Saving Seafood

International & Trade

WTO urged to spin off fishing pact to protect seas

GENEVA, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Marine scientists warned the World Trade Organisation on Tuesday that the world’s seas were in peril and called for a new WTO deal to discourage over-fishing.

"The health of the world’s oceans is hanging in the balance," they said in a letter to WTO chief Pascal Lamy, citing World Bank estimates that $50 billion a year is lost globally to poor fisheries governance and over-exploitation.

Subsidies of the fishing sector are an often-overlooked target of the WTO’s Doha Round, which would slash government aid programmes for nearly all farmed and manufactured goods.

As part of that global accord, which has met some resistance from nearly all the WTO’s 153 members, countries are seeking ways to reduce incentives to use polluting fuel and deplete vulnerable fish stocks.

Read the complete story from Reuters at ForexYard.

Oceana claims mismanagement is to blame for the failings of the fishing quota system

The international marine conservation organisation, Oceana, has sent the European Commission a study analyzing the failures in management of the total allowable catch (TAC) system. The EC will table this Friday 16 October its proposal on 2010 TACs and quotas and Oceana advises that these factors be taken into consideration before blaming the TAC system for the failure in current fisheries policy.

Various sectors are promoting the idea of substituting the TAC system with one based exclusively on fishing effort control (e.g. assigning each vessel a number of days to fish) when the reformed Common Fisheries Policy enters into force in 2013.

 

According to the Oceana analysis, 78% of the scientific recommendations for catch quotas have been ignored over the past 20 years, and catch recommendations have been greatly exceeded. The European Commission itself warns that, in 2009 alone, adopted TACs exceeded the sustainable volume of catches by 48%. The lack of regulation and control is such that in some stocks real extraction of biomass is up to five times higher than the initially agreed TAC.

 

With this analysis, Oceana denounces the lack of rigour in some initiatives focused on eliminating a key element in fisheries policy: the establishment of catch limits.

Read the complete story at Fish News EU.

OPINION: Ocean acidification will cost us dearly by Oceana CEO Andrew Sharpless

Enjoy serving shrimp, oysters or crabs during your holiday meals? Then you should pay heed to the big climate-change meeting opening next Monday in Copenhagen. What nations decide there could determine if our ocean will continue providing tasty shellfish — or instead become part of a perilous chemistry experiment that could ravage valuable fisheries and coral reefs.

The problem, strange as it may seem, is that the ocean is doing a wonderful job of slowing down global warming. Every day, it removes nearly 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — the main warming gas — from the atmosphere. That’s nearly twice what U.S. power plants, cars and factories spew daily into the sky. So we owe the ocean a big thanks for putting a brake on climate change and giving us time to find solutions.

Unfortunately, that help comes at a steep price. When carbon dioxide in the air mixes with seawater, a chemical reaction creates a compound called carbonic acid. In the ocean, however, “acidification” is bad news for shellfish and corals. That’s because as acidification increases — and it is increasing rapidly — the process locks up the carbonate molecules these creatures need to build their shells and stony skeletons.

Read the complete story at The Providence Journal.

Northeast faces cuts for 2010 scallop harvest

Next year’s sea scallop harvest will have its revenues slashed by 25 per cent as a result of proposed cuts in the harvest, New Bedford fishers said. Regional fisheries regulators who voted in favour of the cuts argue that they are necessary to protect the stocks from overfishing.

While the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) endorses the cuts, fishers are citing recent surveys that demonstrate the stock’s good health and say they should harvest more than 16 per cent of commercially sized scallops. The 2010 season will begin on 1 March.

"I think everyone in the industry would go along with this if they thought it was in the least bit necessary to preserve the stock," said Roy Enoksen, president of New Bedford-based Eastern Fisheries Inc, which operates the industry’s largest fleet with 23 scallopers. "But we have a resource that is completely rebuilt and in very good shape."

The cuts must receive final approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), South Coast Today reports.

Read the complete story at FIS Worldnews.

Sectors: A new course for fishermen

What are fishing sectors all about?

It’s about the government trying to give another management option to New England’s groundfish fishermen. This new management plan, taking effect in May, will allow commercial fishermen in defined "sectors" to decide on their own how to manage their catch which will be capped by a limit.

The sector concept is a grouping, not a geographical location. It could lay out a new course for fishermen to work together for their mutual benefit, accepting catch limits but designing their own management plan and choosing when and where to fish.

So far, there are 18 New England sectors, including the Port Clyde Community Groundfish Sector made up of members from the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association. Officials say joining a sector isn’t mandatory but those who continue to fish in the Days at Sea management system would be subject to more stringent rules such as 50 percent cut in Days at Sea (24 days for most fishermen) a 24 hour clock and trip limits on Gulf of Maine cod and Pollock.

Read the complete story at The Working Waterfront.

Catch share debate heats up nationally

The national debate over fishermen’s catch shares is about to begin in earnest.

A draft policy created by a special task force for Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is scheduled for release and three months of public comment on Dec. 10, NOAA spokeswoman Monica Allen said yesterday.

Lubchenco has made $18.6 million available for the development of catch share fishing cooperatives in New England, but according to Monica Medina, who chairs the task force, no national funding commitment from Congress has been obtained.

The original date for release of the policy was October, but Medina sought and was given an extension by Lubchenco.

Gulf Coast governors recently wrote to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Lubchenco’s boss, objecting to the "direction and rapidity" of the movement to implement catch shares in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pew Environment Group organized two national teleconferences last month to urge the administration to move cautiously toward commodifying the ocean’s stocks.

A peaceful mass protest against the rush to catch shares was mounted in Gloucester — in the parking lot of the regional offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service — in late October. The demonstration drew more than 200 fishermen from as far away as northern Maine and Montauk, Long Island.

Meanwhile, Congressman Barney Frank, who represents New Bedford, has written to Lubchenco with concerns that conservative allocations could undercut the catch share roll out set to begin next May for part of the ground-fishing fleet.

Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Bob Riley of Alabama wrote "Our concerns center on the potential negative impacts catch share programs could have on our states’ economies, as well as how such programs could restrict citizens’ access to fisheries resources that should be shared by all." The governors cited "negative impacts" from the red snapper catch share system, and said they are "concerned about negative impact from the pending program for Gulf grouper. Creating an exclusive harvesting right for a small group of commercial fishermen inherently marginalizes other users who do not have the same access privileges."

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times. 

New Certificate Preserves Valuable European Market for U.S. Seafood

NOAA Fisheries signed an agreement in November with the European Commission to ensure that US seafood exports to the European Union, valued at more than $1 billion, will not be disrupted by a new EC regulation designed to block illegal fish imports.

The following is a release on the agreement from NOAA Fisheries: A new U.S. catch document, designed to attest to the legality of US fisheries products, will be required in addition to the health certificates, which already accompany all seafood exports. The NOAA Fisheries Seafood Inspection Program will issue the catch document for fish harvested on or after Jan. 1, 2010.

Europe is the number one destination for US seafood exports.

In 2008, the European Commission adopted this regulation establishing the requirement that all seafood imports be accompanied by a catch certificate that attests to the legality of the catch for fisheries products harvested on or after Jan. 1, 2010.

The EC’s intention is to prevent illegal, unreported, and/or unregulated fisheries products from being imported into EC member countries, which are currently estimated at $1.1 billion in value.

NOAA Fisheries recognizes the tremendous negative impact IUU fishing has on global fisheries and has been in close consultation with our European counterparts to develop an agreement on US compliance with the regulation. Illegal fishing depletes fish stocks and hurts the economies of nations and the livelihoods of people who depend on sustainable fishing.

The US agreement with the EC represents a significant achievement for NOAA in terms of preserving foreign markets, maintaining sustainable fisheries, and increasing the competitiveness of US seafood exports.

OPINION: Frank merits kudos for tackling Magnuson-Stevens

It’s interesting to note that, at an inside meeting with a handful of fishermen amid the Oct. 30 pro-fishing demonstration here, NMFS regional administrator Patricia Kurkul told them their best remedies were through the legislative process.

The move by Congressman Barney Frank to take a fresh look at and modify the Magnuson-Stevens Act — the core federal legislation that governs New England’s and all of America’s fisheries — is a step that deserves widespread support in Congress and far beyond.

Frank and other congressional leaders should re-acquaint members of the New England Fishery Management Council, NOAA and NMFS regulators and environmental hardliners — like the Pew Environment Group, which is already mobilizing its forces to block Frank’s push for reform — with Magnuson provisions that require consideration of the impact its regulations have on fishing communities.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.