International & Trade

April 8, 2013 — This was supposed to be a landmark year for the European seafood industry with the long-awaited implementation of a new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), fundamentally designed to make the EU’s fisheries more dynamic and stocks more sustainable. Unfortunately, the CFP’s arrival is being overshadowed by the long-running mackerel overfishing crisis in the Northeast Atlantic.

While the stock has moved farther north and west into Faroese and Icelandic waters following its diet of small fish, crustaceans and squid, the high levels of autonomous quotas set by both coastal states in the years since have been strongly challenged by the EU and Norway, who for their part have stuck close to their historical joint catch share of around 90 percent of the entire mackerel quota.

This standoff, which has started to draw comparisons to the “Cod Wars” of the 1950s and 1970s, meant that while the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) had recommended a total mackerel catch of 639,000 metric tons (MT) for 2012, the actual landings by the coastal states is estimated at 920,000 MT.

Four years of consistently high volumes have proved too much for non-governmental organizations to stomach. As a result, 2012 brought the suspension of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. And this year, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) downgraded it from its “Fish to Eat” list, saying it should now only be consumed occasionally amid concerns that negotiations to introduce new catch allowances had failed to bring a sustainable coastal state agreement.

Read the full story from Seafood Business Magazine

April 7, 2013 — A grassroots organization for lobster fishermen has a new president and a new plan.

The lobster fishery “is the backbone of the economy of our area,” John Crandall Nickerson, the newly elected president of the 1688 Professional Lobster Fishermen Association, said Thursday.

He takes up the post from founder James Mood, who got the organization going in 2012, when lobster prices were so low the group called for captains to tie up their boats and demand a better wage.

Low lobster prices result in untold woe in the communities surrounding lobster-rich southwestern Nova Scotia, but does going out on strike really help?

“Strikes might gain you attention, … but all it does is pit one fisherman against another fisherman,” Nickerson said. “You cause a lot of bad feelings, so I don’t feel that that’s the way I would … suggest that it should go.”

Nickerson has plenty of experince in the field. He has fished for lobster, driven truckloads of lobster to market and worked as a processing plant manager. Now he sells lobster packing materials.

Read the full story at the Halifax Chronicle Herald

 

 

April 5, 2013 — The first trial of a Community Supported Fishery (CSF) in the United Kingdom is expected to get underway on 10 April. Called “Catchbox,” the initiative is using a 12-week pilot in the south coast city of Brighton, utilizing the local under-10 meter fleet’s catch to ascertain whether nationwide roll-out is feasible.

The not-for-profit cooperative has been set up by U.S.-based marine NGO SeaWeb with U.K. government funding, and there are high hopes that this variation on the CSF initiative that has boosted the fortunes of several struggling small boat fisheries in the U.S. could do a similar job for beleaguered U.K. inshore fishermen.

The service has a flat rate of GBP 6 (EUR 7.11/USD 9.12) per kg of round fish (filleting is extra) and there is a GBP 10 (EUR 11.85/USD 15.19) membership fee. As in the U.S., fees are paid upfront and the members have no say in what fish they receive each week — it will depend on what the fishermen have been catching, so some weeks the catch will be worth more than GBP 6, some weeks less.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

 

 

April 2, 2013 — A recently launched Southeast African partnership to crack down on illegal fishing in the Indian Ocean continues to produce early victories. On March 26, the government of the Seychelles Islands denied port entry to the South Korean tuna fishing vessel, Premier, due to suspected illegal fishing. The purse seiner was attempting to come to port in Victoria to offload its catch.

This bold step by the Seychelles follows a string of related actions by African countries, including the uncovering of forged documents that led several Southeast African nations to deny fishing licenses to the Premier. Five countries in the region – Comoros, Kenya, Mozambique, Seychelles and the United Republic of Tanzania – are members of FISH-i Africa, a project supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Stop Illegal Fishing, a not-for-profit group committed to ending the devastating impacts of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in all African fisheries. FISH-i Africa is intended to boost cooperation and communication in the region to help those governments identify, monitor and initiate enforcement actions against suspected illegal fishers.

In denying the Premier port access, the Seychelles cited a provision in the Port State Measures Resolution of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) – the fisheries management organization with jurisdiction over the area – that a State may block a vessel from landing or transhipment of fish if the State has “reasonable grounds” to believe that the vessel was engaged in IUU fishing.

Read the full story from the Pew Environment Group

 

 

April 4, 2013 — Chinese fishing vessels are taking a huge unreported global catch, fisheries researchers have found. Instead of an average 368,000 tonnes a year that China reported to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, its fleets hauled in as much as 4.6 million tonnes, the scientists estimate.

The group, led by Canadian Daniel Pauly, said China was taking 198,000 tonnes of fish a year out of Oceania. This is much greater than its reported western Pacific catch, almost exclusively of tuna, of 105,000 tonnes in 2011.

China has rapidly expanded into Pacific fisheries, with 241 China-flagged vessels approved to fish by the Forum Fisheries Agency, more than doubling in a few years, according to Greenpeace.

''It's a grave situation,'' said Greenpeace Oceans campaigner Nathaniel Pelle. ''China is turning its fishing attention everywhere.''

Dr Pauly's group reconstructed catches from 2000-11, finding Chinese ships focused on West Africa, where as much as 2.9 million tonnes a year was being taken.

Read the full story at The Age

April 3, 2013 — Scientists claim customers are unwittingly eating pollock or Asian catfish thinking it is cod or haddock.

They said seven per cent of the fish sold in the UK is being mislabelled, leading to cheaper varieties turning up on dinner plates.

The study, by the University of Salford, claims the root of the problem may be fraud and has prompted calls for tighter regulation of the fish industry.

Marine biologist and study leader Stefano Mariani said: “Consumers should be able to go to a shop and know they are eating what they paid for.

“We noted that there were some suppliers that were consistently handling fish that was proven to be mislabelled, which suggests that a lot of mislabelling occurs before the fish gets delivered to the supermarket.”

He called for tougher regulation and tighter rules on labelling so fish can be traced to source.

Read the full story at the Express

 

 

April 2, 2013 — Jason Whooley, CEO of BIM, the Irish Sea Fisheries Board, is on a mission to change the country’s seafood industry to help it become more competitive, and in doing so to open up new market opportunities.

Irish vessels land more than 40 commercial species and the value of the catch in 2012 was GBP 822 million (USD 1.2 million, EUR 968,000). Two-thirds of this is exported, with 67 percent selling to traditional markets in Europe, which are currently static or declining.  Of that, 14 percent goes to Nigeria, 4 percent to Asia, 2 percent to Russia and just 0.2 percent to the United States.   

“There are great opportunities on the wider global market, but a recent analysis of the country’s processing capacity showed that the small size and scale of the majority of companies is hampering such development. To turn this round, we have been working on a new long-term strategy, that will enable companies to reach out and grab new opportunities,” explained Whooley. 

“The greatest prospects lie in supplying fast growing markets with large centres of population, especially in Asia,” said Whooley. “Our new strategy will help companies to collaborate and to set up joint venture operations and partnerships to enable them to operate competitively in this arena.”

The aim is to scale up to have 1 to 2 entities in each of the shellfish, pelagic, salmon and whitefish sectors with a turnover in excess of EUR 50 million (USD 64 million), supported by a range of smaller companies.  

A collective route to market scheme was launched in January and offers grant aid and expert advice on achieving collaboration and increasing competitiveness in export markets.

The scheme follows a pilot undertaken in 2012, in which BIM encouraged the set up of two seafood collectives, which are currently developing new business links in Asia. 

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com 

BEIJING (AP) — March 26, 2013 — China said its navy fired flares at Vietnamese fishing boats but denied Hanoi’s claim that a vessel was damaged in an incident that is highlighting tensions over disputed South China Sea islands and surrounding waters believed to hold a wealth of oil and natural gas deposits.

Sailors on board a Chinese navy craft fired two flares at four Vietnamese boats that had earlier failed to respond to whistles, shouts and signal flags demanding that they cease fishing and leave the area, which China claims as its territorial waters, the Defense Ministry said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

It said the ships were fishing illegally in Chinese waters off the Paracel Islands on March 20 and both flares burned out in the air. Chinese forces did not fire weapons and no Vietnamese boats caught fire.

Vietnam, which also claims the Paracels, said one of the boat’s cabin’s caught fire in the incident, which it called ‘‘very serious.’’ The government lodged a formal complaint with the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, seeking compensation for the alleged damage and punishment of the Chinese sailors responsible.

The fishing boat was near the Paracels when an unidentified Chinese vessel chased it and fired the flare, the Vietnamese government said in a statement issued late Monday.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

 

 

March 13, 2012 — Five species of sharks and two species of manta rays will now be subject to international trade regulation under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, a move that could save these threatened species from total collapse.

The required two-thirds of the 177 CITES member governments voted to protect these animals—the oceanic whitetip and porbeagle sharks, three species of hammerhead sharks, and the two species of manta rays—marking an increase in the number of sharks protected by CITES from three to eight species.

Read the full story at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

March 18, 2013 — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for establishing the world’s largest protected marine area in Antarctica and urged stronger global safeguards for oceans.

Kerry and New Zealand’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Moore, announced yesterday a joint New Zealand-U.S. proposal to establish a Marine Protected Area, or MPA, in the Ross Sea, a 1.9 million-square-mile area off the Antarctic coast.

Adelie penguins running along the ice edge in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. The celebrated penguin colony is facing extinction due to a couple of massive icebergs which have since 2000 blocked the sea ice around Ross Island and McMurdo Sound, preventing the Adelie penguins of Cape Royds from having direct access to the sea and food. Photographer: Josh Landis/AFP via Getty Images

“When it comes to the Ross Sea and Antarctica, we’re not going to wait for a crisis to take action,” Kerry said in Washington at a screening of “The Last Ocean,” a documentary by New Zealand filmmaker Peter Young.

Preserving the world’s oceans “is not just an environmental issue, it’s a security issue,” Kerry said. “The entire system is interdependent and we toy with that at our peril.”

The U.S., the European Union and 23 other countries are set to decide in July whether to approve permanent protections for the Ross Sea and for a second area in East Antarctica, or to allow large-scale industrial fishing to continue.

An attempt to reach agreement on establishing a protected area in the Ross Sea stalled in November at a meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, a panel established by international convention in 1982. While some areas of the Ross Sea would be protected under the joint U.S.-New Zealand proposal, the plan would still allow fishing in the most productive areas, said Young, who called that “a disappointment.”

Read the full story from Bloomberg