International & Trade

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — November 10, 2012 — After defeating a proposal in 2010 to ban the export of an endangered fish that is a key ingredient of sushi, Japan and Asian nations argued it should be left to quota-setting international fisheries bodies to bring the species back from the brink.

Two years on, their strategy for rebuilding stocks of Atlantic Bluefin tuna appears to be working.

Thanks in part to a sharp reduction in the amount of fish legally caught, the bluefin population in the Atlantic is on the rebound though ‘‘the magnitude and speed of the increase vary considerably,’’ according to a stock assessment by scientists released ahead of the annual International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas which starts Monday in Morocco.

‘‘We have been working and campaigning on the issue of bluefin tuna for 12 years so to finally see signs of a recovery trend is good news’’, said Sergi Tudela, head of the fisheries program at WWF Mediterranean.

‘‘We need to see how the recovery trend progresses over time,’’ he said. ‘‘In the meantime, we cannot lower our guard, management efforts need to be maintained and even strengthened. Bluefin tuna fisheries management will not become a success overnight.’’

Environmentalists are calling on the 48 nations in ICCAT to endorse scientific recommendations to keep the current quotas of 14,200 tons (12,900 metric tons) a year intact for the next three years. They will also be pushing for increased protection for other threatened species, including shortfin mako and porbeagle sharks as well as blue marlin and white marlin.

‘‘This year is really a test year for ICCAT,’’ said Amanda Nickson, director of the Global Tuna Conservation Campaign at the Pew Environment Group.

 

Read the full story from the AP at the Boston Globe

 

 

November 8, 2012 — As the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meeting approaches, the EU decides to leave open the possibility of a quota increase for bluefin tuna and to propose protection for threatened sharks, states Oceana.

The European Union has resumed negotiations on a common EU position for the next ICCAT meeting, which takes place next week in Agadir (Morocco). Scientists have called for a precautionary approach to Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, which remains overexploited. The EU has agreed on the possibility of increasing the quota within scientific limits, up to 13500 tons, and it will also propose stringent measures for threatened shark species.

“We welcome the unprecedented rational and cautious approach taken by EU Member States, but we cannot help but fear the consequences of proposing any increase in the bluefin quota,” stated Maria José Cornax, Fisheries Campaign Manager of Oceana Europe. “To do so means opening a Pandora’s box, because it not only could fuel third countries´ calls for unsustainable quota increases, but it could also jeopardise EU proposals for shark conservation, which are often affected by bluefin political discussions.”

In relation to sharks, the EU has agreed to propose new measures for the management of threatened species: a ban on catching porbeagle sharks, and the establishment of a catch limit for the vulnerable shortfin mako shark, which is commercially fished but unmanaged. In addition, the EU will defend measures to ensure compliance with rules on shark fishing and data reporting.

Dr Allison Perry, shark expert and Oceana Europe marine wildlife scientist, welcomed the EU’s leadership on shark management and conservation, and encouraged ICCAT CPCs to endorse the European shark proposals: “Real management of Atlantic porbeagles and shortfin makos is long overdue. We trust that the Contracting Parties to ICCAT will finally accept their responsibility for managing these two shark species, both of which are highly migratory, already threatened, and among the most vulnerable sharks in the Atlantic to being overfished.”

 

Read the full story here

 

 

November 8, 2012 — At a press conference in Rome on November 8, the Pontifical Council for Migrants outlined plans for the 23rd annual congress of the Apostleship of the Sea, to be held at the Vatican on November 19-23, with over 400 participants expected from 71 different countries.

Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, pointed out that pastors and chaplains working with seafarers face a number of special problems: the fact that fishing is “one of the most dangerous professions in the world,” the frequency of illegal fishing, the long voyages that keep sailors away from their homes, the involvement of some shipping firms with human trafficking, the danger of piracy, and the exploitation of some poor sailors by shippers.

 

Read the full story here

 

 

October 31, 2012 — In bright blue body paint, members of Greenpeace hope encourage Congress to put scientific regulations on fishing quotas.

In a rather bizarre environmental protest, a crowd of 50 semi-nude demonstrators covered in blue body paint greeted Chilean politicians Tuesday outside the National Congress in Valparaiso.

Disguised as fish, members of Greenpeace Chile hoped to encourage politicians to consider sustainability when determining Chile’s new fishing law.

Protesters were concerned about how Chile’s new fishing law, which would attempt to prevent overexploitation of the fish population. The protesters take issue with the law’s emphasis on counting fish at the time of capture rather than at the time of docking.

“There is a significant difference between the moment of  the catch and the landing,” the organization explained in a statement. “The second number does not reflect the amount that is actually fished.” 

The number of fish registered as caught is documented once a boat reaches port, not in the actual moment of the catch out at sea. Greenpeace insists that before a boat docks, many dead fish are thrown overboard if quotas have already been met, therefore skewing the effectiveness of quotas and failing to protect endangered fish populations.

“In the next few weeks, senators have the opportunity to discuss clauses in the new law one by one,” Samuel Levia, organizer of Greenpeace Chile, said. “This will permit them to vote with a conscience about recuperating the fish population in Chile.”

Based on a study conducted by the Undersecretary of Fishing in 2010, 13 of the 22 kinds of commercial fish are classified as either highly exploited or overexploited.

Chile’s new fishing law was passed in the Chamber of Deputies in July and is currently making its way through the Senate to be voted on in mid-November. If passed, the law would in go into effect January 2013 and stand for the next 20 years.

 

Read the full story in the Santiago Times 

 

 

October 25, 2012 — Through a C$50,000 investment under the Provincial Government’s Fisheries Research Grant Programme, researchers at the Marine Institute's Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research will continue a satellite-tagging project to gain further valuable insight into Atlantic Cod. The research, coordinated by Dr George Rose, will continue this fall in the Bonavista Corridor.

“Dr Rose and his team of scientists at the Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research have successfully developed a method to tag and track cod by satellite off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador,” said Derrick Dalley, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

“Due to the success of the project aboard the RV Celtic Explorer this year, our government is pleased to support this initiative for a second phase. The success of this experiment thus far and its potential to unravel some of the distribution and migration mysteries about Atlantic Cod is a sound investment in the future of our groundfish industry as it will contribute to improved management of the various cod stocks found off our coast.”

Satellite tags store latitude and longitude, depth and temperature data for one year or more, measured each hour, then release themselves from the fish and transmit their data via satellite back to a research station. Each tag costs approximately $4,000, which includes the data reception from the satellite and the initial processing.

The funding provided in 2010 was used to purchase approximately 14 such satellite tags and to develop the method in which they would be used. The project was completed during the RV Celtic Explorer survey in the spring of 2012. The funding announced today will provide for the purchase of 10 to 12 more satellite tags and the data reception costs. Dr. Rose and his team will deploy the tags during the spring and summer of 2013 aboard the RV Celtic Explorer and the RV Gecho II.

“Satellite tags are a new technology that has become an invaluable tool for researchers in studying the behavior and inshore/offshore migration patterns of fish species such as Atlantic cod,” said Tom Brown, Administrative Director, Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research. “We welcome the opportunity to expand our satellite tagging project allowing us to gather even more data about Atlantic cod and the ecosystem in which it lives.”

 

Read the full story here

 

 

October 25, 2012 — Nova Scotia is missing the boat on the potentially lucrative development of a grey seal industry, some proponents said Tuesday.

“The grey seal population is now totally out of control and it’s because we’ve failed to find a market so we could do something with the animals,” Robert Courtney, president of the North of Smokey-Inverness South Fishermen’s Association, said in an interview.

Courtney, from Dingwall, Victoria County, made his comments as a cull of about 70,000 grey seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was endorsed by the Senate fisheries committee in Ottawa on Tuesday.

There are estimates the herd has swelled to more than 350,000 animals. Sable Island is a major breeding ground, but the herd around Hay Island, which is off the eastern coast of Cape Breton near Scatarie Island, is growing rapidly, said Courtney.

About 400 dead grey seals were found on Hay Island in March of this year. Courtney said it is distressing that the implications of these fatalities on the area’s natural habitat and on other species was not fully investigated.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials want the gulf herd culled by about 70,000 to contribute to the recovery of the cod fishery.

Courtney said efforts to get a grey seal hunt started in the Hay Island area of northern Cape Breton have foundered.

There are markets around the world for meat, fur and oil from the grey seal, he said, but efforts to access these markets have not gained traction in Nova Scotia for several reasons, so a harvest of the animals makes little sense.

Good market prospects in China and Russia collapsed last year, along with hopes for a grey seal harvest in Hay Island area, Courtney said.

The grey seal offers tremendous commercial potential, even if it is never developed to the scale of the harp seal industry, said Shannon Lewis, executive director of the Northeast Coast Sealers Co-operative, in Fleurs de Lys, N.L.

“There is a future for the seal industry, and it is not based on fur,” said Lewis.

He said there is potential market opportunities in the food and food-supplement (omega-3 fatty acids) industries and even in the field of medical esthetics (collagen injections).

 

Read the full story in the Chronicle Herald

 

 

October 25, 2012 — As Norman Black arrived for work at 7 a.m. at the new fish processing plant n the village of Lax Kw'allaams arlier this week, he couldn't elp but break into a grin.

There, at the dock, was the 33-metre trawler Nemesis, as its skipper had promised, with 50 tonnes of groundfish in its hold – the first fish to arrive at the dock in more than a year.

Black, the general manager of the state-of-the art plant, was on the dock with 75 other people to witness history. The Nemesis was carrying more than a cargo of fish. It was carrying the hopes of the 800 residents of Lax Kw'allaams, north of Prince Rupert, who have built what is arguably the most modern fish processing and freezing facility in Canada, revitalizing a north coast industry that has been shrinking for decades.

"We were speechless when they started unloading the fish," Black said. "It was pure excitement and joy. Our operations manager, Pam Tait, came down and let out a whoop that was heard across the bay.

"These are the first fish delivered to this plant. And for the 12 months we had the plant under construction, there was no smell of fish. And guess what? Today we smell of fish. It's the smell of money."

All the fish will be frozen by the end of the day. By the end of the month, it will be aboard a cargo ship on its way to China.

The new fish plant attracted such attention because the canneries that once dotted the coast have long since vanished and the processing plants in nearby Prince Rupert have either consolidated operations or closed. Lax Kw'allaams, formerly Port Simpson, had a cannery that was replaced 20 years ago with a processing plant that operated only seasonally.

Black said the First Nation saw an opportunity. Freezing technology had advanced to the point that groundfish like turbot, which have a short shelf-life, can be marketed if they are frozen quickly after being caught. The fishing grounds in Dixon Entrance were a short run away. The community had a trained workforce of fishcut-ters and, said Black, "we saw that markets around the world are getting hungry for what used to be called under-utilized species that are, after all, protein. The world is hungry."

The final piece in completing the business plan involved the Port of Prince Rupert, where a cargo ship bound for China departs weekly , where the flash-frozen fish is processed into seafood such as fish sticks.

To finance the processing plant, the First Nation raised $11 million, using for seed money its own cash earned in other business enterprises. It also received $1.25 million from the Coast Opportunity Funds, a $116-million fund set up by government and NGOs to develop sustainable coastal economies. The money was invested in an automated fish-cutting machine that makes it economical to filet small bottomfish like Dover sole for the fresh fish market, and in sophisticated freezing equipment.

 

Read the full story at the Vancouver Sun

 

 

October 24, 2012 — European Council of fisheries ministers have reached an agreement on the partial general approach for the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF).

This new funding mechanism, which will replace the current European Fisheries Fund in 2014, will seal the future of the European fishing sector until 2020.

But Oceana says it is appalled by the outcome and by the reckless attitude of the Member States, who, by agreeing to this text, have put at risk both the future of the fisheries industry and the coastal communities that depend on it.

“The dire economic state of European fisheries has turned the majority of fisheries ministers from decision makers into fundraisers, aiming at getting their hands on as many subsidy schemes as possible,” commented Xavier Pastor, Executive Director of Oceana Europe. “Instead of realising that the direct fleet subsidies of the current financial mechanism have been a failure, they cling to old habits, the very same that have led to the economic, social and environmental crisis of fisheries.”

The politically charged discussions started on  Monday, October 22 in a stand-off between Member States trying to water down the Commission’s proposal as much as possible and those holding onto the much needed reform set out by the Commission. The former have won as the partial general approach not only supports subsidies that fuel overfishing, such as funding to replace engines on board a fishing vessel, but also puts measures back on the table, such as the scrapping of boats and temporary cessation, that had been excluded by the Commission because they were misused by Member States.
 
”Reintroducing these subsidies, which have been proven to be ineffective, will only succeed in wasting taxpayer money again and again and increasing the pressure on fish stocks” added Vanya Vulperhorst, Policy advisor at Oceana Europe.  “This stubborn refusal to move away from the status quo is a disgrace that brings into question the need to waste more time reforming the Common Fisheries Policy.”

 

Read the full story here

 

 

October 24, 2012 — In 2012 the Council of Ministers reached a general approach, both on the basic regulation and on the Common Market Organisation (CMO).

The general approach is not an official step in the co-decision procedure, so it does not really bind the member states, but it is taking a position or an orientation toward further work.

In general, the CMO represents "… better targeted intervention, a stronger role for the producer organizations to make them central, and key actors in a decentralized policy and better labeling," said Franz Lamplamair, advisor for fisheries policy at the European Commission. "Most of it is there" in the results of the Parliament's first reading and the general approach of the Council, he added.

And while the European Commission had proposed a voluntary, softer approach on eco-labeling, the European Parliament has proposed a new EU scheme.

"If there is a need because there are so many different and conflicting claims, you can set criteria at a European level. In our view an EU scheme was not the best idea," said Lamplamair.

At the Parliament level, also 'positive news' witnessed for the market organization legislation proposal. According to the Commission, Parliament has already finalized its first reading and voted Struan Stevenson's report on 20 June in the Committee, and voted in plenary on 12 September.

At the European Parliament level a rapporteur is appointed for each proposal from the European Commission and drafts the report that is put to vote in the committee responsible.

Germany's Ulrike Rodust presented the draft report on the basic regulation to Parliament in May. More than 2,500 amendments to the report were tabled by Members of European Parliament (MEPs). As a result, while a vote was due in the Fisheries Committee in October, this has been delayed until November.

"The rapporteur is working very hard to find compromises to reach the basis for a vote on Committee," said Lamplamair.

On the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), the general approach is foreseen for the October Council meeting, taking place in the week of 22 October. But Franz warned of a time issue, with recent meetings between the ambassadors to the EU, who prepare all the Council of Ministers' meetings, suggesting there's a lot of issues that they couldn't solve.

For the EMFF, the report rapporteur is France's Alain Cadec, and the timelines there are slipping as well. The deadline for amendment to his draft report is December. "We can imagine it will take a few months, we can expect there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of amendments. So we will slip well into 2013," said Lamplamair.

 

Read the full story here

 

 

October 23, 2012 — Catches of the four main species in the South China Sea – the Japanese Spanish mackerel, eel and the large and small yellow croaker – have plummeted.

In mid-September, the fishing season got under way as usual in Ningbo, on China’s east coast, after the three-month season when fishing is forbidden. Over 2,000 steel-hulled boats headed out to sea. But, on board, there was little cause for optimism.

“For the last two years profits from coastal fishing have been low,” explained Chen Jiming, chief engineer at Hainan Fisheries Research Institute. “Early estimates show that, with increasing fuel and labour costs, about 80% of fishermen will suffer losses without a diesel subsidy or similar support.”

Chen’s comments have been backed up higher up the chain. Speaking at the first Annual World Ocean Congress in Dalian city on September 9, head of the China Fisheries Association Qi Jingfa said that China leads the world in production and trade of aquatic products, but is weaker than other nations when it came to ocean fishing. Catches from China’s coastal waters have been static for years.

Closed seasons for fishing in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea have recently ended, but both experts and fishing boat captains predict overfishing and pollution will mean boats setting to sea this year will see little in the way of profit, and may even suffer losses.

 

Read the full story here