International & Trade

April 23, 2012 – ENVIRONMENTAL group Oceana has hit out at what it claims is the European Parliament’s ‘failure’ to block nearly €1.4 billion in fuel subsidies for the European fishing fleet.

Last week, the European Parliament voted on their consultation to the Commission’s proposal on the taxation of energy products and electricity. A large majority of MEPs rejected an amendment which called for the removal of a tax exemption on fuel for European fishing vessels.

Xavier Pastor, executive director of Oceana Europe, said: “Any real reform of the CFP and the EMFF cannot take place without tackling the fuel tax exemption for Europe’s fishing fleet. The Commission, which recognises overcapacity as one of the biggest problems facing Europe’s sustainable fishing goals, nevertheless failed in its proposal to address the problem of fuel subsidies funding overfishing in our waters. Today, the Parliament also failed, and missed this chance to send a strong signal against harmful subsidies.”

According to Oceana, these subsidies amount to at least €1.4 billion, and allow vessels to fish further out at sea and for longer periods of time, thus adding to pressure on EU fish stocks.

Read the full article here.

 

 

April 22, 2012 – The leaders of the five Arctic coastal states — including Prime Minister Stephen Harper — are being urged by more than 2,000 scientists from around the world to impose a moratorium on industrial fishing in the increasingly accessible waters of the central Arctic Ocean until experts can determine the size and sustainability of the resource.

In an open letter signed by 551 Canadian scientists — along with about 1,500 others from 67 countries — the researchers issued an appeal to the governments of Canada, the U.S., Russia, Norway and Denmark to develop an international fisheries accord that would avoid decimating potentially lucrative species such as Arctic cod before enough is known about their populations.

“Scientists recognize the crucial need for an international agreement that will prohibit the start of commercial fishing until research-based management measures can be put in place,” said Henry Huntington, Arctic science director of the U.S.-based Pew Environment Group, which organized the global scientific appeal. “There’s no margin for error in a region where the melting sea ice is rapidly changing the marine ecosystem.”

The area in question lies beyond the 370-kilometre, nearshore “exclusive economic zone” within which each Arctic coastal country has acknowledged fishing rights.

Even within the close-to-the-coast, Beaufort Sea exclusive economic zones of the U.S. and Canada, a lack of scientific knowledge about the size of fish stocks has already prompted bans on commercial fisheries until more research is completed.

But out toward the middle of the Arctic Ocean, where thick, multi-year sea ice seemed a permanent fixture on the water until recent years, even less is known about resident fish populations.

Read the full story from the Ottawa Citizen.

 

 

April 22, 2012 – A group of more than 2,000 scientists from 67 countries has called for a moratorium on commercial fishing in the Arctic until more research can be completed on waters that were once covered by ice year-round.

The scientists said the loss of permanent sea ice has opened up as much as 40 per cent of the Central Arctic Ocean during recent summers, making industrial fishing viable for the first time.

But they said such activities should be prohibited until there's a better understanding of the area and sustainable fishing quotas can be set.

"The ability to fish is not the same as having the scientific information and management regimes needed for a well-managed fishery," the scientists said in an open letter released Sunday by the U.S.-based Pew Environment Group.

In the absence of this scientific data and a robust management system, depletion of fishery resources and damage to other components of the ecosystem are likely to result if fisheries commence."

The letter was released on Earth Day, just as a major, week-long conference kicked off in Montreal bringing together Arctic researchers to discuss the effects of climate change.

Read the full story at the CBC.

 

 

April 20, 2012 – Coral gardens that were among Asia’s most spectacular, teeming with colorful sea life just a few months ago, have been transformed into desolate gray moonscapes by illegal fishermen who use explosives or cyanide to kill or stun their prey.

The site is among several to have been hit inside Komodo National Park, a 500,000-acre reserve in eastern Indonesia that spans several dusty, tan-colored volcanic islands. The area is most famous for its Komodo dragons — the world’s largest lizards — and its remote and hard-to-reach waters also burst with staggering levels of diversity, from corals in fluorescent reds and yellows to octopuses with lime-green banded eyes to black-and-blue sea snakes.

Dive operators and conservationists say Indonesia’s government is not doing enough to keep illegal fishermen out of the boundaries of the national park, a U.N. World Heritage site. They say enforcement declined greatly following the exit two years ago of a U.S.-based environmental group that helped fight destructive fishing practices.

Read the complete story by The Associated Press at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 13, 2012 – Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, has contibuted to an event organised by Oceana that discusses fisheries management as an ecosystem-based approach.

The event 'The implementation of the ecosystem-based approach – A revolution for fisheries management and A challenge for the Common Fisheries Policy', hosted by Guido Milana, Member of the European Parliament, was organised by Oceana.

The objective of the seminar is to exchange views on the changes in fisheries management that are necessary for truly implementing the ecosystem-based approach.

Ms Damanaki welcomed the initiative and wished to contribute to the discussion on this topical issue with some thoughts:

"The Commission's main policy objectives are to provide for the conservation on fish stocks with a view to ensuring their long-term sustainability and for the fishing sector dependent on these stocks. Within this objective it is also necessary to keep fisheries impacts within sustainable bounds, by including all knowledge we have about the interactions between fisheries and marine ecosystems. Decisions taken in fisheries should also be consistent with and supportive of actions taken under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the Habitats Directive…

"To do this, fisheries management should firstly reduce the overall level of fishing pressure to sustainable levels, and in particular to allow fish stocks to rebuild to maximum sustainable yield levels as according to the "Johannesburg" commitment. This will be done by means of continued implementation of long term plans and a sustained effort to eliminate discards. This will reduce mortality of fish,

Read the full article here.

