International & Trade

June 14, 2012 — Australia has created the world’s largest network of marine reserves and will restrict fishing as well as oil and gas exploration in a major step to safeguard the environment and access to food.

With the expansion announced Thursday, Australia will protect 3.1 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) of ocean. The reserves will encompass a third of the island continent’s territorial waters, which sustain more than 4,000 species of fish.

Australia is surrounded by the world’s third-largest ocean territory, which provides important habitat to threatened species of whales, sharks and turtles as well as spectacular corals.

Previously only 800,000 square kilometers (310,000 square miles) of Australian waters were protected. According to the Protect Planet Ocean website, only 2.85 million square kilometers (1.1 million square miles) of oceans worldwide were within marine protection areas before.

Environmental group WWF welcomed the 2.3 million-square-kilometer expansion as a “major advance in marine conservation’’ that hopefully will inspire other countries at the United Nations’ Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, which is under way in Rio de Janeiro.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said the government expects to pay an estimated 100 million Australian dollars ($100 million) to compensate the fishing industry for new restrictions that will take effect late this year, with only a minor impact on most types of fishing.

While the public will be invited to lodge complaints before the sanctuaries are enshrined in law, the center-left government faces no hurdles in imposing the new restrictions under existing environmental laws.

But the conservative opposition has vowed to review the boundaries if it wins government at elections next year — an outcome that opinion polls agree is likely.

“I am instinctively against anything that damages the rights of recreational fishing … and anything that will further damage the commercial fishing industry and tourism industry,’’ opposition leader Tony Abbott said.

 

Read the full story in the Boston Globe 

 

 

 

July 9, 2012 – The United Nations food agency Monday urged countries to effectively manage their fisheries and aquaculture sectors to help ensure the food security for millions of people, warning that failing to do so would have serious environmental, economic and social consequences.

“Fisheries and aquaculture are making a vital contribution to global food security and economic growth,” the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Árni M. Mathiesen, said in a news release. “However, the sector faces an array of problems, including poor governance, weak fisheries management regimes, conflicts over the use of natural resources, the persistent use of poor fishery and aquaculture practices.

“It is further undermined by a failure to incorporate the priorities and rights of small-scale fishing communities and the injustices relating to gender discrimination and child labour,” Mathiesen added.

According to the latest issue of its report on the matter, entitled 'The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2012', world fisheries and aquaculture produced a record 128 million tons of fish for human food last year – an average of 18.4 kilograms per person. In addition, the report notes that the sector is a source of income for 55 million people.

It goes on to note that the primary threats undermining the food and nutrition security potential of fisheries and aquaculture result principally from ineffective management coupled with poor conservation of habitats – and states that a transition towards people-centred approaches is required to enhance the sector’s contribution to food and livelihoods security.

In the report, FAO calls on governments to boost their efforts to ensure sustainable fisheries around the world, noting that many of the marine fish stocks monitored by the agency are under great pressure as nearly 30 per cent of them are overexploited, and 57 per cent are fully exploited, meaning that they are at their maximum sustainable production.

Read the full story here.

 

 

July 5, 2012 – South Korea plans to resume hunting whales for research purposes, officials said Thursday, drawing immediate protests from non-whaling nations and environment groups that suspect the plans may be a cover for commercial whaling.

South Korean officials conveyed the plan to the International Whaling Commission during an IWC meeting this week in Panama, according to Seoul’s Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The whaling would be aimed only at studying the types and amounts of fish whales eat as fishermen complain that an increasing number of whales are consuming large amounts of fish stocks, ministry officials said.

The IWC gives member states sovereign rights to scientific whaling but South Korea will still give up its whaling plans if the international organization rejects them, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Environmental groups decried the South Korean plans as a back-door effort to make the country only the fourth to allow commercial whaling, which has been banned since 1986. Various exceptions have allowed Japan, Iceland and Norway to hunt whales anyway. Indigenous groups in several countries also whale as allowed under international rules.

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

 

 

June 29, 2012 — Marine Scotland data that has revealed aquaculture companies have culled over 300 seals during 2011 and 2012, a number of controversial eco-activists are trying to encourage a boycott of Scottish farmed salmon.

The Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture (GAAIA) and Save Our Seals Fund (SOSF) are now calling on the US Government to ban imports of farmed salmon and for retailers to stop sourcing from ‘seal unfriendly’ Scottish salmon farms.

“Scotland’s seal killers should hang their heads in shame and hang up their guns,” said Don Staniford of GAAIA. “Supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco which condone the killing of seals by selling ‘seal-unfriendly’ farmed salmon have blood on their hands.”

John Robins, Secretary of SOSF in Scotland, said: “We have asked the US Department of Commerce to use existing US marine mammal protection laws to ban the import of salmon from Scottish floating factory fish farms. I hope the US Government can force Scottish salmon farmers to install seal exclusion nets, something the Scottish Government and the RSPCA have disgracefully failed to do. When you buy Scottish farmed salmon, even RSPCA-endorsed Scottish farmed salmon, you pay for bullets to shoot seals."

According to SOSF the Scottish Government admitted that 80 per cent of the nation’s salmon farms which were granted licences to shoot seals did not have anti-predator nets. GAAIA has now appealed to the Scottish Information Commissioner following Marine Scotland’s refusal to name the particular sites where the seals were killed.

“Consumers, chefs and retailers should boycott all Scottish farmed salmon from companies who support a shoot-to-kill policy,” continued Staniford. “It is a sad state of affairs when trigger-happy salmon farmers refuse to pay for predator nets and resort to the rifle as a first not last resort.  Scotland’s seals are paying a high price for cheap Scottish farmed salmon.”

However, in response to these accusations, Scott Landsburgh, chief executive of Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation, said: “We have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to protect our fish against persistent aggressive predators. A rogue seal can cause enormous suffering to thousands of fish and removal is only considered as a last resort.

 

Read the full story on Fishupdate.com

 

 

July 2, 2012 — The EU says it is committed to ending overfishing. DW visited a thriving fishing community in Cornwall where new regulations on fishing practices are being seen as a way to safeguard the future.

Beam trawlers, long liners and small open boats used for hand-lining mackerel bob on the water in Newlyn, a fishing port in Cornwall, England. The smell of sea salt hangs in the air. A fish market near the harbor has just closed and men in yellow boots scrub away fish guts.

"For every fisherman that goes to sea, there's seven people who work on shore to help support the industry," one fisherman told DW. "It's vital. It's what Newlyn is."

Newlyn is home to one of the largest fishing fleets in Britain and contributes millions of pounds to the local economy each year. But to keep profits up, crews sort the fish before returning to shore. Lower value fish gets tossed back into the water, even though it is already dead.

How discarding works

In the EU, fish that are discarded do not have to be counted against quotas. Conservation groups say two-thirds of fish captured in European waters are thrown back dead into the sea. They blame the EU's common fisheries policy, under which fleets are awarded a quota for each species they may catch. When fishing crews catch more than their quota allows, they throw the excess back.

The practice of discarding edible fish results in the waste of more than a million tons of fish in the EU each year. The fish may be of a size or species that commands too low a price on the market. Fishing crews sometimes toss fish back into the water because they have slime or abrasions that could cause damage the rest of the fish in the haul. Sometimes, there is simply a lack of space on board and target species take precedence over lower value or non-target species.

Discarding is widely considered to be unethical and a waste of resources. Following marathon talks in Luxembourg earlier this month, the European Commission drafted a compromise agreement to phase-in a ban on discards from 2014.

 

Read the full story in Deutsche Welle

 

June 29, 2012 –  Controversial changes to Canada’s fisheries laws hit home for public servants Wednesday as the government announced it will reduce staff and centralize habitat offices.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is reducing to 15 the number of habitat offices across the country from its current level of 63.

In Nova Scotia, habitat operations will be centralized in Dartmouth.

Habitat officers oversee environmental assessments. The government expects fewer of these assessments as a result changes made to the Fisheries Act in the 2012 budget. (The act used to require assessments on any project that impacted any fish habitat. Now the law only covers areas where a commercial or recreational fishery is affected.)

As a result, the government will cut 130 habitat officers across the country. Fisheries spokeswoman Erin Filliter wouldn’t say how many positions are being cut in Nova Scotia.

Filliter did say the number of conservation officers across the country would not be reduced, though she did not say how many conservation officers are employed by the department.

She said habitat and conservation officers have similar jobs, with the habitat officers mostly covering inland areas and conservation officers generally covering coastal regions.

Read the full story at the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

 

 

June 25, 2012 – The catch from six small fishing boats, the first to resume commercial fishing in the waters off Fukushima since last year’s nuclear catastrophe, went on sale at local supermarkets on Monday, raising hopes and concerns in a region struggling to return to something like normal.

For now, the catch is limited to octopus and whelk, a type of sea snail, because those species are thought to trap fewer radioactive particles in their bodies. Still, local residents said it was a milestone for a vital source of food and employment in the region.

“The past year has been long and hard, but the thing is, I never once gave up on being a fisherman,” Toru Takahashi, 57, said before sailing early Saturday from Matsukawa, about 30 miles north of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. But the fishermen’s hope to resume working the waters they fished for decades is causing unease all around. Experts say the effects of the disaster on the ocean are still not fully understood.

Hours before the boats set out, the central government hastily banned Fukushima’s fishermen from selling 36 types of fish other than octopus and whelk. Until then, there had been no explicit ban on fishing near Fukushima, because the region’s fishermen had voluntarily suspended work after the tsunami and nuclear disaster. In return, they have received about $125 million from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power.

“We are not opposed to fishermen in Fukushima starting to fish again, if they can show that what they are catching does not contain high levels of radiation,” said Yasunobu Matsui, a government food safety official. “We just don’t want them to make a mistake and catch the wrong kind.”

Read the full story at the New York Times.

 

 

June 25, 2012 – When the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) unveiled its London 2012 Food Vision in December 2009, it made the commitment that all fish served at official events would be “demonstrably sustainable.” It was the first pledge of this nature ever to be made by a major international sporting event and one that presented U.K. seafood suppliers with a billion-dollar conundrum: With an estimated 14 million meals projected to be served during the games across 40 locations, where was all the sustainable fish going to come from?

At that time, officials hadn’t defined what was meant by “demonstrably sustainable” and seafood was just one food category on a list of many. Those suppliers that were looking to steal a march on their rivals only had a “Benchmark Standard” to go by that stated all fish must be sustainable according to the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). 

Back in 2009, many felt the initial policy descriptions were too vague and open to misinterpretation. Fortunately, greater clarity and purchasing confidence came via Sustain — the alliance for better food and farming; along with Good Catch, which provides practical information on sustainable seafood for chefs, caterers and restaurateurs; and the MCS with its traffic light rating system, whereby “fish to eat” are rated 1 (light green) and 2 (pale green) and “fish to avoid” are rated 5 (red). 

Laky Zervudachi, sustainability director for fresh fish supplier Direct Seafoods, explains it’s now clear to everyone that the policy requires all wild fish supplied to the Games to be rated MCS 1 or 2 or alternatively MSC certified. There’s “a little more leeway and opportunity” with farmed fish in that species with an MCS 3 (yellow) rating can be used, but LOCOG has specified that it’s expecting best practices within that level, he says.

 

Read the full story on SeafoodSource.com 

June 25, 2012 — TOKYO—The first seafood caught off Japan's Fukushima coastline since last year's nuclear disaster went on sale Monday, but the offerings were limited to octopus and marine snails because of persisting fears about radiation.

Octopus and whelk, a kind of marine snail, were chosen for the initial shipments because testing for radioactive cesium consistently measured no detectable amounts, according to the Fukushima Prefectural (state) fishing cooperative. They were caught Friday and boiled so they last longer while being tested for radiation before they could be sold Monday.

Flounder, sea bass and other fish from Fukushima can't be sold yet because of contamination. It was unclear when they will be approved for sale as they measure above the limit in radiation set by the government. The government is testing for radioactive iodine as well, but its half-life is shorter than cesium and thus is less worrisome.

"It was crisp when I bit into it, and it tasted so good," said Yasuhiro Yoshida, who oversees the seafood section at York Benimaru supermarket in Soma, which sold out of about 30 kilograms (65 pounds) of the snails and 40 kilograms (90 pounds) of the octopus that had been shipped to the store.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami last year left the coastlines of northeastern Japan devastated, and displaced tens of thousands of people. Entire towns were contaminated by the radiation leaking from Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where three reactors went into meltdowns.

"I was filled with both uncertainty and hope today, but I was so happy when I found out the local supermarket had sold out by 3 p.m.," said Hirofumi Konno, an official in charge of sales at the fishing cooperative in Soma city in coastal Fukushima.

 

Read the full story by the Associated Press on the Bostom Globe 

June 19, 2012 – Thailand supplies a large portion of America's seafood. But Thailand's giant fishing fleet is chronically short of up to 60,000 fishermen per year, leaving captains scrambling to find crew. Human traffickers have stepped in, selling captives from Cambodia and Myanmar to the captains for a few hundred dollars each. Once at sea, the men often go months, or even years, without setting foot on land.

Cambodian Vannak Prum's destiny changed in a dirt-road town called Malai. It's a Cambodian outpost on the border with Thailand that is known for its involvement in the trafficking of human beings.

Prum arrived in Malai seven years ago searching for work. His wife was pregnant, and he needed money for the hospital bill. He intended to work for two months, but ended up meeting a human trafficker.

A few days later, Prum was sold onto a Thai fishing boat the length of a basketball court, where he worked in tight conditions with 10 men. He says he didn't reach land again for three years.

Listen to the full story from New York NOW here.