Saving Seafood

Enforcement

US officials working to address IUU fishing in Latin America

January 21, 2021 — The U.S. announced late last week several moves officials hope will curb illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Caribbean and Latin America.

On Friday, 15 January, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a news release stating it plans to make available up to USD 8 million (EUR 6.6 million) in grant funding through its Bureau of International Labor Affairs. The bureau’s mission is to push for a fair playing field for workers in the U.S. and across the world by fighting child and illegal labor practices and bolstering labor standards worldwide.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA Joins USAID in Effort to Combat IUU Fishing Overseas

January 13, 2021 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is joining the U.S. government’s effort to fight illegal fishing in far-flung waters. NOAA has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) across borders and to promote sustainable fisheries abroad.

The two agencies plan to expand on their existing programs, strategies and investments in order to support developing countries’ efforts to strengthen their own enforcement capacity; promote private sector and government innovations to combat IUU fishing; and heighten both the positive incentives for compliance with fisheries rules and the negative consequences for violations.

The agreement builds on progress made under the Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2019, which requires multiple agencies to form a joint working group on maritime security and counter-IUU fishing measures. Over the past year, NOAA has been working with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of State under this framework.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

US CBP takes action against Taiwanese trawler, accusing it of using forced labor

January 4, 2021 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued a withhold release order against a Taiwanese tuna trawler, saying it has received credible information that the vessel was involved in the use of forced labor.

The agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on 31 December ordered its personnel at all U.S. ports of entry to detain tuna and other seafood harvested by the Lien Yi Hsing No. 12, a Taiwanese-flagged and -owned distant-water fishing vessel. The agency said its investigation concluded the Lie Yi Hsing 12’s operators had used deceptive hiring practices, withholding of wages, and debt bondage in staffing the vessel. In a press release, the CBP said it will provide the owner of the vessels the opportunity to demonstrate its merchandise was not produced with forced labor, or to export any of their shipments that have been detained to a third country.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Big Brother Is Watching: Satellites Used to Survey Fishing in High Seas

December 21, 2020 — New research revealed Friday has shed new light on the companies around the world that carry out fishing operations in Earth’s most unregulated waters, as satellite data revealed their activities amid concerns of violations of labor and environmental laws and overfishing.

To help address these concerns, researchers published a study in the journal One Earth that brings to light a number of international companies that operate on the high seas, an effort that researchers say provides a new resource with which to gauge what exactly is happening in such unmonitored environments.

Jennifer Jacquet, associate professor at NYU’s Department of Environmental Studies and lead author of the study, said that the research is the first of its kind to promote this much-needed transparency in these critical areas.

“There is a lot of concern about companies that operate on the high seas, simply because there they are beyond the reach of any nation’s laws and regulations,” Jacquet said in a statement. “By connecting those boats with specific companies, this study takes a first step in enhancing transparency — we now know a lot more about who is profiting from fish catches in the global commons.”

Despite the strict control that numerous nations exercise over much of the world’s seas and oceans, there are nonetheless great stretches of waters around the globe that remain ownerless. These waters, commonly referred to as high seas or international waters, are in fact so vast that they make up nearly two-thirds of Earth’s oceans and have become notorious throughout the years for their lack of oversight and regulations.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

A New Generation of Autonomous Vessels Is Looking to Catch Illegal Fishers

November 20, 2020 — The first time engineers from Open Ocean Robotics pushed Scooby, a three-meter robotic boat, onto a lake near their office in Victoria, British Columbia, the small craft drove straight into the bushes. Clearly, the team had more work to do on the vessel’s autopilot.

Since that early mission last year, the start-up has won innovation awards, secured seed funding, and “spent tons of time on the water” ironing out the kinks in their autonomous vessels, says Julie Angus, the company’s CEO and cofounder. The 12-person team is now up against Connecticut-based tech company ThayerMahan and Marine Advanced Robotics from Silicon Valley in a cutting-edge design challenge to build a robot that can police illegal fishing in marine protected areas (MPAs). Scooby‘s successor (named after another character) completed the first stage in the multiyear project: a three-day field demonstration using surveillance technology to track boats, detect fishing activity, and collect evidence.

To protect marine wildlife and ecosystems and sustain fisheries, the United Nations, governments, and NGOs are pushing for more and bigger MPAs. But without a clear means of enforcing the regulations that govern them, these areas often draw criticism for being little more than paper parks. In partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), these three robotics companies are racing to prove that uncrewed vessels are up to the task.

Originally, the trial was planned for the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary off Santa Barbara, California, but pandemic restrictions meant the participants tested their prototypes separately from around North America and presented the results to the judges remotely. Justin Manley, founder of Just Innovation, the Massachusetts-based marine robotics consultancy coordinating the project, says the upside of the disparate testing is that it let them see how effectively the robots detected different types of fishing boats.

Read the full story at Smithsonian Magazine

US ramping up pressure on China’s use of forced labor in distant-water fishing

November 19, 2020 — Fishery products from China and Taiwan have been added to a list of commodities associated with forced labor in the latest edition of a US government report on child and forced labour globally.

The 2020 edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor – a report required by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 – claims that the majority of workers on Chinese distant-water fishing vessels are migrants from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska pollock, groundfish sector demands ‘non-negotiable’ military protection after run-ins with Russian warships

October 6, 2020 — The At-Sea Processors Association (APA) says US military protection of the Bering Sea groundfish fleets should be “non-negotiable” after a spate of incidents involving Russian military vessels in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Bering Sea in August and September.

Recent confrontations initiated by Russian warships and warplanes against US-flagged fishing vessels operating lawfully within the US EEZ have caused fishing boat captains and their crews to fear for their safety, disrupting the business operations of fishing companies at a critical point in a very important fishing season, Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association wrote in a prepared statement for a US Senate hearing, which was postponed at the last minute.

Read the full story at IntraFish

In A New Initiative, The U.S. Coast Guard Targets Illegal Fishing

September 28, 2020 — After a long absence, fish and fishery patrols are back as a U.S. Coast Guard priority. In a little-noticed event earlier this month, the U.S. Coast Guard announced a new focus on “Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing,” sketching out a broad plan to track and, in time, start rolling back the systemic—and often State-based—depredation of seas worldwide.

While the announcement was crafted to reflect a mere status-oriented “Outlook” on the scourge of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the rollout at the U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington had all the trappings of a fully committed, “all-of-government” strategy. Flanked by Admiral Craig S. Faller, head of Southern Command, Tim Gallaudet, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Dr. Benjamin Purser, a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the State Department, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Karl L. Schultz, put rogue fishing fleets on notice.

The “Outlook” itself heralds another foresighted Coast Guard effort to focus attention on complex but easily-ignored maritime challenges. To maritime observers, the pattern, by now, should be familiar, as the U.S. Coast Guard is using the same successful template it used to raise awareness of emerging national security issues in the Arctic and the Western Hemisphere. In essence, the Coast Guard, through its latest “Outlook,” is affirming that large-scale economic encroachment at sea and other resource-extraction activities inconsistent with international norms is a destabilizing influence that needs to be controlled. It is signaling that Coast Guard resources will begin putting their “arms around” the problem. But rather than try to do it all, America’s racing-stripe Navy has set out a compelling case for any interested party—both inside and outside of the U.S. government— to join the fight against illegal fishing.

Read the full story at Forbes

Coast Guard, Bahamas military intercept illegal fishing vessels

September 24, 2020 — U.S. Coast Guard watchstanders coordinated with a Royal Bahamas Defence Force team to apprehend two Dominican Republic flagged vessels illegally fishing the Grand Bahamas Bank Sept. 24, a week after the Coast Guard issued its new strategy to internationally combat illegal fishing.

Watchstanders at the Coast Guard’s Bahamas and Turks and Caicos operation center coordinated the effort as a Bahamas boarding team interdicted the vessels El Ship and Angel Gabriel, with 83 crew in all on board fishing off Diamond Point.

Bahamas authorities seized more than 12,000 pounds of fish and lobster, and the vessels were escorted to New Providence, Bahamas, for further enforcement action, Coast Guard officials said.

They noted the incident as an example of the Coast Guard working with international partners as outlined in a document released Sept. 17, defining what the service calls “a new strategy to enhance global safety, security, and stewardship of the maritime domain by combating Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman