Saving Seafood

Feds: Gulf states to keep managing recreational red snapper

February 6, 2020 — States on the Gulf of Mexico can keep setting seasons and bag limits for anglers going after red snapper in federal waters when a two-year experiment becomes permanent Thursday.

The rule will take effect with publication in the Federal Register, the U.S. Commerce Department said.

The Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group, said Wednesday that it was cautiously optimistic about the rule for the popular sport and table fish, which is recovering from nearly disastrous overfishing.

“There’s still some kinks to be worked out with the data collection” in some states, said Sepp Haukebo, the group’s manager for private angler management reform. For instance, he said, in some years before the experimental program started, Alabama’s estimates of the amount taken were as low as 30% of the federal estimates for that state.

“They’ve gotten a lot closer in the last couple of years,” he said, adding that Alabama has announced improvements that should make its tallies more accurate.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

West Coast fishery rebounds in rare conservation ‘home run’

December 26, 2019 — A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the U.S. West Coast.

After years of fear and uncertainty, bottom trawler fishermen ” those who use nets to catch rockfish, bocaccio, sole, Pacific Ocean perch and other deep-dwelling fish ” are making a comeback here, reinventing themselves as a sustainable industry less than two decades after authorities closed huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean because of the species’ depletion.

The ban devastated fishermen, but on Jan. 1, regulators will reopen an area roughly three times the size of Rhode Island off Oregon and California to groundfish bottom trawling ” all with the approval of environmental groups that were once the industry’s biggest foes.

The rapid turnaround is made even more unique by the collaboration between the fishermen and environmentalists who spent years refining a long-term fishing plan that will continue to resuscitate the groundfish industry while permanently protecting thousands of square miles of reefs and coral beds that benefit the overfished species.

Now, the fishermen who see their livelihood returning must solve another piece of the puzzle: drumming up consumer demand for fish that haven’t been in grocery stores or on menus for a generation.

‘It’s really a conservation home run,’ said Shems Jud, regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund’s ocean program. ’The recovery is decades ahead of schedule. It’s the biggest environmental story that no one knows about.”

The process also netted a win for conservationists concerned about the future of extreme deepwater habitats where bottom trawlers currently don’t go. A tract of ocean the size of New Mexico with waters up to 2.1 miles (3.4 kilometers) deep will be off-limits to bottom-trawling to protect deep-sea corals and sponges just now being discovered.

‘Not all fishermen are rapers of the environment. When you hear the word ‘trawler,’ very often that’s associated with destruction of the sea and pillaging,” said Kevin Dunn, whose trawler Iron Lady was featured in a Whole Foods television commercial about sustainable fishing.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at News Chief

Bottom-trawling fishing severely restricted off West Coast starting in January

November 19, 2019 — The most extensive ban on bottom trawling — dragging weighted nets on the sea floor — became law Tuesday after fishing groups and environmentalists agreed to protect more than 140,000 square miles of seafloor habitat along the West Coast, including beds of lush coral around the Farallon Islands.

The new regulations, which will take effect Jan. 1 after being published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, will restrict fishing over 90% of the seafloor along the coast from Canada to Mexico, the largest contiguous area protected from bottom trawling in the world.

At the same time, about 3,000 square miles of sandy seafloor previously closed to fishing under the 2002 Rockfish Conservation Area rules were reopened after it was determined that rockfish populations had recovered in those areas.

“It’s monumental,” said Geoffrey Shester, the senior scientist for the conservation group Oceana, which has fought for years to limit bottom trawling, long considered the most damaging method of fishing in the ocean. “It puts the West Coast at the top of the barrel for global leadership in protecting our seafloor.”

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle 

In Mexico, gains from fishery management reforms could surpass losses from climate change

October 25, 2019 — Abalone along the Pacific coast in northern Mexico have declined dramatically in the last decade because of lower oxygen levels prompted by climate change. But despite that, the Pacific Federation of Fishing Cooperatives (Fedecoop) has been able to prevent overfishing by limiting the total catch, according to Laura Rodriguez, the associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Latin and South American Oceans Program.

It’s the type of proactive governance that Mexico and Latin America need more of as climate change grows more severe, warping ocean conditions from temperature to acidity, salinity to oxygen levels, all while altering the life histories, distribution, and productivity of marine species, according to Rodriguez.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Economist says coastal restoration projects would pump billions into southeast Louisiana’s economy

October 17, 2019 — Two projects planned by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority will have a multibillion-dollar economic impact on southeast Louisiana, according to a report presented to the CPRA board Wednesday.

The CPRA expects to spend $1.8 billion over seven years on two controversial diversion projects that would redirect land-building sediment from the Mississippi River to Barataria Bay and Breton Bay.

“That’s a non-trivial sum of money, obviously,” said Loren Scott, an economist who studied the potential economic impact for the Restore the Mississippi Delta Campaign and The Environmental Defense Fund.

In the four-parish region that includes Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Orleans and Jefferson parishes, sales at businesses would increase by more than $3.1 billion while household earnings would increase more than $809 million, according to Scott’s projections.

