Saving Seafood

EU says still far apart with Britain on fisheries, state aid in trade talks

November 9, 2020 — There has been some progress in talks on a future trade relationship between Britain and the European Union, but both sides are still far apart on fisheries and state aid for companies, the head of the European Commission said on Saturday.

Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter she agreed in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that negotiating teams on both sides would continue to work hard on a deal next week as time is running out to reach and ratify an agreement before Britain’s transition period ends at the end of this year.

“We took stock of the negotiations with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson today. Some progress has been made, but large differences remain especially on level playing field and fisheries,” von der Leyen said.

Read the full story at Reuters

Frustration as Antarctic conservation summit fails to declare marine sanctuaries

November 6, 2020 — The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), a governing body of 25 member states and the European Union, missed an opportunity to establish a network of three marine protection areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean, according to conservation experts who attended the commission’s recent meeting.

Each year, the CCAMLR meets in Hobart, Tasmania, to discuss matters related to the management and protection of the Southern Ocean and its rich marine life. Conservationists hoped that this year’s meeting would address a proposition to form three new MPAs in East Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Weddell Sea, and that CCAMLR members would reach a consensus to bring these plans into fruition. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission met online instead of in-person during the last week of October, which didn’t provide ample time for proper negotiations and discussions, according to attendees. By the meeting’s end, the MPA proposals had not been approved.

Rodolfo Werner, a wildlife conservationist who attended the CCAMLR as an official observer and scientific representative of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), said this year’s meeting was “frustrating for several reasons.”

Read the full story at Mongabay

Brexit Deal in Sight as Fish Compromise Nears: Brussels Edition

November 2, 2020 — This week could be crunch time for negotiations on the EU’s future relationship with the U.K. In a sign that a compromise could be struck by the mid-November deadline, officials are close to breaking the deadlock on the access EU boats will have to U.K. fishing waters. The sides have two weeks to finalize an agreement and may pause this week to allow EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier to brief member states and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to give one final push. Although important differences remain — particularly over state aid and the level playing field for business — a deal on fish would remove one of the biggest obstacles.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

The Issue That Might Sink the Brexit Trade Talks: Fishing

October 29, 2020 — In the greater scheme of things, fishing is a tiny industry. Just 12,000 people in Britain fish from 6,000 vessels, contributing less than half of one percent of gross domestic product — less than the upmarket London department store Harrods, according to one analysis. The same holds true for most continental European nations.

Yet, as negotiations between Britain and the European Union on a long-term trade deal grind along toward the Dec. 31 deadline, fisheries are proving to be one of the most politically treacherous sticking points. Here’s why the issue is giving negotiators such fits.

Why are fisheries so important?

Boats from continental Europe have fished off the British coast for centuries, and those communities say they face ruin if they were to be locked out of those waters.

But in Britain, European Union membership has meant sharing British waters with fleets from France or other nations — and sometimes seeing bigger, more modern ships catching a larger proportion of the fish. In one zone off the English coast, 84 percent of the cod is allocated to France and just 9 percent to Britain, according to Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations.

The British fishing industry contends that its interests were sacrificed for more profitable sectors when the country joined the European Economic Community, a forerunner to the European Union, in 1973. Now that Britain has left the bloc, they want their fish back.

Read the full story at The New York Times

The Global Push to Share Ocean Data

October 26, 2020 — It’s often said that we know more about deep space than the deep sea. Marine scientists are working to change that. In recent years, technologies to sense, interpret and model the ocean have become more powerful, widespread and cheaper to install and use. Smart buoys bristling with sensors bob in the water and gather data on temperature, salinity, light and noise. Sensitive listening devices towed behind ships scan surrounding waters for life. And samples from good old-fashioned buckets and bottles thrown over the side of research vessels still play an important role in examining water.

As a result of all this activity, marine scientists are swimming in data. Much of it is collected by national oceanographic services or research groups scattered across the world. The quality of this data varies, and so do the ways it is gathered, stored, organised and formatted. All of which presents a problem. Given the ocean is a shared resource, and one that is growing in importance for a number of environmental, social and economic reasons, it would be better if all of these overlapping, conflicting and incompatible data streams could be organised – or at the very least, better coordinated and made more accessible.

“In the past, the gathering of marine data was quite territorial, with people collecting data within different sectors and sometimes being quite possessive,” says Clare Postlethwaite, an oceanographer who coordinates the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN) in the UK. “Now there’s a big push to get data into a single place for users to find.”

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

WTO: EU can impose billions of dollars in tariffs on US goods, including seafood

October 19, 2020 — The European Union can impose tariffs of up to USD 4 billion (EUR 3.4 billion) on imported products from the United States as a countermeasure for illegal subsidies given to American aircraft-maker Boeing, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled.

The decision, made on 13 October, builds upon the WTO’s earlier finding that recognized the Boeing subsidies were illegal.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Why Fishing Could Sink Britain’s Brexit Deal With Europe

October 7, 2020 — Twenty or so small boats, slung with orange floats and lobster pots and bearing banners reading “SAVE BRITAIN’S FISH” and “COASTAL COMMUNITIES COUNT,” chugged out of the harbor into the bay. The flotilla set off rockets and flares, and orange and white smoke billowed out over the English Channel. The unusual episode—part protest, part distress call—was replicated in port towns across Britain in April 2018. “You get pushed that far, you’ve got to do something,” Dave Pitman, 65, a third-generation trawlerman who took part in the demonstration, said in an interview this August.

At issue was the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), a European Union agreement that gives European boats access to British waters and which, critics claim, has decimated the U.K.’s fishing industry. The country remains in the CFP while it negotiates its exit from the EU, which Fishing for Leave spokesman Arron Banks said in a statement at the time gives Europe the opportunity “to cull what’s left of the UK fleet.” He added, “Brexit creates a golden opportunity to regain 70 per cent of the UK’s fisheries resources and rejuvenate a multi-billion pound industry for the nation.”

Read the full story at Foreign Policy

EU Eyes Tariffs Against the U.S., Putting Economy at Risk

October 1, 2020 — The transatlantic trade conflict isn’t showing signs of winding down any time soon, and a ruling from the World Trade Organization means that a fresh round of retaliatory tariffs could jeopardize the nascent economic recoveries in both the U.S. and the European Union.

The WTO gave the EU authorization to impose tariffs on $4 billion of U.S. exports over illegal government aid provided to Boeing Co., according to two people familiar with the decision. The EU previously said it would act on the levies immediately to counteract $7.5 billion of tariffs Washington placed on European goods in a separate case involving Toulouse, France-based Airbus SE.

The judgment comes at a delicate moment, with the U.S. presidential election just over a month away and as the U.S. and the EU struggle to recover from coronavirus-induced recessions. The EU tariffs will target coal producers, farmers and fisheries, in addition to aircraft makers, all politically important industries for President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.

Read the full story at Forbes

US Trade Commission hears testimony on CETA’s impact on US lobster exports

October 1, 2020 — The U.S. International Trade Commission heard testimony Thursday, 1 October, on the effect the trade agreement between Canada and the European Union has had on America’s lobster industry.

The Canada-E.U. pact, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), has had a detrimental effect on U.S. lobstermen and exporters since it took effect three years ago, according to Robert DeHaan, the vice president for government affairs for the National Fisheries Institute. DeHaan said the deal meant U.S. exporters faced 8 percent tariffs on live lobsters and up to 20 percent on value-added products while their Canadian counterparts paid no levies on the same products, providing them with a significant competitive advantage.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Move to increase EU’s seafood supply-chain transparency welcomed by environmental groups

September 14, 2020 — The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment (ENVI) has voted in favor of steps that would bring more transparency to E.U. fisheries activities and traceability to seafood supply chains.

ENVI’s proposed amendments to the fisheries control regulation include:

  • Vessel tracking and catch reporting to be required for all E.U. vessels.
  • The use of cameras on part of the fleet to ensure full and verifiable documentation of seafood catches.
  • Migrating the current paper-based seafood traceability systems into a digital format.
  • Information on fisheries monitoring and control efforts to be made public.
  • Making the sanctioning system more effective and considerate of environmental rules in all member states.

Read the full story at Seafood Source