International & Trade

January 9, 2014 — If most people think human trafficking is all about sexual exploitation, the mistake is understandable. After all, last year’s State Department report on trafficking noted that 85 percent of prosecutions for this crime worldwide — and more than 89 percent of convictions — were for sex-related offenses. But, as an International Labor Organization study found in 2012, more than three-quarters of trafficking victims in the global private economy are exploited for labor. And the world is just starting to learn how much of this is tied to fishing.

Yes, fishing.

Not some reality TV show about stout-hearted seafarers, but the grim world of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Vessels engaged in illegal, unregulated fishing not only steal precious food resources off the coasts of poor countries, engage in drug smuggling and damage marine ecosystems — they also prey on human beings, trapping workers on boats as slaves.

For purposes of indictment, it is hard to beat a conclusion in a 2011 paper by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime: “Perhaps the most disturbing finding of the study was the severity of the abuse of fishers trafficked for the purpose of forced labor on board fishing vessels. These practices can only be described as cruel and inhumane treatment in the extreme. . . . A particularly disturbing facet of this form of exploitation is the frequency of trafficking in children in the fishing industry.”

Mark P. Lagon is a professor at Georgetown University and an adjunct senior fellow for human rights at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was U.S. ambassador at large for human trafficking from 2007 to 2009.

Read the full opinion piece at The Washington Post 

MOSCOW — January 8, 2014 — Having just quieted the furor over its seizure of a Greenpeace International ship in the Arctic, Russia is embroiled in a new dispute with the environmental organization, this time over a Russian fishing trawler accused of poaching in coastal waters off Senegal.

The Oleg Naydenov, a Russian-owned fishing boat, was seized by the Senegalese military on Saturday and taken to the port of Dakar, accused of trawling in the country’s exclusive economic zone.

Senegal’s Fishing Ministry has demanded more than $800,000 in fines, while the Russian government has called for a diplomatic resolution to the standoff.

With talks repeatedly delayed in Senegal through Wednesday evening, the Russian government has blamed Greenpeace for the troubles. Officials in Moscow say the group encouraged Senegal to detain the boat and forced “Senegal to act according to Greenpeace press releases.”

Just three weeks ago, Russia amnestied 30 crew members aboard the Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise who had been detained for more than three months after staging a maritime protest against Russia’s first offshore oil rig in the Arctic.

Read the full story at the New York Times

January 10, 2014 — Hainan’s provincial government has become an increasingly prominent and active player in the South China Sea disputes.  In November 2012, Hainan’s People’s Congress issued new regulations on coastal border security that raised questions about freedom for navigation in the South China Sea.

In November 2013, the same legislative body issued “measures” (banfa, 办法) or rules for the province’s implementation of China’s 2004 fisheries law.  These new rules, which took effect on January 1, raise questions about China’s efforts to exercise jurisdiction over all fishing activities in the disputed South China Sea.

Current concerns focus on Article 35 of Hainan’s new fishing rules. This article states that “foreigners or foreign fishing ships entering sea areas administered by Hainan and engaged in fishery production or fishery resource surveys should receive approval from relevant departments of the State Council.” As the news report announcing the new rules indicated, the “sea areas administered by Hainan” constitute 2,000,000 square kilometers, more than half of the South China Sea. If implemented, the measures would constitute an effort to control fishing in the entire region in a manner that is clearly inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

In assessing the potential implications of these measures for the disputes in the South China Sea, several points bear consideration.  All told, the new measures reflect part of a continuing effort to affirm and reaffirm China’s claims in the South China Sea, but are unlikely in the short to medium term to result in a sustained Chinese effort to control fishing in these vast waters.

Read the full post at The Diplomat

January 8, 2014 — Lobster and crab fisheries on Canada’s East Coast are unfairly maligned in an American report condemning them for endangering the North Atlantic right whale, some industry observers in Halifax said Wednesday.

“A call for a boycott of Canadian seafood is misplaced and would be ineffective if ever implemented,” said Robert Rangeley, a marine expert for the Atlantic region with World Wildlife Federation Canada.

The Los Angeles advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council has called for an American boycott of Canadian seafood producers who ignore United States regulations aimed at protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Lobster and crab fisheries on the East Coast threaten to push the species to near extinction due to negligent fishing methods and regulations, the council said Tuesday at a news conference.

It was part of a council call for boycotts of a range of seafood products that threaten endangered marine mammals around the world.

Rangeley said targeting the East Coast lobster and crab fisheries is a misguided move because there are so many other factors affecting the right whale’s plight.

Read the full story at The Chronicle Herald 

BEIJING, China — January 8, 2014 — In a broadening campaign to enforce its territorial claims, China says it’s beefing up its police powers in the disputed South China Sea and requiring foreign fishermen to ask Beijing’s permission to operate within most of the vast, strategic waterway.

The move, which took effect this month, comes on the heels of the late November announcement of a new air defense zone requiring foreign planes to notify Beijing of flights over a huge swath of the East China Sea, where China is locked in a bitter territorial dispute with Japan.

The steps are prompting concerns that President Xi Jinping’s push to assert China’s role as a regional power could spark a confrontation with neighbors.

‘‘These sort of assertions of sovereignty, or territorial claims, will continue. Xi believes he can’t afford to be seen as soft,’’ said City University of Hong Kong China politics expert Joseph Cheng.

