International & Trade

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — September 23, 2014 –Russia has detained the Lithuanian fishing vessel Jūros Vilkas (Sea Wolf), which is owned by  Arctic Fishing, of which US citizen Alexander-Yuri Silagy is the sole shareholder.

The Lithuanian government has protested to the Russians.

Russia says the vessel was illegally fishing snow crab in Russian waters, and had 30,000 lbs of crab on board.  The vessel, with 28 crew, was seized and taken to Murmansk.

According to the Baltic News Service, Director of the fisheries Department Ministry of agriculture Darius Nanus told BNS that the ship briefly went into the territorial waters of Russia, but was detained in international waters.

"All the circumstances and details are still to be determined  but, according to our satellite system, the vessel was detained in international waters, not in the exclusive economic zone of Russia. According to our information, the accusation is that the boat entered the exclusive economic zone of Russia and fished there.

Our Satellite communication system, which uses the European control Agency for fishing, shows that the ship came into the exclusive economic zone of Russia on 8th September and only for an hour. For such a short time there was nothing it could do there,  he told BNS.

According to him, the crew of the ship consists of 28 people, three of whom are citizens of Lithuania. The other members of the crew, he reported, "most likely, they are not EU citizens".

"We ascertain the fact that, in our opinion, Russia violated international obligations and agreements – the vessel was detained in international waters. Only for this reason does the fact seem ambiguous. If detained in the economic zone of Russia, the violation would be obvious," he told BNS.

According to the Central registry, the sole shareholder Arctic Fishing, which owns the vessel, is a US citizen Alexander-Yuri Silagy, and the company managing Director is Giedrius Gruzdis. Gruzdis told DELFI that he does not have accurate information about the vessel.

DELFI, a Lithuanian news portal, was able to communicate with the control services of the port of Murmansk, but they would not provide information about the arrest Jūros Vilkas. 

"According to the entry in field log of the ship was caught 15 tons of snow crab", says DELFI.   The Ministry of agriculture of Lithuania received a message stating that the Russian officials about 700 km from Murmansk detained a registered in Lithuania vessel Jūros Vilkas and  towed it to Murmansk.

The head of the Lithuanian Union of seamen Petras Becia explained to DELFI that the vessels Karalius and Jūros vilkas were recently purchased by Arctic Fishing, and went under the Lithuanian flag.
"They recently bought them and for the first time sent in the Barents sea for crabs. As far as I know, they were planning to catch crabs from Norwegian and Russian territorial waters. There must be backers behind them for they could do that without quotas," said Becia.

According to him, the vessels came from Kamchatka. "They (the vessels – DELFI) went from Kamchatka, through the Panama canal to Holland, where they are repaired, and they ordered inspectors from the Lithuanian administration safe shipping  and  submitted an application for registration under the Lithuanian flag, " he said.

Although they met all the requirements, the seafarers ' Union drew attention to the company Arctic Fishing for operating under non-Lithuanian laws.

"We have received information indicating that before leaving the ship the inspectors had not been informed of employed persons, as required by the Labor code, and that violated the requirement that the Lithuanian ship, both trading and commercial seafarers from EU countries should be not less than two-thirds of the team. We have asked the State labour Inspectorate to investigate." said Becia.

According to one source, we should not exclude the possibility that the vessel in foreign waters was due to lack of experience.

According to him, if in the Russian mass media report the truth, the vessel was detained by border guards, and they had no right to do so.

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

 

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [China Daily/Seafood.com] — September 22, 2014 — The combination of news that the Chinese Government halted imports of whole Norwegian salmon due to concerns about the ISA virus, and the news of the continuing spread of Ebola in three African countries, led to a spate of rumors in China last week that Norwegian salmon had 'Ebola', something that is impossible.

Salmon eaters in china have been frightened by titles of the popular articles in the social media like Weibo and Wechat as “China has stopped the import of a whole Norwegian salmon”, “People are likely to get Ebola from eating salmon” and “Salmon carry with them the Ebola virus”.

The reporter has interviewed the relevant importers and the staff from the markets of aquatic products, all of whom have said that salmon has nothing to do with Ebola.

And Norwegian Department of Marine Resources has also published a statement which reads that the Norwegian salmon are safe for consumers to enjoy.

It turns out the rumor originated owing to sensational reporters who published an article in an online newspaper called 'The Paper' with the headline 'The “Ebola” disease among the fish has threatened aquaculture and whole Norwegian salmon is forbidden to enter the Chinese market'.  They were calling ISA the "Ebola Disease" among salmon.

Subsequently the article was picked up and repeated without the quotations around 'Ebola'.

It is a custom in Guangzhou to eat the raw fish and the imported salmon is the favourite of many local consumers. However, many salmon eaters  got worried by the widespread news on the internet that salmon have the Ebola virus. Some eaters have posed such comments about the news as “So scary? ”, “I am so scared that I almost pee myself” and “Never eat salmon again”.

The reporter has tried to trace this rumor and found that the first connection between salmon and Ebola was established in an article published in The Paper.  Then some websites, even the authoritative ones, have removed the quotation mark of the word “Ebola” while forwarding the news. Some articles in Weibo and Wechat have even changed the title to “Eating salmon leads to Ebola” or “Salmon also has Ebola virus”.

But after reading the full article, some netizens have found that they were cheated by the titles. The netizens point out that it is misguided to “establish the direct connection between salmon and Ebola” or to suggest that  "the infectious salmon anemia (ISA) is equal to the frightening Ebola” and some authors were even so unethical to spread the rumor that “Eating salmon leads to Ebola”.

Some in the Chinese industry think that there was a deliberate effort to spread this rumor on the part of some connnected to domestic salmon producers.

The Norwegian Department of Marine Resources has released an statement in the Mainland China and Hong Kong about Chinese government’s not allowing the import of a whole salmon from Norway. The statement explains that this is owing to the government’s concern that some fish diseases may take a toll on China’s aquaculture rather than the worry about the food safety or the salmon’s bad influence on the eaters’ health.

In the statement, there is a solemn notice from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. On the one hand, it emphasizes that Norwegian salmon are safe to eat and there is no fish disease found which is relevant to human diseases. All the fish diseases like ISA will not infect human or have a bad effect on the human health.

On the other hand, it also reads that Norway only exports the healthy fish products rather than the fish with any disease. In addition, the statement also mentions that the Norwegian regulations concerning food safety comply with the requirement of the EU. In addition to the export companies’ examining their own salmon, the government also sampled 11,500 salmon last year and no salmon has been found to contain chemicals or pollutants. And according to the international regulations, any warning against the Norwegian salmon’s quality or food safety should be reported to the Norwegian government and the International organization.

In fact, China importers said last week they are still allowed to import a whole salmon at present.

When the reporter interviewed salmon importers and distributors for this article concerning the news named “Salmon has Ebola virus” the importers and distributors replied that they had not received any notice about forbidding the import of a whole Norwegian salmon and neither had the staff working in different ports. And they are still handling the orders of the whole Norwegian salmon as usual.

The reporter has also interviewed a store owner of aquatic products from Huangsha aquatic product trading market. And she told the reporter that many regular customers and friends had asked her about the safety of Norwegian salmon through telephone, text or Wehcat during the past few days. So yesterday she was busy with forwarding the official statement from the Norwegian government. She also inquired from her relative whose job was exporting salmon in Norway and learnt that it was still permitted to import a whole salmon.

“The imported salmon has nothing to do with Ebola. This is only a rumor! When the eaters come to Huangsha tomorrow, they can still buy a whole Norwegian salmon”, said the owner. Some distributors of the imported salmon also suspects if the spreading of this rumor has some kind of connection with the industry of domestic salmon, which are seen as less than Norwegian salmon in  quality, safety and texture.

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

September 22, 2014 — A large Chinese fishing company wanting to vastly increase its Pacific tuna operations has suspended a share float following revelations it under-stated risks.

China Tuna Industry Group, with the help of Frankfurt headquartered Deutsche Bank AG, last month launched a US$100 million to US$200m (NZ$120m to NZ$240m) IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to fund a massive and sophisticated expansion of South Pacific tuna fishing.

Fairfax Media earlier this month reported that China Tuna was significantly understating the risks it faced chasing bigeye tuna and that it was telling investors that international quotas were unlikely to have any affect on its operations.

Hong Kong based International Financing Review Asia today reported that China Tuna had postponed its IPO.

Quoting a source "familiar with the situation", the capital market magazine said the postponement came after environment organisation Greenpeace filed a formal complaint with the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd last week.

Read the full story from Stuff

SEAFOODNEWS.COM — September 19, 2014 — Newfoundland's seafood industry is on the cusp of major changes.

More than 20 years after the historic collapse of Northern Cod, not only is cod returning, but conditions are in place for a radical transformation of the industry over the next five years.

But like any major change, the experience will likely be wrenching.

Earlier this week I attended a meeting called Fishery of the Future hosted by The Canadian Center for Fisheries Innovation, which brought togther many of the active participants in the fishery – from fish plant owners to vessel owners and aquaculture companies – all focused on how the fisheries are going to change and how best to use the $400 million in funds allocated for this transformation.

As part of Newfoundland's agreement to end its requirements for processing all seafood in the Province as part of the Canada – EU free trade agreement, the Canadian federal government and the Province have pledged $400 million in funding, to be paid out over three years starting in 2015.

At the same time, the plant workforce is aging rapidly, and is becoming a limiting factor for current fish processing practices.

On the water, many of the younger harvesters are eager to expand their quota shares and invest in modern state of the art vessels, but need a consolidation plan to do so.

The result is an opportunity not to compete with China – which has a major advantage in producing low cost commodity fish – but to transform the fishery to look much more like fisheries in Iceland and Norway, where the industry is supported by production of the highest value products, has the world's best technology, and still is vital to many rural communities.

It all starts with cod.

Dr. George Rose is the world's foremost expert on the Northern Cod.  He is the Scientific Director, Centre for Ecosystems Research, at the Marine Institute, and he presented a series of fascinating slides.

First, cod is coming back to Newfoundland.  The Northern cod stock, still under moratorium, is just a few years away from passing the spawning stock threshold to allow a fishery to restart.  The age structure of the stock is phenomenal, with very good percentages of huge older fish.  Dr. Rose can count fish size and age structure using acoustic methods.  The latest DFO survey results, though not yet released, are again expected to show growth in the spawning stock.

Second, capelin – the reason for the huge cod stock – are back with a vegence.  You can now steam 150 miles across the Grand Banks, and be continuously over capelin.

The recent DFO trawl survey has found the highest capelin abundance ever, said Dr. Rose.  And this is born out by the Provincial acoustic surveys. 

While environmental groups hold up the Newfoundland cod collapse as the poster child of fisheries disaster caused by overfishing, the actual situation was much more complicated.

Dr. Rose compared Newfoundland cod to an old growth forest.  It has a huge biomass, but once established, it has low productivity, so the relationships between biomass and fisehery removals which might hold in faster growing stocks don't apply to Northern Cod.  So fishery removals were too high.

But the bigger factor was a regime shift to a cold water regime.  Water temperatures in the Labrador Strait dropped to where they were simply inhospitable for cod and capelin.  The result was movement of cod out of the area, and recruitment of crab and shrimp – both cold water loving species.

For the past six or seven years, that temperature regime has reversed.  That is why the cod stock is explosively growing, and the age structure is stabilizing.  Dr. Rose said that six or seven years ago, they found almost no large cod over five years old.  Now they are plentiful. 

He also looked historically at Newfoundland cod stocks compared to Iceland and Norway and the Barents Sea.  The Newfoundland stocks are much larger, and their robustness was what brought European fishers from their home grounds to Newfoundland.  Over time, he says, this dominance will reassert itself, and the growth potential for the stock is huge.

So, crab and shrimp, the two money fisheries in the province, are declining. Although they won't disappear totally, they will represent a smaller and smaller proportion of the Provincial fisheries, to be replaced by cod and flatfish.

In the past, many have dismissed fresh fish from Newfoundland as not profitable, but Ross Butler, from Cooke Aquaculture, who also spoke at the meeting, talked about how they get fresh salmon from their remote site in Cupquelan Fjord in Chile.  It is a 12 hour trip from Santiago; but with the right logistics, fresh salmon can be shipped out several times a week.

Newfoundland is closer than either Iceland or Norway to the huge fresh cod market on the US East Coast.

Also participating in the meeting were Norwegian and Icelandic fisheries business experts.  The key trait, agreed by all the speakers, was the need to concentrate on high value products.  Iceland sells about 20% of its cod fresh.  Norway sells fresh, but also high quality salt cod, plus single frozen loins and blocks.

If Newfoundland is going to compete with a high value cod fishery, it wil have to have a product mix that allows for maximizing the highest value products – fresh, and single frozen portions. Working back from there means changes in processing plant design, vessels, and quota systems – so that a reliable high quality year round fishery can develop.

The transformation also needs to face significant social issues – a fishery built around 8 weeks of seasonal work and unemployment cannot provide the return needed for all the investment to produce high value products.  Instead, a change to a year round fishery with fewer harvesters and plant workers, but year round employment and scale to invest in technology is going to be necessary.

This is where the $400 million in compensation from the trade agreement comes in.  This type of transformation would likely not get off the ground without external payments to catalyze some of the changes. 

On its own, the market and the status quo of small distributed processing plants and small part time quotas for harvesters will mean inertia is too great, and the danger is that the money will be spent on compensation without generating the changes needed for long term global competitive excellence.

That was why the intitial meeting called by CCFI was so positive – it brought all the industry players together, and after two days, did instill a spirit of optimism that a chance truly existed for such a major transformation.

Newfoundland as the center of a globally important profitable high quality cod fishery?  Lets check in again in 2025.

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

 

TOKYO — September 22, 2014 — After decades of overfishing, Japan is taking aim at increasing the number of bluefin tuna in the ocean.

After several decades of reckless overfishing, mostly by Japanese fleets eager to satisfy their country's increasing demand for sushi and sashimi, stocks of bluefin tuna in the Pacific Ocean have declined alarmingly. Japan accounts for more than 70 percent of the Pacific bluefin tuna caught, according to the government's Fisheries Agency.

As a consequence, the most recent stock assessment of Pacific bluefin tuna made by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean (ISC), noted that the population "level is near historically low levels and experiencing high exploitation rates".

The situation is so dire that Japan's Fisheries Agency felt compelled to announce in March it would cut the country's allowable haul of Pacific immature bluefin tuna by 50 percent in 2015.  The agency followed this up by lobbying other countries fishing in the region to do likewise, and this month succeeded in obtaining their agreement.

During a conference of countries belonging to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) that took place in Fukuoka, Japan, from September 1-4, the other major catchers of tuna – South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and the United States – promised to make the same deep cuts as Japan.           

"People realised something had to be done about the level of catch," Glenn Hurry, executive director of the WCPFC, told Al Jazeera. "The biomass [of the bluefin tuna] that researchers are talking about is only three to four percent of the original spawning biomass, which is not a level you should commercially fish fisheries."

Read the full story from Al Jazeera

 

TOKYO, Japan — September 22, 2014 — Japan has announced plans to put into effect an agreement signed with Russia two years ago on combating illegal sales of crab, a spokesman for the local fisheries ministry said on Monday.

“We will make every effort to implement the agreement this year,” the spokesman said.

In particular, Japan plans to hold seminars in October to discuss the issue. “Together with the Russian side our ministry seeks the speedy implementation of the agreement,” the spokesman added.

Read the full story from the ITAR-TASS News Agency

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — Sept. 22, 2014 — For many years in New England, the term 'scrod' referred to a juvenile cod, haddock, or pollock.  The name also implied a small fish, i.e. only a couple of pounds. However, the FDA eventually outlawed this custom, not even allowing scod cod or scrod haddock as a market name.

Oceana has now taken advantage of this change to claim seafood fraud in Denmark.  In DNA tests, they showed that 18% of their samples of cod actually were saithe or haddock.  These species are all very similar and caught together, especially when small.