 

 

April 13, 2012 – Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson reportedly plans to eliminate the fishing rights of South Africa’s “Big Five” fishing firms  when they come up for review in 2013.

She shared her news in secret, but it leaked to Feike Chief Executive Shaheen Moolla, a former adviser to previous ministers, Independent Online reports.

The “white” fishing companies that controlled the industry and that benefitted from generous quotas must cede these rights to community fishers, Joemat-Pettersson reportedly affirmed. She said the Industrial Development Corporation would be approached to buy fishing vessels so small players can enter the industry.

Moolla said he had received input from staff present at the meeting and that taking away fishing licences would mean a form of “nationalisation” of the industry.”

FishSA chairman Tim Redell, whose group represents commercial fishing companies, acknowledged that the Big Five – Oceana, I&J, Sea Harvest, FoodCorp and Viking – probably controlled about 60 per cent of the sector and their share was growing considerably.

Redell, who is a director of Viking, said it was pointless to bring in additional vessels into the deep-sea fishing industry given that there were too many vessels already.

He added that the long-term licences granted in 2005 for hake deep-sea trawl quotas were valid until 2020.

The 2013 allocation round – which lasts eight years – was for the total allowance catch in species located closer to the coast, such as tuna and West Coast rock lobster, which involved 3,000 companies.

Moolla noted that the big companies were all black-empowered and have at least 30 per cent black ownership.

Read the full article here.

 

The Patagonian scallop fishery, within the Argentine Economic Exclusive Zone, has been re-certified to the MSC standard for sustainable, well-managed fisheries.

This fishery was first certified as sustainable in 2006, and products from the fishery are now eligible to continue using the blue MSC ecolabel.

Fishing takes place on the Argentine Continental Shelf in waters approximately 60-120m deep, between the northern boundary with Uruguay and Tierra del Fuego in the south. The fishing method is benthic otter trawl net.

There are two client companies, Glaciar Pesquera S.A. and Wanchese Argentina S.A, both operating two factory vessels. The fishery landed between 45,000 and 58,000mt of whole scallops per year in its first five-year certification period.

Read the complete article from World Fishing & Aquaculture

 

 

 

 

 

Commissioned by the Pew Environment Group, it finds that last year 140% more bluefin meat from the Med entered the market than was reported as caught.

The fishery's regulator, Iccat, put new measures in place two years ago aimed at stopping over-fishing, but Pew found there were still holes in the system.

The Atlantic bluefin is so depleted as to qualify as a threatened species.

In 2008, member governments of Iccat – the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas – agreed to implement a system of paper-based catch records, in principle allowing fish to be tracked from the sea to their final destination.

Read the complete article from BBC News

 

 

 

 

 

Rigorous testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) over the past two weeks has confirmed additional cases of the deadly infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) at the McNutt's Island industrial salmon farm operated by Cooke Aquaculture subsidiary Kelly Cove Salmon, according to a notice posted Tuesday on the CFIA web site. CFIA inspectors traveled to and from the McNutt's site several days last week.

The infection was first reported by CFIA on March 7, when they ordered the destruction of hundreds of thousands of salmon in two cages. Days before that, Cooke had unilaterally destroyed another entire cage of fish thought to be infected with ISA.

LETHAL VIRUS
CFIA continues to order the destruction and disposal of infected fish, according to the notice, which also states that ISA poses no risk to human health or food safety. The notice does not state the widely accepted principle that ISA is extremely lethal to salmon and that it can destroy up to 90% of any population infected. There have been large outbreaks in New Brunswick and Chile which have devastated the salmon farming industries there, resulting in the loss of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

When asked if the latest ISA announcement caused any concern for her, Marian Specter, spokesperson for Friends of Shelburne Harbour, told SCT, "I  understand that ISA in farmed salmon can spread as rapidly and widely as Hoof and Mouth Disease spreads in cattle. Since we’re dealing with such a contagious disease, I am concerned about plans Cooke Aquaculture might have to stock any of the three recently approved 'amended' sites in Inner Shelburne Harbour – Sandy Point, Boston Rock, or Hartz Point."

MOTHER NATURE BATS LAST
Those sites were approved by Nova Scotia Aquaculture Minister Sterling Belliveau in spite of being larger and packed closer together than the original five sites they replaced, according the Specter. "Mother Nature always does bat last, and she always bats a thousand", Specter added.

"Enough. We need to slow down this concerted drive by big business and government to fill our harbours and bays with industrial salmon feedlots. The McNutt’s Island infected site sits just about half-way between the approved Shelburne Inner Harbour sites and the proposed Jordan Bay sites."

Read the full article at South Coast Today.

 

 

March 22, 2012 – China is holding 21 Vietnamese fishermen on a disputed island in the South China Sea, officials said.

Chinese forces intercepted two fishing boats on March 3 near the Paracel islands, said an official from Vietnam’s central Quang Ngai province, where the fishermen came from. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy.

The official said the fishermen are being held on an island in the Paracels, which are occupied by China but also claimed by Vietnam. He said the fishermen have called their families and said the Chinese forces are demanding 70,000 yuan ($11,000) for their release.

In a statement posted on the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry’s website late Wednesday, spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said the arrests seriously violate Vietnam’s sovereignty over the island chain.

Nghi said Vietnam strongly protested China’s action and demanded that it immediately and unconditionally release the fishermen and their fishing boats, and stop interfering with Vietnamese fishermen’s activities in the country’s waters.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe.