Saving Seafood

Explainer: What’s Included in the WTO’s Fishing Subsidies Agreement?

June 30, 2022 — It has taken more than 20 years, but government representatives at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva have finally agreed on a deal to curb the harmful subsidies that are compromising fish populations and damaging the marine environment.

It is the first time the WTO’s 164 members have made a deal with “environmental sustainability at its heart,” said the WTO director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in her closing speech. “This is also about the livelihoods of the 260 million people who depend directly or indirectly on marine fisheries,” she added.

The agreement bans subsidies for vessels and operators engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and puts curbs on funding that supports the exploitation of overfished stocks. It also prohibits subsidies for fishing on the high seas – areas beyond national waters – if operations fall outside the jurisdiction of a regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO).

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

 

WTO fishery subsidy negotiations stumble, drag into 2020

December 18, 2019 — The World Trade Organization’s negotiations to phase out fishery subsidies ended inconclusively before the holiday season.

The most recent round of negotiations, held behind closed doors at the WTO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, ended without an agreement once again, after years of efforts. The talks have effectively been ongoing since 2001, but were scheduled to conclude by the end of 2019 to meet the United Nations’ 2020 Sustainable Development Goals.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

CITES lists 18 more shark and ray species

September 6, 2019 — At the 18th Conference of the Parties in Geneva, the 183 parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) added 18 species of sharks and rays to the threatened list, “Appendix II.”

As a result of the new listings, international trade in shortfin mako shark, longfin mako shark, 10 species of wedgefish, and six species of giant guitarfish will be banned unless they are proven to be legal and sustainable. The inclusion of these 18 species in Appendix II increases the number of commercially important shark and ray species regulated by CITES to 38.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Nestle admits Thai seafood suppliers abuse workers, promises to pursue solutions aggressively

November 23, 2015 — WASHINGTON (AP) — Impoverished migrant workers in Thailand are sold or lured by false promises and forced to catch and process fish that ends up in global food giant Nestle SA’s supply chains.

The unusual disclosure comes from Geneva-based Nestle SA itself, which in an act of self-policing announced the conclusions of its yearlong internal investigation on Monday. The study found virtually all U.S. and European companies buying seafood from Thailand are exposed to the same risks of abuse in their supply chains.

Nestle SA, among the biggest food companies in the world, launched the investigation in December 2014, after reports from news outlets and nongovernmental organizations tied brutal and largely unregulated working conditions to their shrimp, prawns and Purina brand pet foods. Its findings echo those of The Associated Press in reports this year on slavery in the seafood industry that have resulted in the rescue of more than 2,000 fishermen.

The laborers come from Thailand’s much poorer neighbors Myanmar and Cambodia. Brokers illegally charge them fees to get jobs, trapping them into working on fishing vessels and at ports, mills and seafood farms in Thailand to pay back more money than they can ever earn.

“Sometimes, the net is too heavy and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear. When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water,” one Burmese worker told the nonprofit organization Verite commissioned by Nestle.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News