South Africa Archives - Saving Seafood

MarinTrust unveils its new marine ingredients standards

October 24, 2023 — Marine ingredient certification standard provider MarinTrust unveiled Version 3 of its standards for the responsible supply of marine ingredients.

MarinTrust said the new standard, debuted alongside IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organisation’s annual conference in Cape Town, South Africa, lays the foundation toward a fully traceable marine ingredient supply chain with a focus on both environmental and social impacts – both at the factory and vessel level. The organization added the new standard also aims to increase accessibility to responsibly sourced and produced marine ingredients – and also encourages the use of byproducts in the creation of those ingredients.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Flocking to Robben Island: Tourists by Day, Poachers by Night

August 16, 2016 — Robben Island in South Africa is getting to be notorious again — and this time it’s not for racial oppression.

The apartheid-era prison on the island is now a tourist attraction, where visitors from around the world pause with reverence outside the cell where Nelson Mandela was kept. The ferry ride back to the mainland merely deepens the sense of isolation that the inmates must have felt.

But the waters surrounding Robben Island, just off the coast near Cape Town, also happen to be among the richest in the world for delicious shellfish — especially abalone, which is highly prized in Asia. That has made the island a hot spot for shellfish poaching.

At night, when the island is closed to tourists, poachers in inflatable boats known as rubber ducks often make their way toward its rocky coastline and dive illegally in the shallows in search of the mollusks.

Read the full story at the New York Times

EU declines to recommend endangered label for American Eel

April 26, 2016 — The European Union has decided not to recommend listing American Eel as an endangered species at the upcoming CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) Conference of the Parties, to be held later this year.

In a report submitted to CITES (“Conservation of and trade in Anguilla SPP.”), the EU and its Member States instead recommended funding for a study of eel species not listed as endangered by CITES and noted that data on eels in the Northeast U.S. is more comprehensive than elsewhere in the world.

The European Eel (Anguilla anguilla) has been listed in CITES Appendix II since 2009. Currently export and import of European Eel from and into the EU is illegal, and EU Member States have enacted a zero export quota for the species since 2011. That led to an increased demand for other eel species, and an increase in illegal trade. As the EU report explains, U.S. fisheries managers passed a harvest quota and regulations to limit the expansion of the harvest of American Eel (Anguilla rostrata). The U.S. harvest is restricted to one fishery in Maine and a smaller fishery in South Carolina.

The report states that, for American Eel, “there are data for most of this species’ life stages (glass, elver, yellow and silver) from the northern part of its range (Canada and central Atlantic States).” It is more critical of data on eels in the Caribbean, northern South America, and East Asia, and pushes for more information that would lead to effective conservation and management of eels.

In its recommendations, the EU encourages parties involved in the trade of eel species to provide CITES with specific information to inform a potential study, and to participate in workshops where they can share their expertise and knowledge on priority topics.

The EU report comes ahead of the CITES Seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, which will convene from September 24 to Octobers 5 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Read the full report at the European Commission of the European Union

Gov’t to step up inspections of long-distance fishing vessels

February 20, 2016 — TAIPEI – Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency said that it will step up efforts to monitor the operations of Taiwanese long-distance fishing vessels, in response to an international effort to tighten fishing amid diminishing fishery resources.

Under a five-year program that has been approved by the Cabinet, the government agency said it will post more personnel overseas at harbors close to areas where many Taiwanese long-distance fishing boats operate.

The agency currently has personnel posted in Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, and South Africa, where Taiwanese long-distance fishing boats unload their fish catches, said Tsay Tzu-yaw, head of the Fisheries Agency.

Tsay said his agency will post more personnel overseas to cover more areas where Taiwanese long-distance fishing vessels operate. The personnel will board such Taiwanese boats to check whether their operations are in line with law, he added.

The number of additional personnel and where they will be posted will be confirmed after further negotiations with the countries involved, he said.

Read the full story at The China Post

MASSACHUSETTS: South African scientist, Cape Cod officials talk shark spotting strategies

January 25, 2016 — This past summer, it seemed as though Atlantic great white sharks, once thought to be elusive and rarely seen, were suddenly everywhere.

Popular beaches were closed to swimming as great whites moved north in the waning days of summer away from what is thought of as their stomping ground — the relatively remote and unpopulated Monomoy islands — and into the heart of tourist country.

Earlier this month, beach managers, town officials and Cape Cod National Seashore representatives met for the first time in more than a year to consider ways to protect the millions who will come to Cape beaches this summer. It is the first in a series of similar monthly meetings this winter.

“What it told me is we’re on the right track. Education is big,” Orleans Natural Resources Director Nate Sears said about a presentation by South African shark scientist Alison Kock at the Jan. 12 workshop hosted by the Seashore.

Kock’s visit was paid for by the nonprofit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, the main fundraiser for shark research by Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries scientists Greg Skomal and John Chisholm. Kock is the research manager for Cape Town’s Shark Spotters Program, which employs locals to scan beaches with binoculars from high vantage points and warn beach officials of sharks. Along with the Save Our Seas foundation, the group sponsors shark research and conservation while attempting to keep beachgoers safe.

“I am very impressed by the proactive stance being taken on the Cape,” Kock wrote in an email from South Africa after her visit. Nothing happened in Cape Town until after a series of fatal attacks on swimmers and surfers a decade ago, she said. Kock praised the signs and brochures that have been in place on Cape beaches for two years.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times

Research finds trawling not as devastating as often portrayed

November 23, 2015 — An ongoing two-year independent study on trawling and its effect on benthic sea life — species that live on sea floors where trawling occurs – has found that the practice may not be as devastating as it is portrayed by some NGOs.

The study called, ‘Trawling: Finding Common Ground on the Scientific Knowledge Regarding Best Practices’, is being funded by the Walton Foundation and the Packard Foundation in partnership with the National Fisheries Institute, and is being done by a group of international scientists who are collecting and assessing data of global sea floors where trawling occurs.

The major data collection and analysis for the project has been completed, including assessments of mobile bottom contact gear in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa and most of the US, making it six times more extensive than and previous compilations.

According to Ricardo Amoroso of the University of Washington, who presented the data at this year’s Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle, public perception of trawling is often negative. Common public beliefs include the equivalent of 10 football fields are trawled every four seconds and that trawling is turning the seafloor into a desert.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News