International & Trade

Cod is slipping closer to disappearing from key European fishing grounds, officials warned Friday, Oct 16, saying that only steep catch cuts will prevent the loss of a species prized for centuries for its flaky, white flesh.

The European Union’s executive body called for sharp cuts in the amount of cod fisherman can catch next year – up to 25 percent in some areas. The European Commission said recent studies showed cod catches in some areas are far outstripping the rate of reproduction of a fish that fed coastal communities for centuries.

Scientists estimated that there were more than 250,000 tons of cod in important fishing grounds in the North Sea, eastern British Channel, and Scandinavia’s Skagerrak strait in the 1970s, but stocks have dropped to 50,000 tons in recent years.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

The European Commission called Friday for sharp cuts in cod quotas — up to 25 percent in some areas — saying the prized fish is sliding toward commercial extinction in several historic Atlantic fishing grounds.

The EU’s executive commission said "things took a turn for the worse" last year when more of the threatened fish was caught in the North Sea, the eastern English Channel and Scandinavia’s Skagerrak strait than in any other year in the past decade.

The threat is so great that the Commission wants to go well beyond a guideline maximum cut of 15 percent in fisherman’s quotas to a 25 percent in the most threatened fishing grounds.

In the EU’s other major fishing ground, the Mediterranean, the situation is just as bad for the famous bluefin tuna, which has been ruthlessly overfished for years to satisfy the world’s increasing demand for sushi and sashimi.

Read the complete story by AP at Google.

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS – By Jack MacAndrew – Charlottetown, PEI, Oct 16, 2009 – ‘Absolutely devastating ….’ came the answer to a question about the impact on the Eastern Canadian seafood industry because of near parity of the Canadian dollar against American currency, currently at $1.03 US, and moving inexorably towards total parity of $1.00 Canadian for $1.00 U.S. And the same company officer’s follow – up comment was implicit with dire circumstances to come for those who harvest the sea, ‘If I can’t sell it, I’m not going to buy it’, he said.

There is one aspect of the current dollar situation that everyone in the industry agrees with: that this is a devastating blow to an industry reeling from the recession still evident in the United States and Canada.

For processors caught between grousing fishermen wanting more for their lobster, and American brokers and other customers trying to stand pat with low prices at which they can move product, it’s a matter of watching margins disappear.

One mussel company in Prince Edward Island selling 50 per cent of its output into the USA, has watched its margin shrink from 15 percent of selling price, to 3 per cent or less. That means profit has disappeared.

‘We’re basically trading mussels for dollars,’ a mussel farmer told Seafood News. ‘There’s very little or no profit. Sales are good, but we’re barely returning enough to pay the power bill. This situation is causing tremendous hardship. It is a daily concern for me.’

‘It’s like running a [discount] promotion campaign and not knowing when it will be over.

And there’s another tricky bit as well. More and more customers are stretching their payment to sixty days, adding the threat of bankruptcies to the processors’ worries.

Denny Morrow is Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Seafood Processors. He’s concerned over what might happen to lobster fishermen ready to begin seasons in the Bay of Fundy and along the Nova Scotian and New Brunswick shores over the next couple of months. Sixty per cent of that lobster crosses the border and into the Boston and New York market, and ‘… there’s still high unemployment in those markets,’ he says.

‘There’s a feeling we may be at par before the New Year,’ he says. ‘Everybody now has an eye on what the prices will be when Southwest Nova opens at the end of November.’

Monty Snow, of Ferguson Sales, says the current situation is leading to ‘…a total re-alignment of harvesting. It hurts fishermen if we can’t market the product. We used to live of the differential in the dollar. We can’t do that anymore.’

‘We can’t put prices up in the short term to recoup our margins,’ says another sales manager. ‘and we can’t raise them in the long term either. What we are doing now is managing risk, and trying to keep costs to a minimum.’

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher
Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441
Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

Eighty-five per cent of European Union fish stocks are overfished, with key species such as cod critically below safe population levels, officials in Brussels said Friday.

But the EU’s executive, the European Commission, still expects member states to increase catch quotas for North Sea cod next year, despite clear signs that conservation schemes are not working.

Out of 35 fish stocks examined by EU scientists this year, 30 are classified as being overfished, commission fisheries conservation chief Maria de la Fuensanta Candela Castillo said as she presented the commission’s proposed quotas for 2010.

That is down from a record of 32 stocks being overfished in 2005, but up from 29 stocks last year.

"We are simply fishing too much," Candela Castillo said.

Read the complete story at Top News.

A new front in the environmental battle over bluefin tuna was opened yesterday, Oct. 15,  to try to protect the dwindling populations facing commercial wipe out in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

On the last day possible before a conference next year, Monaco nominated Atlantic bluefin tuna to be added to the list of species that can’t be traded internationally under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Wild Fauna and Flora. This sets the stage for a high-stakes battle in March, when the next Conference of the Parties to the convention will meet to consider nominations.

Environmental groups criticized the Obama Administration for failing to formally endorse Monaco’s nomination. In response US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator Jane Lubchenco issued a statement saying the administration “strongly supports” Monaco’s nomination but wants an 11th hour-attempt to work within another international conservation framework to reduce fishing quotas and improve regulation.

That framework, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) sets quotas for member nations and is to closely monitor them. But it has been harshly criticized for failing to lower the take over the last 40 years – as the adult stocks plunged by 72 percent in the eastern Atlantic and 82 percent in the western Atlantic. And unchallenged illegal tuna fishing is an international pastime, which hasn’t been aggressively attacked either.

Read the complete story at Nature.com

Statement from Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator, Announcing Support for Listing Atlantic Bluefin Tuna on International Trade Endangered Species List

October 14, 2009

The United States today announced that it will seek the strongest possible management for the conservation of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a fish which is in serious trouble. This action has two components. First, we are sending a clear and definitive statement to the international community that the status quo is not acceptable.

Over the past 40 years, the international body that manages bluefin tuna, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), has overseen a 72 percent decline in the adult population of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock of bluefin tuna and an 82 percent decline in the adult population of the western Atlantic stock.

In recent years, the countries that fish the eastern stock, which spawns in the Mediterranean, have done so at two to three times the sustainable level, causing a significant and rapid decline in the last decade. The status of the western stock, which spawns in the Gulf of Mexico and is fished primarily off the North American coast, has recently stabilized due to the establishment of well-enforced, science-based quotas.

A sustained lack of science-based management for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock of bluefin tuna, and concerns about slow recovery in the west, have brought us to this point. As a member in ICCAT, the United States calls for strong and definitive action at the November 2009 meeting in Brazil. This includes establishing management measures that end overfishing such as setting responsible science-based quotas, stronger enforcement of these quotas, and closures during spawning periods.

Second, the United States strongly supports Monaco’s proposal to list Atlantic bluefin tuna under theConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to prohibit international trade of the species. The United States will consider amending or withdrawing support for the Monaco proposal if ICCAT adopts significantly strengthened management and compliance measures.
Improving international fishery management and ending illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are high priorities for the United States government, Congress, commercial and recreational fishermen, and conservationists.

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