Saving Seafood

Deadly life at sea: UN partners spotlight depths of danger in fishing industry

November 22, 2019 — The following was released by the United Nations:

“Every hour fishers die doing their job – not just men, women too”, Maria Helena Samedo, chief for Climate and Natural Resources at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), explained at a major conference organized by the agency in Rome, coinciding with World Fisheries Day on 21 November.

“Human rights violations and unacceptable practices at different stages of the value chain are increasing in fisheries and aquaculture”, she added.

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing leads to over-exploitation of fish stocks, already drained by pollution and climate impacts, and financially burdens honest fishers and the communities that depend on them, FAO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO)  said  in a joint statement at the conclusion of the International Symposium on Fisheries Sustainability.

Beyond injuring biodiversity and economies, IUU casts a dark shadow on already physically-taxing sea labour, with many IUU fishers engaging in transnational crimes, such as human and drug trafficking and piracy.

Read the full release here

FAO leaders assess state of the world’s fisheries at sustainability symposium

November 20, 2019 — The number of overfished stocks has been growing for years, but the commonly cited statistic that 90 percent of stocks are in peril doesn’t accurately reflect the health of the world’s oceans.

Manual Barange, the policy and resource director at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Fisheries and Aquaculture division, carefully differentiated maximally fished stocks and overfished stocks during his keynote address at FAO’s International Symposium on Sustainable Fisheries in Rome, Italy this week.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Med countries commit to fight illegal fishing, preserve ecosystems

November 12, 2019 — The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) — under the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization — has moved to increase fisheries transparency, protect threatened corals, and preserve fish breeding grounds.

The enforcement of a package of measures will be vital to help revert the “overfishing crisis” of this sea, said NGO Oceana, since they will create areas where fish can reproduce safely and will hinder illegal fishing.

“Mediterranean countries have taken an important step to restore the abundance of this sea and protect some of its most vulnerable wildlife. Oceana urges them now to enforce these decisions and adopt robust compliance systems including sanctions, so that these decisions are truly effective. GFCM’s credibility will be at stake as long as the Mediterranean remains the world’s most overexploited sea,” said Pascale Moehrle, executive director for Oceana Europe.

Oceana particularly welcomed commitments to fight illegal fishing, protect corals and fish habitats, and comply with “fisheries restricted areas”, or FRAs.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Climate change reports point to eating more seafood as a way to help save the planet

November 8, 2019 — The United Nations’ Climate Action Summit in New York, which kicked off Climate Week at the end of September, may be long over, but the activities that took place around the world – and the strong messaging about the need to find solutions to save the planet from global warming – reached an unprecedented number of people this year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a post-summit special report which outlined the major changes being observed in the earth’s oceans and frozen regions. The report concluded that the negative effects of warming oceans, melting ice, and rising sea levels already being experienced will accelerate in future decades.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

DAVID GOETHEL: Food sovereignty to include New England fisheries

October 31, 2019 — According to a study released in 2012 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, between 3.9 and 4.5 billion people get all or most of their protein sustenance from wild caught seafood. The Commerce Department reports that, despite having one of the largest exclusive fishing zones in the world, the United States imports more than 90% of its seafood.

These two facts should concern the American public and our presidential candidates, yet fishery policy is seldom if ever mentioned on the campaign trail. Every candidate has an agricultural policy, just look at the traffic jam of candidates at Iowa state fairs. Fishermen and farmers contribute over $230 million to the state’s economy annually. However, ask a candidate about the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management Act and you will likely get a blank stare.

All candidates have national security policies and food security is inextricably linked to national security. A country that is self-sufficient in fishing and farming is also secure. Long supply chains, often involving countries that do not necessarily have the United States best interests at heart, is inherently risky. So why has this issue not been addressed in the most recent iteration of Magnuson?

Read the full story at Sea Coast Online

China is Key to Closing Ports to Illegally Caught Fish

October 28, 2019 — The United Nations has a straightforward solution to the illegal fishing that is decimating marine life and pushing some species toward extinction: close the world’s ports to vessels engaged in the US$23 billion black market.

Deprived of safe harbours to offload their illicit cargo, the economic incentive to plunder the seas would begin to evaporate. That’s the idea behind the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), which came into effect in June 2016 and requires participating nations to restrict entry of foreign fishing vessels to designated ports.

What is the Port State Measures Agreement?

A UN treaty requiring countries to close their ports to illegal fishing vessels, and to share real-time information to make that possible.

Before allowing them to dock, countries must verify where the ship is registered, conduct inspections and take other actions to ensure they are not transporting illegally caught fish. That information is to be shared in real time among port states, casting an electronic net over pirate ships.

But for this remedy to this tragedy of the aquatic commons to be effective, all coastal countries must join the PSMA and enforce its provisions. Otherwise, rogue vessels would likely still be able to find ports of call to get illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) seafood to market. To date, 61 nations plus the European Union have ratified the PSMA. That leaves 78 coastal nations not signed up, including the world’s fishing superpower – China.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

FAO creating guidelines to combat human rights violations in fishing

October 17, 2019 — New international guidelines are being developed to confront substandard working conditions in the seafood industry by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

The FAO is creating the guidelines in response to increased scrutiny on labor violations and human rights abuses in the seafood industry. The guidelines, which were presented at the Conxemar International Congress on Social Sustainability on 30 September, will set an internationally accepted standard for companies and countries seeking to improve practices, clearly articulating core principles of social responsibility.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Half the World’s Coral Reefs Already Have Been Killed by Climate Change

October 11, 2019 — The oceans have long been the biggest buffer for humankind’s dangerous greenhouse-gas emissions. Around a quarter of all the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since the 1980s—from driving cars, running factories and churning out electricity with fossil fuels—has ended up sunk into the waters. As the planet has warmed from mounting emissions, the oceans warmed first and fastest, absorbing 90% of that excess heat. A report released last month by the UN-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the foremost scientific authority on the subject, warned that damage to the oceans is accelerating and may be at the point of irreversibility.

That makes delicate coral reefs around the world something of a leading indicator for the collapse of the ocean ecosystem. Half of all reef systems have already been destroyed, putting a quarter of marine life at risk. Even if global warming is limited to the 1.5 degree Celsius target outlined in the 2016 Paris Agreement—a longshot goal, at the current rate of emissions—the IPCC now concludes that “almost all warm-water coral reefs are projected to suffer significant losses of area and local extinctions.”

In a perverse consequence, lost reefs will leave nearby coastlines even more vulnerable to erosion and storms, as well as from accelerating sea-level rise, which could go up by as much as two feet this century as a result of glacier melt.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Alaska’s Responsible Fisheries Management certification program may go it alone

October 11, 2019 — The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s board of directors is being asked to consider a range of new topics coming out of the organization’s annual committee meetings, which took place 9 to 10 October.

One of the biggest changes in the organization is the Responsible Fisheries Management program shifting away from the ASMI umbrella and into its own nonprofit foundation in 2020-2021.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ocean-based climate action urged in new United Nations report

October 3, 2019 — Ocean-based solutions can play an important role in the fight against climate change, according to a new scientific report published last week at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York City, U.S.A.

The report, “The Ocean as a Solution to Climate Change: Five Opportunities for Action,” written by a consortium of scientsts affiliated with the World Resources Institute, begins with the dramatic statement, “The ocean is on the front lines of the battle against climate change.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source