquito larvae, in an effort to control its worst-ever dengue fever outbreak, state news media have reported.

Some scientists have warned that use of the nonnative mosquito fish could have unexpected consequences, while others say that mosquito fish are already found in Guangdong waters and the environmental impact might not be significant, but that the effectiveness of the fish may also be limited.

As of Monday, the number of dengue cases in Guangdong Province this year had reached 41,155, the local health authorities reported, with six deaths. The province has seen 200 to 300 new cases a day in recent days. That is lower than the more than 400 per day last week and the more than 1,000 per day the week before that, offering some hope that the outbreak is beginning to ease.

Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong and China’s third-largest city, has seen the most cases, with more than 34,000 reported infections and one death, followed by the city of Foshan, with more than 3,000 cases and one death.

Read the full story at the New York Times

October 28, 2014 — Norwegian salmon can still be found on the shelves of Russian stores, despite a ban on its import. Russian fish processing companies now import chilled fish to Belarus, where it is gutted and salted at local factories, after which the processed fish is transported into Russia.

Despite the ban on the import of Norwegian salmon, lightly-smoked salmon fillets have not disappeared from Russian stores, as resourceful suppliers exploit a legal loophole in order to circumvent the ban on fish imports from Norway.

Most Russian companies selling fish now cooperate with Belarusian companies in order to get around the ban on European food imports imposed by Moscow in retaliation for EU sanctions on Russia over its support of pro-autonomy militants in eastern Ukraine.

According to Alexander Starobinsky, deputy managing director of the St. Petersburg-based holding company ROK-1, fish from Norway is first delivered to Belarus, where it undergoes primary processing (gutting and pickling) before being shipped to Russia.

The ROK-1 website says that the company has an annual output of 60,000 tons, with a product list consisting of over 400 items, including specialty fish, crab sticks, and caviar. ROK-1 is using the same scheme, Starobinsky admits, without, however, disclosing any details.

Read the full story from Russia Beyond the Headlines

October 21, 2014 — The Russian government has rejected the proposal of some local anaslysts and top officials to introduce duties on the exports of fish to abroad.

The initiative was put forward by Vladimir Miklushevsky, the governor of Primorye region to protect the domestic market.

Vladimir Miklushevsky commented:

"Russia has imposed duties on the imports of Norwegian salmon. We consider this decision as very useful, as we have enough reserves of our own fish. There is a need to establish more processing capacity on shore, instead of the increase of fish exports. I submitted a proposal for the consideration of Arkady Dvorkovich,  Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, who promised to consider it by October, 20.

According to Miklushevsky, duties should be imposed primarily on the exports of salmon and later other types of fish.

However, the initiative of the Primorye governor has not received support in the Russian government, including the country’s President Vladimir Putin.

According to Putin, it is impossible to introduce customs duties and to impose prohibitive measures for the exports of fish, without having the capacity to process it within the country.

According to an official spokesperson of the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), Russia currently does not experience any lack of salmon in the domestic market. In addition, prices for it remain stable.

According to forecasts of Rosrybolovstvo, total production of Pacific salmon in Russia this year is expected to reach 320,000 tonnes, which will be 70,000 tonnes less than in 2013.

According to Paul Kolotushkin,  Head of Sakhalin Fisheries Agency, the governments of Sakhalin and other areas of the Far East were able to significantly improve logistics issues, which allowed a significant increase in fish deliveries to the European part of Russia and in particular Moscow and St. Petersburg.

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

 

October 21, 2014 — American intervention and “blind luck” prevented disaster on B.C.’s north coast this week when a disabled cargo ship drifted dangerously close to the shores of Haida Gwaii, opposition critics charged Monday in the House of Commons.

A commercial U.S. tug towed the Russian-flagged Simushir to safety at Prince Rupert after the Canadian Coast Guard struggled to rein in the ship. The vessel was carrying hundreds of tonnes of fuel when it lost power Thursday, sparking concerns it would create an environmental disaster if it ran aground, and prompting concern from New Democrats and Liberals over the prospect of a dramatic increase in supertankers plying the same waters.

NDP finance critic Nathan Cullen, who represents the Skeena-Bulkley Valley riding in northern B.C., demanded to know how anyone can back a “government plan to put hundreds of oil supertankers off the B.C. coast when we don’t even have the capacity to protect ourselves right now.”

He said only “blind luck” prevented a disaster before help could arrive.“If dodging a bullet doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what will. It’s important for Canadians to understand how close this was.”

Read the full story from The Vancouver Sun

 

October 20, 2014 — It might seem odd: Cuban fisheries managers and scientists seated around a table in this fabled but faded Cape Cod fishing port, sharing their stories of managing crocodiles, manatees and reef fish while trying to absorb the successes and failures of the New England fisheries.

But, as Elisa Garcia, Cuba's director of fishing regulations and science put it, there is universality to the problems nations encounter in managing fish stocks.

"We all gain from the exchange and the experience of my colleagues from the United States," Garcia said through a translator during a break in a conference last week featuring fisheries experts from Cuba, the United States and Mexico, at the Center for Coastal Studies. "We are talking about different places and species but the problems are similar," she added.

The Environmental Defense Fund, a national and international environmental advocacy organization, sponsored the Provincetown conference as one of five meetings with international fishery experts they hold each year that are intended to address issues in Cuban fisheries management, where the EDF has been working for almost 15 years. The United States, Mexico and Cuba have been working together, both through official and unofficial channels, on Gulf of Mexico fisheries issues and sustainable fishing practices.

EDF staffers believe the New England experience, both positive and negative, could be valuable for the Cubans. As lifting the 54-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba is hotly debated, and some say imminent, Provincetown is an example of how the pressure from tourism and development can affect fishing's shoreside facilities such as piers, supply shops and processing plants.

"We learn from each country, even if the fishery is different," said Stuart Fulton, an oceanographer from Great Britain, working on marine conservation with a Mexican environmental organization.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times