Saving Seafood

Nations Will Start Talks to Protect Fish of the High Seas

August 2, 2017 — UNITED NATIONS — More than half of the world’s oceans belong to no one, which often makes their riches ripe for plunder.

Now, countries around the world have taken the first step to protect the precious resources of the high seas. In late July, after two years of talks, diplomats at the United Nations recommended starting treaty negotiations to create marine protected areas in waters beyond national jurisdiction — and in turn, begin the high-stakes diplomatic jostling over how much to protect and how to enforce rules.

“The high seas are the biggest reserve of biodiversity on the planet,” Peter Thomson, the ambassador of Fiji and current president of the United Nations General Assembly, said in an interview after the negotiations. “We can’t continue in an ungoverned way if we are concerned about protecting biodiversity and protecting marine life.”

Without a new international system to regulate all human activity on the high seas, those international waters remain “a pirate zone,” Mr. Thomson said.

Lofty ambitions, though, are likely to collide with hard-knuckled diplomatic bargaining. Some countries resist the creation of a new governing body to regulate the high seas, arguing that existing regional organizations and rules are sufficient. The commercial interests are powerful. Russian and Norwegian vessels go to the high seas for krill fishing; Japanese and Chinese vessels go there for tuna. India and China are exploring the seabed in international waters for valuable minerals. Many countries are loath to adopt new rules that would constrain them.

Read the full story at the New York Times

ARA BUAKAMSRI: Major change for the Thai and global seafood industry

July 27, 2017 — Thailand is on the brink of making real progress toward the elimination of destructive fishing and human rights abuses in its seafood supply chains. As a potential yellow card de-listing from the European Commission looms, it remains to be seen whether the country will take the steps needed to fully meet the standards to eliminate human rights abuse in the seafood industry.

It’s fair to say that Thai authorities have made progress in key areas, including reforms to the legal and regulatory framework for fishing that was drawn up in 1947, along with improvements to and the enforcement of labour regulations. At the UN Ocean Conference in New York this year, Thai delegates announced a voluntary commitment to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by rigorously controlling, monitoring, and inspecting all Thai-flagged fishing vessels operating inside and outside Thai waters. A key piece of this commitment is to eliminate all IUU fishing in Thai fishing fleets by 2019.

Understandably, this progress has been met with criticism, seen by some as insufficient and cosmetic.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangkok Post

Americans Need to Know U.S. Fisheries are Sustainable: Former Senior NOAA Official

July 24, 2017 — Earlier this month, Saving Seafood unveiled our campaign to tell the public that American Seafood is Sustainable Seafood™. A recent paper by Mark Helvey, former NOAA Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries for the Pacific Region, confirms that purchasing U.S.-caught seafood is one of the most sustainable choices consumers can make, and notes that, “Most Americans remain unaware of the high environmental standards by which U.S. federal marine fisheries – and many state fisheries – are managed, in compliance with multiple state and federal laws.”

According to the paper, the standards under which U.S. fishermen operate “conform to or exceed internationally accepted guidelines for sustainable fisheries adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”

The first recommendation made in the peer-reviewed paper is to “increase awareness…of the high environmental standards by which U.S. federal marine fisheries – and many state fisheries – are managed.”

The paper makes the case that, “Sea Grant Extension Programs in U.S. coastal states and territories have conducted education and out-reach, with NOAA Fishwatch and a number of nongovernmental organizations also helping to bridge this gap. However, further efforts to address this lack of understanding are needed.”

This is precisely the goal of our American Seafood is Sustainable Seafood™ campaign.

Mr. Helvey provided the following summary of his paper to Saving Seafood:

  • The United States is recognized for its robust seafood appetite and strong commitment to environmental conservation. However, efforts to close or restrict its own domestic fisheries in pursuit of environmental protection are often not considered within the context of seafood consumption.
  • Restricting U.S. fisheries comes at the cost of displaced negative environmental impacts associated with the fishing activities of less-regulated, foreign fisheries.
  • The authors provide six solutions for addressing this issue beginning with the need for U.S. consumers becoming more aware of the exceedingly high environmental standards by which U.S. marine fisheries are managed relative to many foreign ones.
  • While efforts by NOAA’s Sea Grant Extension Program, FishWatch, and a number of nongovernmental organizations are bridging the information gap, the authors stress that more is required for increasing awareness that U.S fisheries are sustainable fisheries.

The paper, “Can the United States have its fish and eat it too?,” was published in the January 2017 volume of Marine Policy and is co-authored by Caroline Pomeroy, Naresh C. Pradhan, Dale Squires, and Stephen Stohs.

Read the full paper at ScienceDirect

An Ocean in Chains: Reviewing SDG 14 in Advance of the HLPF

July 6, 2017 — Five meetings in 2017 are pivotal for global efforts to save the ocean, including the July 2017 meeting of the High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development (HLPF). Parties to the Port State Measures Agreement (on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing) convened for the first meeting of the Parties in May, to set forth its implementation. In June, the first-ever Ocean Conference convened at UN Headquarters in New York. In July, the HLPF will review progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 14) on life below water, as one of seven SDGs to receive special attention. In parallel to the HLPF, a UN preparatory committee will discuss recommendations to the UN General Assembly on negotiating a treaty on the management of marine biological diversity in the high seas. And, in December, the World Trade Organization will hold its eleventh Ministerial Conference, during which many are hoping fisheries subsidies will be on the agenda. While these meetings are not the only important ocean events occurring in 2017, they will influence how stakeholders, from governments to civil society to individuals, will approach ocean issues going forward.

This policy update reviews themes threading through these meetings as reported by the SDG Knowledge Hub. It provides readers with background knowledge, recalls how the international policy community has framed prominent ocean issues, and looks forward to the next steps. This update follows the structure used in the ‘2017 HLPF Thematic Review of SDG 14’ (HLPF Brief), lightly canvassing the issues of pollution, acidification and climate change, marine spatial planning/marine protected areas (MPAs), small-scale fisheries (SSF), subsidies, research, and linkages.

To begin, the Ocean Conference is to be celebrated simply for existing. The guest article ‘SDG at Sea‘ recounts the rise of the ocean in the global sustainable agenda, going from the absence of ocean issues in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to becoming the largest substantive section of the ‘The Future We Want,’ to eventually securing a stand-alone goal among the 17 SDGs. The June Ocean Conference was a key moment for the global ocean policy community, which came together to identify and discuss solutions to ocean challenges. It concluded with a negotiated ‘Call for Action’ and over 1,300 voluntary commitments announced by an array of stakeholders (governments, civil society and the private sector) to tackle ocean-specific problems.

Read the full story at the International Institute for Sustainable Development

HÉCTOR SOLDI: Clear waters, clear hearts: Now is the time for more transparency in our oceans

July 5, 2017 — Last month, leaders from around the world gathered in New York City for the United Nations’ Ocean Conference. The UN Ocean Conference was an opportunity for countries to discuss how we will implement one of the organization’s key conservation goals — how to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”

As Peru’s vice minister of fisheries and aquaculture, I came to the UN Ocean Conference to announce a major new transparency measure we are undertaking to demonstrate our commitment to sustainable management of our marine resources.

Peru is making its national vessel tracking data publicly available through Global Fishing Watch, an organization that provides the first global view of commercial fishing activity. Global Fishing Watch already uses public broadcast data collected by satellite and terrestrial receivers to show the movement of vessels over time and identify fishing activity. The addition of our government’s data to the platform will provide the world with an even clearer view of fishing activity in our oceans.

We are also pleased to have been joined by Indonesia, which fulfilled a similar transparency commitment the country made in 2015. Indonesia’s vessel tracking data is now public and available for the first time through Global Fishing Watch.

Read the full opinion piece at The Hill

Seven Species of Giant Clam on Deck for Federal Protection

June 28, 2017 — The National Marine Fisheries Service announced that seven of ten giant clam species petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act need further study. The 90-day review process found that the petition provided enough scientific evidence to move seven of the species to the second stage of the ESA listing process, known as the 12-month status review.

The petition was filed by “private citizen” Dwayne W. Meadows Ph.D., formerly the Coordinator for the NMFS’ Species of Concern Program, who is a conservation biologist and educator, with additional background in SCUBA diving and underwater photography.

Giant clams live along shallow shorelines and reefs in the tropical Indo-West Pacific region. The largest of the giant clam species, Tridacna gigas, grows up to 4.5 feet wide and can weigh up to 440 pounds. “The petition points out that the giant clam (T. gigas) is preferentially targeted for international trade due to its large size and because it is considered a desirable  luxury item in China thought to confer supernatural powers and improve health,” the action notes. “A pair of high quality shells (from one individual) can fetch up to US $150,000.”

A United Nations tribunal arbitrated a dispute between the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China last year regarding maritime rights in the South China Sea, including the matter of China’s poaching of giant clams.

“The Tribunal is particularly troubled by the evidence with respect to giant clams, tons of which were  harvested by Chinese  fishing vessels from Scarborough  Shoal,  and  in  recent  years, elsewhere in the Spratly Islands. Giant clams (Tridacnidae)… play a significant role in the overall growth and maintenance of the reef structure…Excavation is highly destructive, with early reports showing a drop in coral cover by 95 percent from its original value. More recently, fishermen  in  the  South  China  Sea  are  reported  to  utilize  the  propellers  of  their  boats  to excavate shells from reef flats in the Spratly Islands on an industrial scale, leading to near-complete destruction of the affected reef areas,” the report stated.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

U.S. West Coast Fisheries Revitalized by Catch-Share System

June 16, 2017 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has published its new, comprehensive analysis of the impact of sustainable seafood certification in safeguarding our marine resources. The MSC Global Impacts Report 2017 spotlights the U.S. West Coast groundfish trawl among more than a thousand examples of positive change made by certified fisheries to safeguard fish stocks and marine habitats.

The turnaround of the U.S. West Coast groundfish trawl, which received a disaster declaration by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce in 2000, is a true American success story. Between the 1980s and 2000s, landings dropped by 70 percent. Fishing communities suffered as revenues fell from US$47.3 million in 1997 to US$22.2 million in 2007. In 2011, under the advice of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Pacific Fishery Management Council took the then-controversial decision to introduce an individual fishery quota system.

The system has been described by NOAA as the biggest transformation in fish management for more than a generation. Since its introduction, fishers have made fewer trips each week, landed more of the fish that they catch, and earned higher revenue for each fishing trip. Importantly, bycatch and discards have dropped substantially with catch of rebuilding stocks 50 percent lower than before the catch-share system was introduced. For example, the discard rate of darkblotched rockfish dropped from 51 percent to just 2 percent and for bocaccio rockfish it fell from 80 percent to less than 1 percent.

In 2014, MSC certification provided valuable recognition of this transformation and ushered in further improvements. Since becoming certified, the fishery client has continued to work closely with NOAA and has fostered strong collaborations with international non-profit organizations.

Representing the U.S. West Coast groundfish trawl fisheries, Brad Pettinger, Director of the Oregon Trawl Commission, said: “In gaining MSC certification for this fishery, what we really did was to renew the social contract that we have with the public, providing assurance that we are fishing sustainably and in a manner that is consistent with the public’s high expectation.”

The MSC report provides governments, industry and NGOs with evidence for credible certification as a powerful tool to catalyze and secure improvements in marine fisheries. The findings were released just ahead of the United Nations (UN) Oceans Conference, which convened in New York last week to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, which calls to conserve and sustainably use the oceans.

“When people purchase MSC certified seafood, their choice supports fishermen around the world who are working hard to meet the world’s most rigorous standard for environmental sustainability,” said Brian Perkins, MSC regional director – Americas. “We’re extremely proud of the MSC certified U.S. West Coast groundfish trawl fishery and fisheries around the globe working to safeguard seafood supplies for the future.”

With certified fisheries currently comprising 12% of global marine catch, the MSC’s goal is for 20% of all wild caught seafood to come from fisheries engaged in the MSC program by 2020. The report clearly demonstrates that with the correct incentives and actions fisheries can achieve the sustainable performance required to meet the SDGs.

A catalyst for change in habitats and ecosystems management

The MSC report shows that 94% of fisheries entering the program have made at least one improvement to achieve or maintain certification, totaling more than 1,200 over the last 16 years. Of these, 117 actions by 39 fisheries contributed to improving habitat status, management and information. In total, MSC certified fisheries have been involved with 46 new scientific research projects as part of efforts to better understand and minimize impacts on habitats.

Our oceans, our future – more to do

Roughly half of fisheries which complete voluntary pre-assessment to the MSC Fisheries Standard do not progress to full assessment, suggesting that they have work to do to reach the requirements of certification.

The MSC Global Impacts Report maps the location of certified fisheries in large marine ecosystems (LMEs) around the world, showing the proportion of MSC certified fisheries in areas of international importance to biodiversity. The maps reveal a need to support small-scale fisheries, particularly those in developing countries, on the road to sustainability. The MSC is developing new tools and investing in scientific research to support fisheries in achieving MSC certification.

In order for these initiatives to have impact at scale, the MSC encourages the international community meeting at the UN to support market-based incentive mechanisms, including certification, as an essential tool to contribute to realizing the SDGs. Consumers can also play their part by choosing seafood with the blue MSC label.

Read the MSC’s commitment to SDG 14

The MSC program is recognized in the UN Concept Paper for Partnership dialogue as a promising tool for developing partnerships and sustainable seafood supply chains.

At U.N., Brett Tolley Touts Small-Scale Fisheries

June 14, 2017 — Fisheries activist Brett Tolley of Chatham has told many people about the plight of small-scale fishermen like his father, who left the industry because he couldn’t compete with big corporate interests. Last week, he told that story to world leaders in a special forum at the United Nations in New York.

A proud member of a fourth-generation fishing family, Tolley works as a community organizer and policy advocate for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, which lobbies for healthy fisheries and fishing communities. Last week, at the invitation of the Slow Food International Network, Tolley testified as part of a panel at the U.N. Ocean Conference.

In contrast with fast food, Slow Food represents traditional and regional cuisine from local plants, livestock and seafood.

“It’s good, clean and fair food for all,” Tolley said. The movement was born around the same time as the agricultural crisis in the 1980s, acknowledging that high-volume, low-cost industrial farms were destroying small family farms and the communities they supported.

“The industrial food system is not working,” Tolley said. Mega-farms not only cause social problems, but they don’t actually achieve the goal of providing healthier food for the masses, he added. Intense industrial farming can also leave tracts of land unusable because of pesticides and other environmental threats. With small-scale farmers, “they inherently care about the health of the land,” Tolley said. The parallels between agriculture and commercial fishing are clear, with small-scale day boat fishermen battling against large corporations to stay profitable.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Chronicle

Nine of world’s biggest fishing firms sign up to protect oceans

June 9, 2017 — Nine of the world’s biggest fishing companies have signed up to protect the world’s oceans, pledging to help stamp out illegal activities, including the use of slave labour, and prevent overfishing.

The initiative will be announced on Friday, as part of the UN Ocean Conference this week in New York, the first conference of its kind at which member states are discussing how to meet the sustainable development goal on ocean health.

Goal 14 of the roster requires countries to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources”. However, little has yet been done to set out concrete commitments on meeting this target. The UN is hoping countries, companies and organisations will set out voluntary plans this week to work on issues such as pollution, overfishing, the destruction of coastal habitats, and acidification.

The Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) initiative, supported by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, marks the first time that companies from Asia, Europe and the US have come together aiming to end unsustainable practices. Although the fishing industry is highly fragmented at the local level, with millions of small boats and subsistence fishermen, about 11 to 16% of the global catch goes to just 13 companies, who are thought to control about 40% of the most valuable and biggest species.

Henrik Osterblöm, deputy science director at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, which brought the initiative together, said: “Sustainable marine ecosystems will be essential to feed a growing population, but the oceans are at risk. Seafood makes up 20% of the global intake of animal protein.”

Read the full story at The Guardian

Indonesia makes its fishing fleet visible to the world through Global Fishing Watch

June 8, 2017 — This week, at the United Nation’s Ocean Conference, the Republic of Indonesia becomes the first nation ever to publish Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data revealing the location and activity of its commercial fishing fleet. The new data being made public on the Global Fishing Watch public mapping platform reveals commercial fishing in Indonesian waters and areas of the Indian Ocean where it had previously been invisible to the public and other nations.

Susi Pudjiastuti, the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Affairs for the Republic of Indonesia, is taking a bold step toward increasing in her country’s . Today she urges other nations to do the same.

“Illegal fishing is an international problem, and countering it requires cross border cooperation between countries,” says Minister Susi. “I urge all nations to join me in sharing their vessel monitoring data with Global Fishing Watch. Together, we can begin a new era in transparency to end illegal and unreported fishing.”

Also at the UN Ocean’s Conference, Global Fishing Watch has committed to host any country’s VMS data, calling on other governments to follow Indonesia’s lead. “We believe publicly shared VMS will become a powerful new standard for transparent operation in commercial fishing,” says Paul Woods, Global Fishing Watch CEO and Chief Technology Officer for SkyTruth, a founding partner of Global Fishing Watch along with Oceana and Google. “SkyTruth has been collaborating with the Indonesian government for the past two years to really understand their VMS data and find new ways for VMS to enhance their fisheries management.”

Working closely with Oceana toward a united goal of transparency at sea, Peru becomes the first nation to follow Indonesia’s lead. Vice Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Hector Soldi, announced Peru’s intent to publicly share their VMS data in Global Fishing Watch.

“We applaud the commitments made by Peru and Indonesia to publish their previously private vessel tracking data and encourage other countries to follow their lead,” said Jacqueline Savitz, Senior Vice President for the United States and Global Fishing Watch at Oceana. “Together, with forward-thinking governments like these, we can bring even greater transparency to the oceans. By publishing fishing data and using Global Fishing Watch, governments and citizens can unite to help combat illegal fishing worldwide. With more eyes on the ocean, there are fewer places for illegal fishers to hide.”

Read the full story at Phys.org