The study conducted by Oceana, the Danish newspaper Søndagsavisen, and the TV program “Go’Aften Denmark” found that there is a 'high' level of sea fraud in Danish markets. The study revealed that 18 percent of cod sold in fishmongers is not cod, but actually haddock or saithe. In total, 120 samples from fishmongers, supermarkets, and restaurants in the wider Copenhagen region underwent DNA analysis.

“Seafood fraud is an extensive practice throughout Europe due to weaknesses in the current traceability systems for fish, and low levels of control checks from authorities responsible for the appropriate labeling of seafood. This fact not only represents a mockery to consumers, but also undermines worldwide conservation efforts by creating a black hole in the market where illegal catches are sold,” Oceana in Europe fisheries campaigns manager Maria Jose Cornax said in a press release.

All these fisheries, cod, haddock, and Saithe, are MSC certified in Denmark, and the chain of custody would nomally require proper labeling.

The study shows gaps in the traceability system and seafood chain in Denmark. Previous studies carried out in several other European countries by Oceana show that some European nations have higher fraud levels, like in Italy, Spain, and Ireland, while others have lower fraud levels than in the study conducted in Copenhagen, like France and the UK.

Oceana says that although haddock and saithe are closely related to cod, it is still fraudulent to sell these species as cod. These two species tend to be cheaper than cod, which results in monetary loss for the consumer. The lack of traceability in fisheries is a big problem for consumers as the current labeling system often makes it difficult to trace the origin of fish. Cod, for example, can be found in great abundance in some waters, but is in very poor condition in other areas such as the North Sea.

“It is unfortunate that Danish consumers are being misled into believing that they are buying cod, when in many cases they are instead paying overprice for either haddock or saithe. Consumers should not only have the right to know what species of fish they buy, but also how and in what area it is being caught in order to be able to make eco-friendly choices,” Oceana’s Baltic Sea office project manager Hanna Paulomäki said in the press release.

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

September 22, 2014 — The following was released by the Gulf Seafood Institute:

Lack of funding of government agencies monitoring fish catches is one of the biggest challenges to sustainability of the seafood industry according to an international industry panel that included the Gulf Seafood Institute’s board member David Krebs. The panel, speaking at the Seafood Expo Asia in Hong Kong, also called for a refocus on fishermen’s livelihoods as well as education of consumers.

 Educating seafood consumers about seafood sustainability is important but can only go so far said Krebs, president of Florida, U.S.-based Ariel Seafoods and a board member of the group representing the Gulf of Mexico seafood distribution chain.

“If you don’t have stringent controls you will have overfishing and boom-bust cycles,” he told SeafoodSource.com.

Read the full release from the Gulf Seafood Institute

 

September 18, 2014 — Tuna magnate Hagen Stehr has disputed at claims that losses to the fishing industry through marine parks will be outweighed by ecotourism.

Mr Stehr said Port Lincoln and many other areas of Eyre Peninsula had become what they were today through fishing and aquaculture.

A report commissioned by the Conservation Council of South Australia, released last week found a potential increase in ecotourism in places like Port Lincoln was expected to outweigh the negative economic impact on the commercial fishing industry when sanctuary zones came into effect on October 1.

However Mr Stehr said the region's reputation as a fishing capital was what created a lot of its tourism revenue.

"Port Lincoln over the last 60 years has been a mecca for the fishing industry," Mr Stehr said.

"People don't come down here for ecotourism, they come for fishing."

Read the full story at the Port Lincoln Times

 

September 18, 2014 — Japan has rejected an attempt by anti-whaling nations, including Australia, to clamp down on its controversial Antarctic "research" kill.

The Japanese Government confirmed its plans to go ahead with a new lethal hunt after losing a vote on a resolution from New Zealand to give the International Whaling Commission a greater role in issuing scientific permits.

The resolution, to translate an International Court of Justice decision outlawing Japan's last whaling program into guidelines for the new program, passed 35 votes to 20 at the IWC meeting on Thursday.

But Japan's IWC Commissioner Joji Morishita immediately said: "we will be submitting a new research plan in (the) Antarctic Ocean so that we can start from 2015".

Read the full story from the Brisbane Times