International & Trade

BRUSSELS—The European Union's audit office has said the $2.25 billion program to combat fish stock depletion through subsidies was a failure.

EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki on Monday promised to revamp the policy under which almost nine out of ten fish stocks, such as cod and bluefin tuna, are overfished.

For the last two decades, the EU had hoped to protect threatened fish stocks by subsidizing the scrapping of vessels used in fishing. The European Court of Auditors said that was a mistake.

ECA member Lazaros Lazarou said that "the existing policy has failed," despite spending euro1.7 billion since 1994.

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States meeting at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this week agreed that urgent action is needed to protect biological diversity in the high seas and deep sea.

WWF said it welcomes this announcement and congratulates the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), a coalition of 70 organisations working together to protect cold-water corals and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems. WWF praises their efforts in keeping the pressure on high seas bottom trawling nations and reporting on the performance of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) whose role is to implement previous UNGA fisheries resolutions.

A new resolution on sustainable fisheries calls on high seas fishing nations and RFMOs to fully implement resolutions previously adopted by the UNGA to protect deep-sea ecosystems and species from the harmful effects of bottom trawling and other methods of deep-sea fishing.

“It's critical that the UNGA continues this level of oversight with regard to deep-sea life lest it become a case of ‘out of sight out of mind'. The planet's largest biosphere remains the least protected and the most in need of international attention,” said Matthew Gianni of the DSCC.

The resolution further calls for stronger procedures for conducting environmental impact assessments of high seas bottom fisheries, states to publicize “without delay” the assessments and improved compliance with deep-sea fisheries regulations.

Bottom trawl fishing, the most common method of bottom fishing on the high seas, involves dragging heavy steel plates, cables and large nets across the ocean floor. This can severely damage deep-sea coral reefs, sponge fields and other vulnerable deep-sea habitats and species. Numerous scientific reports have concluded that bottom trawl fishing is the greatest threat to deep-sea life today.

At the same meeting, member states are also negotiating the UN resolution on oceans and the Law of the Sea, which addresses the inadequate provisions for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity and which focuses on areas beyond national jurisdiction.

WWF is following the negotiations with interest, urging the UNGA via its marine biodiversity working group to develop strong mechanisms for affording protection and sustainable management of marine resources on the high seas.

“While we hail the well-intentioned commitments by the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to establish, by 2020, a network of marine protected areas which cover at least 10 per cent of the world's oceans, there is currently no legal instrument to accomplish this on the high seas,” said Daniela Diz, PhD, Senior Officer, Marine Policy, WWF-Canada.

The legal framework for protecting ecosystems, species and habitats on the high seas, which comprises two thirds of our oceans is weak. While there are global conventions and organisations managing fisheries and regulating human activities such as shipping, there is no global legal framework to effectively take biodiversity conservation measures into consideration.

Although regional bodies have endeavoured to establish high seas marine protected areas, implementation has been hampered by the lack of such a global instrument.

"The marine biodiversity working group having the mandate to strengthen the legal framework would be a very successful outcome of this year's United Nations General Assembly resolution on oceans and the Law of the Sea,” Ms Diz said.

Republished with permission from SeafoodNews.com

 

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A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island.

Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests — not even after evidence of the virus discovered in October was treated as an international emergency, according to documents and emails obtained by The Seattle Times.

The researcher's work surfaced only this week after she sought and was denied permission by a Canadian official to try to have her old data published in a scientific journal.

Scientists and wild-fish advocates long have feared the arrival of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus, a pathogen linked to aquaculture that has killed millions of farmed salmon in Europe and Chile. They say it could mutate and devastate wild fish stocks.

Read the complete story from The Seattle Times

 

 

 

 

 

Farmed fish sold under the Marks & Spencer eco-label is no better for the environment than conventionally farmed fish, a study on the sustainability claims of major fish producers says.

The report from the University of Victoria found that many of the so-called eco-labels were not much better than conventional farmed fish when it came to protecting the oceans, and some – including those produced under the Marks & Spencer brand – were actually worse.

The study, which was reviewed and was supported by the Pew Environment Group, used 10 factors to rate the eco-labels including feeding, antibiotic use and energy use.

Marks & Spencer scored at the bottom, or second from the bottom, on all four sets of rankings. Of any of the labels, it was the furthest from reaching the voluntary standards set by the Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood watch guide and the Blue Ocean Institute seafood guide.

Read the complete story from The Guardian

 

 

 

 

 

Istanbul, November 19, 2011 – ICCAT concluded its 22nd Regular Annual Meeting held in Istanbul, Turkey, achieving historic progress on both East and West Atlantic bluefin populations management and rebuilding existing plans.  ICCAT also revised and made more effective conservation plans for bigeye and yellowfin tuna, in particular in the critically important Gulf of Guinea (GOG).  ICCAT also concluded a renewal of the North Atlantic swordfish plan, enacted protections for the silky shark and initiated significant improvements in connection with compliance issues and critical data submission protocols. Many other continuing fishery management issues were addressed during the 12-day meeting.

Bluefin Tuna

The dramatic progress made on rebuilding East Atlantic (Mediterranean) bluefin biomass was confirmed during presentations by ICCAT’s scientific arm, the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS).  SCRS Chairman Dr. Josu Santiago Burrutxaga, announced, “Good News: the stock is projected to increase over the projection period in all cases.”  He noted emphatically that there had been strong decreases in harvesting of the East stock, in 2011 having arrived to an historic low of 11,294 metric tons (MT), a level not seen since the 1950’s and well below the most recent recommendations from SCRS for 2011 of 13,500 mt.

For the West Atlantic bluefin populations, Dr. Santiago reported that the U.S. fishery index of juvenile fish is over twice the level of 1995 and 1996.  For Canada, SCRS data shows that the Gulf of St Lawrence relative index of population abundance is nearly “off the historical charts” or about triple the level in 1981. Further the Japanese Northwest Atlantic longline index (considered to be the most reliable) is dramatically increasing as well, approaching the relative level of 30 years ago.

In the West Atlantic bluefin fishery, Dr. Santiago confirmed that the spawning stock biomass is definitely increasing and fishing mortality on spawning bluefin has decreased.

Finally, Dr. Santiago noted that there was “no evidence of a fishery collapse” and no basis for changing the SCRS’s recommendations regarding harvesting levels.  Therefore, catches at the combined level (East + West fisheries) of 15,300 mt are expected to continue to allow to rebuild and sustain both populations and fisheries with very high probability levels within 11 and 7 years respectively.

With a combined scientifically recommended precautionary catch level of bluefin to rebuild both populations from the current standing stock of millions of fish, ICCAT now has the strongest validation to date that neither East nor West Atlantic bluefin tuna are in any danger and therefore not requiring special protections.

Atlantic Yellowfin and Bigeye Tuna

The US pressed ICCAT to agree to the first-ever comprehensive, long-term conservation plan for both yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna.  The plan includes a more effective Time-Area Closure in the GOG, the most important spawning grounds and nursery in the Atlantic Ocean for these species of tuna. Under the plan, this region will be closed to fishing activity for two months beginning with the upcoming fishing season, with the specific intention to reduce mortality on juvenile bigeye and yellowfin.  Further, action was taken to control the use of Fish Aggregation Devices (FAD’s), a particularly effective way of harvesting juvenile yellowfin and bigeye, with the intention to protect and allow escapement of juvenile fish from these spawning/nursery grounds.  The U.S. pressed for but lost a battle to increase the effect of this closed area by adding the month of December to the closure months of January and February and by extending the western boundary by 5 degrees to the west.  The U.S. interest is to ensure an adequate level of juvenile escapement to restore abundance of yellowfin and bigeye to once prolific levels in recreational and commercial fishing grounds in the offshore waters off the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts of the US.

Atlantic Swordfish

ICCAT also addressed extending North Atlantic swordfish conservation measures and developing a new program to make sure that carry forward of uncaught quota are not allowed in order to prevent “stockpiling” of quota. Thus, a new measure has been added to insure that the total Atlantic-wide quota of 13,700 mt not be exceeded. Countries exceeding their quota will be required to payback any overages within 2 years.

Atlantic Marlin

The US also put forward a recommendation that is intended to substantially improve current efforts to strengthen the plan to rebuild Blue Marlin and White Marlin.

Compliance and Fishing Overcapacity

The ICCAT Compliance Committee spent nearly 3 days over the course of the meeting investigating allegations of illegal, unregulated and unreported catch of yellowfin and bigeye tuna and ultimately initiated a trade and permitting sanction process against Ghana for non-payback of prior harvesting overages, failure to comply with the ICCAT Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) and for exceeding vessel capacity limitations.  Korea was similarly sanctioned for having excessive fishing capacity in the GOG.

In general, it is apparent that greater levels of compliance with ICCAT measures is occurring because of the effectiveness of ICCAT’s Compliance Committee and this was confirmed by SCRS.

The PEW Environmental Group’s report on overfishing of bluefin in the Mediterranean entitled, “Mind the Gap’, was submitted to ICCAT after the conclusion of the Bluefin Tuna Working Group and after the formal SCRS week long meeting. Therefore, the Commission had no opportunity to formally review the document, its conclusions and methodologies.  All Parties have been advised to review the Pew’s data for further analysis by ICCAT next year.

Bycatch and Discards

ICCAT contract parties also agreed to an historic agreement to control and monitor discards of bycatch by all parties of tuna species under its control.  Until now only the US and Canada have provided data on the levels of bycatch and discarded fish managed by ICCAT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE World Fisheries Congress (WFC) has announced that Eric C. Schwaab of the US National Marine Fisheries Service, will join its roll of distinguished keynote speakers at the Congress, in May 2012, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Schwaab, who was appointed as the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in February 2010, oversees the management and conservation of marine fisheries and the protection of marine mammals, sea turtles and coastal fisheries habitat within the United States exclusive economic zone.

He joins an outstanding line up of speakers at the Congress, including: Professor Sir John Beddington CMG FRS, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College London; Professor Ray Hilborn, University of Washington, Seattle, US; Mike Mitchell, Technical Director and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Youngs Seafood Company, UK; and, Dr Malcolm Beveridge, Director of Aquaculture and Genetics at the international organisation, WorldFish Center.

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BRUSSELS—The EU's executive arm said Monday that it wants to completely ban shark finning — the practice of removing sharks' fins and throwing the finless creatures back into the sea to die.

Under the proposal approved by the European Commission, all boats in EU waters — and EU-registered boats anywhere in the world — would have to land sharks with their fins attached to prove that the rest of the shark had not been discarded. The law, should it go into effect, would primarily affect fishing vessels from Spain and Portugal.

In theory, the EU already bans shark finning. But as it now stands, the fins and bodies can be separated on board vessels with special permits, and then landed at different ports. The EU tries to ensure that no bodies have been discarded by making sure the weight of the fins does not exceed 5 percent of the entire weight of the fish landed.

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Delegates at an international conservation meeting agreed Saturday on a measure mandating that silky sharks accidentally caught in fishing gear be released back into the sea alive, marine advocacy groups said.

The 48-member International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), however — ending a weeklong meeting in Istanbul — failed to reach consensus on other threatened shark species, the groups said.

Conservationists also said more could have been done to save swordfish from decline in the Mediterranean while the World Wildlife Fund said steps adopted to preserve bluefin tuna remained insufficient.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Measures to prevent illicit fishing of Mediterranean bluefin tuna have been strengthened at the annual meeting of governments involved in the industry.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) decided to implement an electronic system for recording bluefin catches.

Research shows catches have been far higher than skippers have declared. The meeting, in Turkey, also gave extra protection to the silky shark, whose numbers are falling because of fishing.

Read the complete story from The BBC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as international negotiators are gathered in Istanbul this week to discuss how best to regulate fishing in the Atlantic Ocean, the advocacy group Greenpeace released a shocking video of how tuna-fishing vessels are killing scores of sharks, rays and whales in the Pacific.

The video, which includes footage taken aboard a purse-seine vessel last year, shows the impact of using Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) . (Warning: the video is a bit gory.) This floating gear attract a range of species, not just tuna, to the surface. As a result, the vessels end up hauling in and killing manta rays, whale sharks and other species.

In less than a month the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission will meet and discuss what conservation measures it should take for a range of marine species.

“Consumers have the right to know what is destroyed and discarded in order to fill their cans with tuna,” said Sari Tolvanen, a Greenpeace International oceans campaigner. “This shocking video is a wake-up call: we as consumers, can demand that retailers give shelf-space only to responsibly-caught tuna. Without significant changes to global fishing practices and more protected marine reserves across the world’s seas, we will literally fish away future tuna supplies, jobs and healthy oceans.”

Read the complete story from The Washington Post.