The affected waters account for 2 million of the South China Sea’s 3.5 million square kilometers (1.35 million square miles), a sweeping area encompassing island groups claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and others — and in some cases occupied by their armed forces. The islands sit amid the world’s busiest commercial sea lanes, along with rich fishing grounds and potential oil and gas deposits.

Read the full story by the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

January 8, 2014 — A new report shows fish supplies in the European Union have fallen to their lowest levels since 2006, with imports doing an about-face in 2012 from growth the previous year.

The report, prepared by the EU Fish Processors and Traders Association, included statistics on finfish supply, imports and exports to and from the E.U. from 2001 to 2012, with estimates for 2013. The association said it hopes the report will be used to help set quotas and other fishery management rules.

Read the full story from SeafoodSource

January 5, 2014 — A giant bluefin tuna sold at auction in Japan yesterday for about 95 per cent less than the record-breaking sum paid last year – but Hong Kong diners are unlikely to see too steep a drop in prices for the delicacy.

The 230kg fish was purchased at the Tsukiji market's first auction of the year for 7.36 million yen (HK$545,000), significantly lower than the 155.4 million yen paid for a fish of similar quality in 2013. It is the first time in five years that the auction price has slipped below 10 million yen.

Bluefin is usually the most expensive fish available at Tsukiji, the biggest fish and wholesale seafood market in the world.

Intense bidding last year sent prices skyrocketing and deterred other bidders from vying with the popular Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain.

The same chain won this year's auction. Kiyoshi Kimura, whose Kiyomura Company operates the restaurants, said: "I'm glad that the congratulatory price for this year's bid went back to being reasonable."

The rival Hong Kong-linked Itamae-Sushi chain was top bidder for the biggest bluefin four years in a row until 2012. Founder Ricky Cheng Wai-tao famously became the first non-Japanese to claim top prize at the annual auction after he forked out HK$430,000 for a bluefin in 2008. His last winning bid, in 2011, was for a record HK$3 million bluefin weighing 342kg.

Read the full story at the South China Morning Post

DAKAR, Senegal — January 5, 2013 — Senegal’s armed forces say marines have seized a Russian boat caught fishing illegally off the coast of the West African nation.

Armed forces communications official Abou Thiam said Sunday there were 62 Russians on the boat along with 20 residents of nearby Guinea-Bissau. He said the boat, named the Oleg Naidenov, was found near the border between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and had been escorted to the port in Dakar.

Read the full story by the Associated Press at The Boston Globe 

 

January 3, 2014 — Starting this week, Chile is requiring “full traceability” and certification from foreign commercial fishing boats delivering seafood to its ports.

The latest amendment to the country’s Fisheries Act, which requires certification from auditing entities accredited by Sernapesca, is intended to verify landings data, according to Chile’s Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Subpesca).

"International markets are increasingly demanding regarding the quality of fishery products they buy. Increasing number of countries require certified products and with full traceability, allowing them to know the entire route of the product, from the area where it was harvested, until it reaches the shelves of its supermarkets, through landing sites, processing plants and transportation,” Chile’s National Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture Juan Luis Ansoleaga said in a statement.

In addition, Subpesca lowered 2014 quotas for sardines, anchovies, hake, and certain shrimp species. In southern Chile (regions V-X), anchovy quotas were drastically reduced from 120,000 metric tons (MT) in 2013 to 42,200 MT this year. In the same regions, the sardine quota was slashed from 605,000 MT in 2013 to 373,000 MT in 2014.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

December 23, 2013 —  The execution of the uncle of Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, had its roots in a firefight between forces loyal to Mr. Kim and those supporting the man who was supposed to be his regent, according to accounts that are being pieced together by South Korean and American officials. The clash was over who would profit from North Korea’s most lucrative exports: coal, clams and crabs.

North Korean military forces were deployed to retake control of one of the sources of those exports, the rich crab and clam fishing grounds that Jang Song-thaek, the uncle of the country’s untested, 30-year-old leader, had seized from the military. In the battle for control of the fishing grounds, the emaciated, poorly trained North Korean forces “were beaten — very badly — by Uncle Jang’s loyalists,” according to one official.

The rout of his forces appears to have been the final straw for Mr. Kim, who saw his 67-year-old uncle as a threat to his authority over the military and, just as important, to his own family’s dwindling sources of revenue. Eventually, at Mr. Kim’s order, the North Korean military came back with a larger force and prevailed. Soon, Mr. Jang’s two top lieutenants were executed.

The two men died in front of a firing squad. But instead of rifles, the squad used antiaircraft machine guns, a form of execution that according to South Korean intelligence officials and news media was similar to the one used against some North Korean artists in August. Days later, Mr. Jang himself was publicly denounced, tried and executed, by more traditional means.

Given the opaqueness of North Korea’s inner circle, many details of the struggle between Mr. Kim and his uncle remain murky. But what is known suggests that while Mr. Kim has consolidated control and eliminated a potential rival, it has been at a huge cost: The open warfare between the two factions has revealed a huge fracture inside the country’s elite over who pockets the foreign currency — mostly Chinese renminbi — the country earns from the few nonnuclear exports its trading partners desire.

Read the full story at the New York Times