Saving Seafood

Gulf Shrimp Landings in 2021 Slightly Up, But SSA Notes Anomalies in Data Collection

June 24, 2021 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) reports that 19.1 million pounds of shrimp were landed across the Gulf of Mexico through the first five months of 2021, up from 17.0 million pounds over the same time period in the last two years. However, landings of shrimp in the Gulf this year have been 23 percent below the nineteen-year historical average of 24.9 million pounds, SSA notes.

Landings data are reported monthly from the Fishery Monitoring Branch of NOAA Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center. The Alliance provides context and historical perspective on the numbers for their members, the domestic shrimp industry in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.

Read the full story at Seafood News

USTR announces, then suspends, 25 percent tariffs on goods including seafood from multiple countries

June 3, 2021 — U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced, and then immediately suspended, new Section 301 tariffs on goods from multiple countries as part of its one-year investigation of digital service taxes (DSTs).

The new tariffs, which will be set at 25 percent if reinstated, are in response to taxes levied by Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom on revenue generated by “non-resident” companies offering digital services – including the sales of software-as-a-service products. The USTR investigation began in June 2020 and found the practices of the countries discriminatory in January.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Southern Shrimp Alliance critical of US Customs Working Group’s forced labor recommendations

March 26, 2021 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) has come out in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CPB) new directorate to make forced labor a priority trade issue, while simultaneously opposing the recommendations of the Forced Labor Working Group of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (CCOAP).

The working group is an advisory group consisting of private businesses and non-governmental organizations that aim to offer clarity and aid to CBP in its efforts to regulate U.S. imports.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US seafood associations respond to human trafficking task force recommendations

February 9, 2021 — Commercial seafood organizations have begun responding to a U.S. Justice Department task force report on human trafficking in international waters.

The report, nearly three years in the making, included 27 recommendations for the federal government to eliminate loopholes or strengthen policies. Some of those recommendations include the need for congressional legislation. Among this is a recommendation to create a temporary worker visa program that would ban “recruitment fees” paid by workers on American vessels that fish in international waters but deliver products in U.S. ports.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US State Department bars import of wild-caught shrimp from China, Venezuela

April 30, 2020 — In a public notice posted to the Federal Register on 30 April, the U.S. Department of State announced that it is suspending the certification of wild-caught shrimp from China and Venezuela, making it ineligible to enter the U.S. for sale.

The suspension was in accordance with Section 609 of Public Law 101-162, which requires countries harvesting wild-caught shrimp in areas that contain sea turtles prove they have adequate laws regarding turtle excluding devices (TEDs). China’s certification was suspended due to “the use of methods of harvesting shrimp that may adversely affect sea turtles,” while Venezuela was suspended “due to the inability to confirm whether methods of harvesting shrimp may adversely affect sea turtles.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Stimulus funding process proving tricky to navigate for smaller seafood operators

April 14, 2020 — The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the U.S. seafood industry being upended as restaurant closures drive down the prices of seafood, leading a number of food organizations to request relief from the government.

The U.S. government launched a relief package in late March consisting of USD 2 trillion (EUR 1.8 trillion) in aid for businesses in the U.S., including USD 300 million (EUR 273.5 million) earmarked specifically for the seafood industry. That package includes incentives to encourage employers to keep people on their payrolls, direct payments to low- to middle-income families, and aid to seafood companies that have lost revenue due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Southern Shrimp Alliance wants Labor Department agency to close slave labor loophole

January 16, 2020 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance is requesting the U.S. Department of Labor to revise policies the trade group claims allow certain seafood imports to avoid being associated with child and forced labor practices.

SSA Executive Director John Williams sent the letter to the department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs on Monday 13 January. For more than a decade, the bureau has been responsible for producing a list of products that are produced through exploitative labor practices. That does include some seafood products, like shrimp harvested in such countries as Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Thailand.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sustainable Shark Alliance: Setting the Record Straight on Sharks for Ocean Week

June 5, 2019 — The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance:

This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

For the duration of Ocean Week, Saving Seafood will share materials related to the sustainable and economically vital U.S. commercial fishing and seafood industries, including information tied directly to events being organized as part of the NMSF conference.

Today at 2:45 p.m. EDT, as part of Capitol Hill Ocean Week, there will be a panel “The State of Shark and Ray Conservation.” The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance in advance of the panel:

With shark conservation one of the many issues being discussed at this year’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week, the Sustainable Shark Alliance (SSA) thinks it’s important to have a fact-based conversation about sharks. A recent interview given by SSA to Channel News Asia highlights the importance of sustainable domestic shark fisheries, and demonstrates why bills being considered by Congress would harm responsible U.S. fishermen, without benefiting global shark conservation.

SSA has long opposed attempts to punish law-abiding U.S. shark fishermen by banning the sale of responsibly harvested shark fins, which is what proposed legislation like the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act (SFSEA) would do. As SSA’s Rick Marks states in his interview, the U.S. represents less than one percent of the world shark fin market; banning the sale of shark fins here would not impact the global shark trade.

“It will have no effect on global shark conservation and will only harm law-abiding U.S. fishermen,” he stated in the interview.

Instead, SSA has advocated for more practical solutions, like the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act (SSFTA). SSFTA creates a transparent certification program for countries seeking to import shark products into the United States. Countries involved in the U.S. shark and ray market must have an effective prohibition on the reprehensible and wasteful practice of shark finning, and have shark and ray management policies comparable to those under the U.S. Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Facts are important in the shark conservation debate, but the reality of U.S. shark fishing is often lost in the discussion. In 2017, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D, NJ) dramatically inflated the number of incidences of illegal shark finning in U.S. waters, based on a footnote error in a NOAA document. While the Senator claimed that there were over 500 incidences in a 10-year period, the actual number was only 85. Shark finning has been illegal in U.S. waters since 2000.

This confusion has continued into the current debate. At a hearing in March, Linda McCaul of EarthEcho International, the wife of Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, testified on behalf of SFSEA. Wearing her Congressional spouse pin, she delivered testimony including several pictures of shark fins and the aftermath of shark finning. However, several of the photos were taken overseas, not in the United States. They may reflect the horrific practice of shark finning as it occurs abroad, but they have no relationship to legal and sustainable shark fishing is practiced in the U.S., and should not have been used as evidence of an alleged need to restrict a well-managed domestic fishery.

SSA’s full interview with Channel News Asia is available here. More information on SSA’s support for the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act is available here.

Banning Shark Fin Sales Not Effective Conservation Tool, Sustainable Shark Alliance Tells Congress

March 26, 2019 — The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance:

Banning the domestic sale of shark fins will be less effective for global shark conservation than legal, regulated shark fishing, according to testimony from the Sustainable Shark Alliance (SSA), delivered today before a House panel.

Shaun Gehan, testifying on behalf of SSA before the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, voiced SSA’s opposition to H.R. 737, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act. Instead, SSA, which represents shark fishermen, dealers, and processors, expressed its support for H.R. 788, the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act.

Mr. Gehan was quick to point out in his prepared remarks that opposition to H.R. 737 is not based on a difference of opinion on the troubling practice of shark finning, which he testified is an “abhorrent and unsustainable” practice that “wastes an important source of low-cost protein that can feed growing populations.” Rather, SSA opposes H.R. 737 because, by banning the sale of legally caught shark fins that are not inhumanely harvested, it will not effectively promote global shark conservation.

“Sustainably-sourced fins from our well-managed fishery will be replaced by those from bad actors. Only American fishermen, abiding by the world’s strictest shark conservation laws, and sharks in unmanaged waters will suffer,” he said.

NOAA has expressed similar concerns with the legislation. Last year, Alan Risenhoover, Director of NOAA’s Office of Sustainable Fisheries, told the same subcommittee that “we cannot support the Shark Fin Sale Elimination Act because the bill’s negative impact on U.S. fishermen would outweigh its minimal benefit to shark conservation,” adding, “this would hurt U.S. fishermen who currently harvest and sell sharks and shark fins in a sustainable manner under strict federal management.”

SSA supports H.R. 788, which “leverages the power of the U.S. market to ‘export’ the best management practices of our country.” Rather than banning the sale of all shark fins, H.R. 788 requires all shark products that are imported into the U.S. come from fisheries that meet the same high standards as U.S. fisheries. This means that not only must they come from sharks that are not finned, but that they must also come from shark fisheries that are managed sustainably.

H.R. 788 promotes high standards of shark conservation at a global level, while, just as importantly, preserves increasingly important American shark fisheries.

“Not only do shark harvests provide an important source of income for American fishermen and their communities, but growing shark populations are rapidly increasing natural mortality on such important food and game fish as red snapper and grouper species, not to mention increasing predation on whales and marine mammals,” Mr. Gehan said.

Unfortunately, the subcommittee did not consider H.R. 788 at today’s hearing, instead focusing on a bill that will harm many constituents in coastal communities without providing meaningful shark conservation. SSA urges the subcommittee to reconsider H.R. 788 as a better alternative.

About the Sustainable Shark Alliance

The Sustainable Shark Alliance (SSA) is a coalition of shark fishermen and seafood dealers that advocates for sustainable U.S. shark fisheries and supports well-managed and healthy shark populations. The SSA stands behind U.S. shark fisheries as global leaders in successful shark management and conservation. The SSA is a member of Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities.