International & Trade

Exhibitors at the International Boston Seafood Show expressed confidence in regulators’ ability to protect consumers from fish products possibly tainted by the nuclear disaster in Japan, while others said it’s too soon to determine how the crisis will affect business.

“There’s uncertainty and that’s the kindest thing you can say about this disaster,” said Pip Fillingham, vice president of operations for Copper River Seafoods, an Alaska-based distributor of salmon who was one of 17,000 buyers and sellers at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center yesterday. “I don’t think radiation is a serious issue yet, but what happens if there’s a meltdown and what if that toxic cloud comes out to the Pacific and taints the fish supply?”

As a result of the catastrophes at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power stations and the release of radiation into the environment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said imports are “severely limited” and they are monitoring all records for Japan.

The FDA assured the public that the agency is developing new steps to prevent food imports from Japan contaminated with radiation from reaching consumers.

Read the complete story from the Boston Herald.

 

 

 

 

 

The skipper of the Northern Irish fishing vessel Fair Wind B918 appeared before the Deputy High Bailiff, Mr Alistair Montgomerie at a court in Douglas, Isle of Man, on Thursday March 17.

Isle of Man Sea Fisheries Officers from the Fisheries Protection Vessel Barrule boarded the fishing vessel Fair Wind B 918 being skippered by Stanley HANNA, some 5.5 nautical miles West South West of the Chicken Rock Lighthouse. The vessel was found to have a quantity of scallops on board with shells below the legal minimum size of 110mm.  Mr HANNA of Kilkeel, Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty to the offence which took place on the 16th March 2011.

Having heard the facts of the case the Deputy High Bailiff imposed a fine of £1,800 on Mr HANNA with £115 costs.  The vessel was detained until the fine was paid.  All undersize scallops were returned to the sea.

Read the complete story from Fish Update.

 

 

 

 

 

Seven Peruvian firms from the fisheries sector expect to close deals worth USD 10 million at the International Boston Seafood Show, which will take place between 20 and 22 March in the US.

According to the company, the Peruvian companies offer a wide range of products in different forms: parakeet, scallops, squid, anchovy and paiche, among other fishery resources.

Peru emphasizes that America is the main destination for Peruvian exports of non-traditional fish, with purchases totaling USD 119.5 million in 2010, equivalent to 20 per cent of shipments.

A total of 87 per cent of the shipments sent to the U.S. market are made up of shrimp, dolphin fish and scallops, reports the Andina news agency.

Read the complete story from FIS World News.

 

 

 

 

 

On March 8 Governor Eddie Baza Calvo (R-Guam), signed into law a bill banning the sale, possession and distribution of shark fins. A major fishing hub, this U.S. territory now joins a growing chorus of Pacific Ocean voices in support of shark conservation.

The need for these voices is critical. These key predators are vital to the health of marine ecosystems. Tiger sharks, for example, have been linked to maintaining the quality of seagrass beds. Dugongs and green sea turtles, common prey for tiger sharks, often forage in seagrass. With no predator to control this grazing, an important habitat could be over-consumed and possibly lost, endangering all of the species that live in and depend on it.

Many shark populations around the globe are in deep trouble. Worldwide, up to 73 million are killed every year primarily for their fins, which are valued for their use in shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy. Huge numbers are also killed inadvertently by fishermen who are not targeting them but are able to sell the fins nonetheless.

Certain types of fishing gear exacerbate this problem. Surface longlines, for example, consist of monofilament lines that extend up to 40 miles and are baited with thousands of hooks. Longlines are primarily used to catch swordfish, tuna and other valuable fish. Unfortunately many other non-target species, including sharks, are caught with this gear and often thrown back in the water dead or dying.

Indeed, the top 20 shark-catching countries account for more than 640,000 tons annually, nearly 80 percent of the total catch reported globally. Indonesia, India, Spain and Taiwan alone account for more than 35 percent of all sharks taken annually, based on their reported data.

Read the complete story from National Geographic.

 

 

 

 

 

Europe's fishing quotas are designed to protect European waters from over-fishing. They are imperfect instruments, however, and one of their unintended consequences is that they often force fishermen to dump huge amounts of dead, excess fish back into the ocean.

On Tuesday, fishery ministers from EU states met to discuss how to end this practice. EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki told ministers that they should phase in a total ban on dumping. Currently, about 1 million metric tonnes of fish are estimated to be thrown back each year into the North Sea alone. That, Damanaki told The Guardian before the meeting, amounts to a "nightmare of discards."

But when it comes to Europe's Common Fisheries Policy, nothing comes without controversy. And while most fishermen hate having to throw back dead fish because they either exceed their quotas or are the wrong species, fishermen in some parts of Europe fear that a total ban on dumping will damage their livelihood–by, perhaps, limiting their catches even further, or their time spent at sea.

