International & Trade

TALCAHUANO, Chile – Eric Pineda, a dock agent in this old port south of Santiago, peered deep into the Achernar's hold at a measly 10 tonnes of jack mackerel – the catch after four days in waters once so rich they filled the 17-metre fishing boat in a few hours. Pineda, like everyone here, grew up with the bony, bronze-hued fish they call jurel, which roams in schools in the southern Pacific.

"It's going fast," he said. "We've got to fish harder before it's all gone." Asked what he would leave his son, he shrugged: "He'll have to find something else."

Jack mackerel, rich in oily protein, is manna to a hungry planet, a staple in Africa. Elsewhere, people eat it unaware that much of it is reduced to feed for aquaculture and pigs. It can take more than five kilograms of jack mackerel to raise a single kilogram of farmed salmon.

Stocks have dropped from an estimated 30 million tonnes to less than a tenth of that in two decades. The world's largest trawlers, after depleting other oceans, now head south towards the edge of Antarctica to compete for what is left.

Read the complete story in The Brisbane Times

 

 

 

 

 

The Pew Environment Group today encouraged the European Commission to implement significant reforms to EU deep-sea fishing regulations. The Commission is preparing to release its deep-sea access regime proposal before the end of the first quarter of 2012.

In a new policy analysis, “Out of the Abyss: Transforming EU Rules to Protect the Deep Sea,” which summarizes current problems in the oversight and control of EU deep-sea fisheries in the northeast Atlantic, Pew offers viable solutions to ensure the sustainability and protection of threatened deep-sea biodiversity.

Key reforms include:
    •    Phasing out the use of destructive bottom fishing practices and gear;
    •    Requiring impact assessments to be performed prior to permitting deep-sea fishing;
    •    Implementing area closures where deep-sea fishing is likely to cause harm to vulnerable marine ecosystems, such as cold-water corals and sponges; and
    •    Reducing bycatch (the capture of non-target wildlife) of deep-sea species and ending discarding.

“With one of the largest deep-sea fishing fleets in the world, the EU is in a unique position to assert global leadership in protecting vulnerable deep-sea species and ecosystems from the harmful impact of bottom fishing ,” said Matthew Gianni, deep sea policy adviser to the Pew Environment Group. “Commissioner Damanaki must stand strong in her beliefs and use this proposal as a means to phase out destructive fishing practices, such as deep-sea bottom trawling.”

Read the complete press release from The Pew Environment Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

MANILA, Philippines—Rising wealth in Asia and fishing subsidies are among factors driving overexploitation of the world's fish resources, while fish habitat is being destroyed by pollution and climate change, U.N. marine experts said Tuesday.

Up to 32 percent of the world's fish stocks are overexploited, depleted or recovering, they warned. Up to half of the world's mangrove forests and a fifth of coral reefs that are fish spawning grounds have been destroyed.

The U.N. Environment Programme says less-destructive ways of fishing that use more labor and less energy are needed to help restore the health of the world's oceans and coasts.

The agency is leading a five-day conference in Manila of experts and officials from 70 governments.

Read the complete Associated Press article in The Boston Globe

 

 

 

 

 

MANILA, Philippines—Gunmen in the restive southern Philippines opened fire on three boats and killed 15 fishermen in what officials said Tuesday was likely an attack by a rival group protecting its lucrative fishing grounds.

The fishermen were aboard three small, wooden-hulled vessels off Sibago Island in Basilan province when attackers in speedboats fired on them Monday morning and then sped away, military spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cagangbang said.

There were about 10 attackers, police said. No arrests have been made yet as the news reached authorities late because of the remoteness of the area, senior police official Felicisimo Khu said.

Basilan is a stronghold of Muslim rebels who have been fighting for minority self-rule in the predominantly Christian nation for decades, as well as criminal and kidnap gangs. Law enforcement in the area is weak, and deadly clan feuds fueled by business and political rivalry are rampant. Businesses often pay protection money to armed groups and hire their own private guards.

Read the complete Associated Press article in The Boston Globe

 

 

 

 

 

“Fish poaching” and “illegal fishing” may sound like misdemeanors, on the cosmic scale of crime, but they provide an astonishing mass of the fish people eat around the world. And they amount to a uniquely self-destructive problem that might one day solve itself by collapsing fish populations.

“China is the largest fisher in the world, and the illegal fishers would come second,” an EU fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg, memorably told the BBC in 2009. “We are speaking of a very, very big problem.”

This winter, a new proposal went before the U.S. Senate to help fight illegal fishing. The EU introduced “port state” measures against pirate fishermen at the start of 2010, and environmentalists have been waiting for the U.S. to follow suit. President Obama quietly submitted a treaty on port-state controls in November. (The treaty is formally known as the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing.)

The term “port state” is fishing jargon, but the idea is so simple it seems amazing that no one has resorted to these measures until now. A ship flying a flag from Iran or Belize, let’s say, typically would be regulated by Iran or Belize. If the ship calls at a Spanish port with a load of illegally caught bluefin tuna, until recently, it would be a problem for Iran or Belize — not for Spanish authorities.

Read the complete story from Miller-McCune

 

 

 

 

 

The Norwegian research institute, Nofima, has revealed that two new ISO standards for traceability of fish products have been approved.

“These standards will provide consumers around the globe with access to more information about the seafood they eat,” says Senior Scientist, Petter Olsen, who has headed the work related to the new ISO standards.

The standards will state which information must be recorded on the fishing boat or at the fish farm, at the fish processing company, transport company and wholesaler and in the shop selling the fish to the consumers. One ISO standard applies to wild fish, while the other applies to farmed fish.

“Large volumes of seafood are today transported long distances before being eaten by the consumers. If all the links in the supply chain follow the ISO standards, it will be possible to trace the products back through the entire chain to the catch location or fish farm,” says Olsen.

“Consequently, the consumers will be able to find out where the seafood comes from, its characteristics, resource use and environmental profile.”

Read the complete story from Fish Update

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Global political leaders will convene in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this June, which marks the 20th anniversary of the original UN Earth Summit, to evaluate progress toward achieving goals on sustainable development. On January 10, the first draft of the 'negotiating text,' a blueprint for the agenda of the Rio+20 conference, was released. This document will now form the basis of final text subject to government discussion and debate.

Susan Lieberman, director of International Policy at the Pew Environment Group, said: "We are delighted that although the ocean took a back seat in 1992 at the initial Earth Summit, growing support from countries around the world has now led to its inclusion as one of seven priorities for discussion in Rio. This is a clear recognition that the health of the ocean is vital to sustainable development.

"This draft of the 'outcome document' includes a number of positive marine proposals, including a move toward negotiating a new, legally binding agreement under the UN for the conservation of biodiversity on the high seas, where currently few rules exist. While these are important issues, we also encourage the addition of text that addresses unsustainable fisheries and illegal fishing.

"We hope that between now and June, governments will agree to the current proposed language and add strengthening elements that will help halt overfishing, address destructive fishing practices, and lead to better monitoring and enforcement. We call on governments to take strong, meaningful action for the ocean and the vast diversity of life within it at Rio in 2012."

Read the complete story on PR Newswire

 

 

 

 

 

Ahead of the Sixth World Fisheries Congress in Edinburgh in May, vice-president of the congress Michel Kaiser has detailed some of the events which will be taking place.

n an interview with the American Fisheries Society, Kaiser said: “There are four main themes within the meeting. The first two themes focus on the science needed to achieve sustainable wild capture fisheries and encompass marine and freshwater systems. The third theme deals with issues relating to ecosystem resilience and the governance and management regimes required to achieve sustainable fisheries. The final main theme addresses the increasingly important role of aquaculture as a source of food and nutrition.”
 
The main speakers at the event are Professor Sir John Beddington FRS, chief scientific advisor to the UK government and founder of Marine Resources and Fisheries Consultants; population ecologist Professor Ray Hilborn; Dr Malcolm Beveridge, director of aquaculture and genetics at the Worldfish Centre; and Mike Mitchell, head of corporate social responsibility for Findus.
 
Kaiser added: “We are working with Seaweb/Seafood Choices and Seafish to bring together a number of discussion panels at the Congress that include a consideration of illegal, unregulated and unreported fisheries, ethics and welfare, the contribution of eco-labeling to sustainable fisheries, and common

Read the complete story from Fish News EU

 

 

 

 

 

Retired fisherman Sada Fall is upbeat. His two sons are returning from sea with a boatload of “gold”, as he calls shark fins, whose value has near-obliterated the ocean’s top predator in these seas.

Fall, 62, walks along the beach in this fishing village in the north of Senegal, his blue-grey boubou flapping in the dry, dusty wind, a bright red flowered umbrella shielding him from the scorching sun.

“This is the great shark cemetery,” he says waving his hand dramatically across the beach where dried hunks of shark meat are piled up, filling the air with a musty, acrid odour as suffocating as the heat.

Saint Louis is one of the biggest shark landing sites in Senegal and one of scores along the west African coast where the predator is quickly disappearing.

Read the complete story in The Vancouver Sun

 

 

 

 

 

Each January, the first bluefin tuna auction at Toyko's Tsukiji fish market commands some of the highest prices of the year.

But environmentalists who closely monitor the dwindling bluefin tuna stocks say this sends exactly the wrong signal to fishermen, especially those who are tempted to break international law to go after bluefin.

"We have a pretty significant overfishing problem with bluefin tuna," Lee Crockett, who directs the Pew Environment Group's bluefin tuna work, tells The Salt. "When you sell fish for this amount of money, that exacerbates those problems. You can bet fishermen all over the world are going to say, 'Boy, I'd like to sell fish for that amount of money.'"

Read the complete story from NPR.