Read the full story at KPVI

West Coast Fisheries “Comeback of the Century”

October 8, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

With help from rebounding West Coast rockfish, Giuseppe “Joe” Pennisi has put the fisherman back in San Francisco’s famed Fisherman’s Wharf.

Pennisi is the first fisherman to sell freshly caught fish off his boat at Fisherman’s Wharf in many years. He has reintroduced locals to the flaky white fish that was once a mainstay of West Coast seafood. Most weekends when the fishing is good, crowds form early at the dock next to his boat, the Pioneer, and continue all day. Some wait for hours to buy chilipepper rockfish, rose fish, boccacio and other deep-water species Pennisi brings up in his nets.

“You can’t help but be excited when you get to the dock and all these people are waiting for their fish,” he said.

The reemerging demand for rockfish reflects what may be the West Coast fisheries comeback of the century. Rapidly rebuilding stocks are reviving opportunities for determined fishermen such as Pennisi and customers of his Pioneer Seafoods. From Washington to California, a fishing fleet that sacrificed heavily while groundfish stocks rebuilt are now beginning to harvest the results.

“It really does seem like we’re turning an important corner,” said Shems Jud, who has long tracked the groundfish fishery for the Environmental Defense Fund. The rebuilding of groundfish represents a rarity among environmental issues. Fishermen, environmental groups, fisheries managers, and others replaced contention and controversy with lasting collaboration.

Read the full release here

Smart boats show promise to lower fishery monitoring costs

August 27, 2019 — Cheap cameras, low-cost sensors, further-reaching data transmission networks and rapidly improving artificial intelligence algorithms have the potential to both reduce the cost of catch monitoring and increase profitability for fishermen.

It’s a new world of fishing that the Environmental Defense Fund is pursuing with its Smart Boat Initiative, first announced in March 2019. The initiative aims to benefit both fish and fishermen by leveraging technology to document activities on deck, gather data about oceanographic conditions, and connect fishermen with buyers – even while they’re still on the water.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New study suggests Japan could sustainably increase profits by billions

August 21, 2019 — New research published Aug. 19 in the journal Marine Policy suggests Japan’s fishing fleets could generate an additional $5.5 billion in annual profits while supporting a 30% increase in populations of fish in Japan’s waters by 2065, if they adopt policies that promote conservation and offer fishermen the right incentives.

Authored by scientists at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Iwate University, Norwegian School of Economics, and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, the study examines the potential effects of different approaches to managing Japan’s fisheries on catch, profits and the amounts of fish left in the water to support healthy ecosystems. The results suggest that adopting policies that incorporate science-based fisheries management into Japan’s current rights-based management system could increase profits compared to the status quo, the group said.

In December 2018 Japan passed the most significant reforms to its fisheries laws in 70 years. This new research could help shape the implementation of that law, EDF claimed.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US groundfish fishery returning to its former glory, stakeholders say

July 22, 2019 — Last weekend’s Slow Food Nations Festival – a Denver, Colorado-based event showcasing sustainable and traceable food – was well represented by the U.S. West Coast groundfish fishery, which is exhibiting an impressive turnaround after it was decimated in the 1990’s.

The fishery, which consists predominantly of species of rockfish and flatfish, was collapsing due to overfishing about two decades ago. Thanks to conservation efforts, the recovery has been massively successful, with only two stocks down from the 10 classified as overfished. The two currently overfished groundfish stocks in the region are on the road to being rebuilt in coming years.

Even though the recovery of the fishery has been a smashing success thus far, demand for the fish has been languishing behind the supply, stakeholders say.

“The challenge at this point is that the economic performance is not coming up to where it’s being viewed as a profitable fishery by industry,” said Environmental Defense Fund Pacific Fisheries Policy Manager Melissa Mahoney. “That’s mainly because… when that fishery collapsed, [groundfish] lost their market share and at the same time, tilapia was coming in. So we’ve had the substitution of cheaper consistent whitefish in that market. As the fishery has recovered and the fishermen are able to catch more rockfish with more consistency, there’s this chicken-and-egg thing with getting the market back.”

The EDF has been working on the West Coast groundfish fishery for over 10 years and is deeply involved in shaping policy. Mahoney is also on the board of Positively Groundfish, a non-profit formed by a group of industry stakeholders – including Oregon State University, Marine Stewardship Council, fishermen, fish processors, etc. – to help coordinate and unify the efforts around getting the West Coast groundfish market going again.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cuba overhauls its fishing regulations. Florida Keys and East Coast to benefit.

July 16, 2019 — The Cuban government enacted sweeping reforms to its fishing regulations over the weekend, a move being praised by U.S. environmentalists for what they expect to be a positive domino effect on fisheries from the Florida Keys all the way up the East Coast.

Advocates of the overhaul say it will help coordination on fisheries management with other countries, including the United States.

The reforms are the first changes to Cuba’s fishing regulations in 20 years, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, the environmental group that announced them Monday and helped shape some of the new policies.

Read the full story at the Miami Herald