Read the complete story from Time.

                     

The European Commission has set out ideas for ending fish discards.

Currently, EU boats in the North Sea have to throw away up to half of what they catch to stay within their quotas.

Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki proposes instead to regulate fleets through limits on fishing time and greater use of measures such as CCTV. She discussed the ideas with delegates from EU member states in Brussels on Tuesday, with the aim of finalising plans later in the year.

She hopes to introduce a discard ban as part of a reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2013. UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said the atmosphere had been positive. "We are all agreed – tackling the waste of discards must be a top priority," he said.

Read the complete story from the BBC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The French government’s plans for 600 turbines, constructed on five stunningly beautiful coastal sites between Saint Nazaire and Le Tréport, will, according to President Sarkozy, produce 3000 MW of power, the equivalent of about two nuclear power stations.

He wants an investment of €10 billion from firms wishing to build the parks. But experts doubt that they will ever deliver enough electricity to offset the visual damage done and opposition to similar parks is now growing all over the country, with more than 700 organisations opposing the proliferation of wind turbines.

In Dieppe and Le Tréport, a four-month public debate began last September to try to achieve some kind of compromise between the government and local fishermen, elected officers, and environmentalists. But now that the President has given the green light to the first wave of investors who want to tender, opposition has increased.

Even though the turbines will be 10km or so offshore, and will simply look like large matchsticks on the horizon, residents in Dieppe, Le Tréport and Fécamp, which is also affected, are furious. In the latest plans, it is estimated that 142 windmills of 5MW each, 14km from Le Tréport, would provide 900,000 people with electricity.

Read the complete story from The Advertiser Normandy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PHILIPPINES should be wary of proposals exempting poor countries from cutting their fishery subsidies at the ongoing World Trade Organization (WTO) talks if it wants to secure global stocks, international advocacy group Oceana said last week.

Draft deals separately submitted by Japan and Canada, while kind to developing WTO members, could allow emerging economies to overexploit seas shared with Filipino fishermen, the group warned.

"The Philippines is sort of in the middle of the debate," Peter Allgeier, Oceana advisor and former United States ambassador to the WTO, told BusinessWorld at the close of two weeks of talks held in line with revived efforts to conclude the multi-issue Doha round.

Members agreed back in 2005 that cuts to government funding for fishing would be part of the global trade deal, with nearly 80% of world fish stocks nearly depleted based on Food and Agriculture Organization estimates.

Manila has aligned itself with an informal grouping dubbed "Friends of Fish" which argues that subsidies are partly to blame, but has also raised issue over the need to continue supporting its small scale fishermen.

Read the complete story from Business World Online.

 

 

 

 

 

What is clear is that Rye’s scallops are crucial to the town and the old adage that one fisherman at sea creates 10 jobs holds true. Despite its rich history and easy accessibility to London, Rye has none of the social cachet of the South West. There is a melancholy feel about it in winter and there’s no escaping the tattiness about its edges, despite the renovation of its fine Georgian hotel and the work of its very good chefs.

The deep, clean and high-salinity waters of Rye Bay, rich in minerals washed from the Wealden soil, have become the main source of winter income for the 10 or so scallop boats that head three miles out before lowering up to five ''rakes’’ on either side, designed to flip the shells up and into nets. Retailing at around £23 a kilo, it is a profitable catch, but it is hard graft: the heavy gear cannot be used in windy weather and any shell under 10 cm is thrown back.

Ronnie Simmons is adamant that “without scalloping we wouldn’t be able to carry on”. On a good day, four or five hundred dozen are bagged, 75 per cent of them destined for the continent, much like south coast mussels (which go mostly to Belgium and Holland) and Shoreham whelks (snapped up by South Korea).

Despite past concerns over bottom-trawling the sea bed (especially around Lyme and Cardigan bays), the Sustainable Development Fisheries Officer confirms that the Rye catch has a negligible environmental impact. Indeed, some believe that scallop numbers are increasing owing to rises in water temperature associated with climate change.

Read the complete story from The Telegraph.

 

 

 

 

 

Portsmouth, N.H. — New England Fishery Management Council member David Preble reported to the council at its January meeting that international negotiations for the management of collapsed stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna were marked by “some of the most bizarre carrying-on that I’ve ever seen.

“We had people running around with cars with giant bluefin tuna on top, people slapping signs on automobiles, there was even an assault or two,” Preble said. “It was a mess.”

Preble was a member of the United States delegation to the annual meeting of the 48-nation International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas held in November in Paris, France.

On one side of the contention, he said, were environmental groups that wanted to see bluefin tuna listed as an endangered species and wanted to stop fishing all together. On the other side, he said, were fishery managers who were attempting to weigh the merits of continued fishing at some level, given signs that some recovery is occurring.

Read the complete story from Village Soup.