Saving Seafood

State and Local

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘We’re helping make a difference’: New Bedford waterfront center administers 1,100 vaccines

April 13, 2021 — The new vaccination center on New Bedford’s waterfront vaccinated 1,100 people on Saturday, many of whom work in the fishing industry, according to Greater New Bedford Community Health Center leadership.

Noelle Kohles, chief nursing and clinical operations officer at the health center, said there were about 1,200 appointments on Saturday and that most belonged to workers from the fishing industry.

Cheryl Bartlett, CEO of the health center, said all the fish house businesses encouraged their workforce to sign up or signed them up directly through the health center.

The city’s stated focus for the new center is workers in the fishing industry, of which there are about 6,200, according to a 2019 report from the New Bedford Port Authority.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

MASSACHUSETTS: A New Exhibit About New Bedford and Fishing

April 12, 2021 — Restrictions are slowly being lifted and more COVID-19 vaccine is becoming available, and the people running the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center are hopeful they’ll be welcoming more visitors this spring and summer to their 38 Bethel Street location.

When those visitors arrive, they can enjoy a new exhibit about New Bedford and its fishing industry.

The Center’s Executive Director, Laura Orleans joins Townsquare Sunday to discuss the new exhibit, entitled “More Than A Job: Work and Community in New Bedford’s Commercial Fishing Industry.”

The exhibit attempts to explain the culture of New Bedford and its connection to one of the world’s most dangerous professions.

Read the full story at WBSM

Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation cancels this spring’s Symphony of Seafood events

April 12, 2021 — The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF) is cancelling the rescheduled Symphony of Seafood events planned for this spring due to “ongoing health and safety concerns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the organization said in a press release.

Preparation efforts for the next installment of the event are planned to resume later this year, with the call for product to be released in August 2021.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford mayor calls offshore wind ‘generational opportunity’

April 12, 2021 — New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell is of two minds about Vineyard Wind, which after lengthy regulatory delays seems poised to finally get underway.

The mayor is excited about the potential for offshore wind farms to transform New Bedford the way they have many older European port cities, but he also worries that Massachusetts may be missing the boat when it comes to capturing the true value of the industry.

“Offshore wind is really a generational opportunity for a city like ours to leverage its competitive advantages in a way that brings in investment, creates jobs, and improves a city’s quality of life,” Mitchell said on The Codcast.

“We’re looking at roughly a $3 billion capital expenditure with this project,” he said. “That means a considerable amount of local procurement here in New Bedford from things as simple as hotel rooms and restaurant food to welders to any number of things. But it also means the more that the industry settles in here, the higher the likelihood that there will be investment in operating facilities and permanent enterprises. That really is, for us, the ultimate goal, to have an industry cluster here like we have with fishing.”

Mitchell said New Bedford, with its fishing port, is well-positioned to support the offshore wind industry, but it is unlikely to snare manufacturing operations because the city’s waterfront is so densely packed already. Even so, New Bedford has been expanding beyond the state-built New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal to provide more space for offshore wind development. The mayor also said he hopes to tap federal infrastructure funds proposed by President Biden to modernize the city’s port facilities.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

ALASKA: Elected officials: Safe mining needed for salmon

April 12, 2021 — Salmon advocates, including members of the Congressional Wild Salmon Caucus, held a briefing Thursday laying out a number of strategies governments can take to incentivize mining companies to make environmental impacts a higher priority.

“We can’t say we’re anti-mining, we are for safe mining,” said U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, co-chair of the salmon caucus.

Thursday’s briefing focused on ways the provincial government of British Columbia can improve financial assurance laws and make companies take the risk of environmental impact more seriously.

The caucus co-chaired the briefing with Salmon Beyond Borders, a salmon advocacy group working for better protections of salmon habitats. Advocates said one of the major issues impacting salmon habitats is mining pollution in waters that flow from one country into another, in this case from Canada into the U.S. Many of these transboundary rivers are home to salmon habitats that play a critical role in the culture and economy of the Pacific Northwest, advocates said, and companies need to be held responsible for the impacts their industry creates.

Read the full story at the Juneau Empire

ALASKA: Commercial herring fishery winding down

April 12, 2021 — The Sitka Sound Sac Roe Herring Fishery is winding down, and state biologists expect to close the fishery soon.

In an interview on Thursday (4-8-21), Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis said the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is shifting out of “active management” mode.

“We’re still going out there. We’re flying, we’re monitoring the commercial fishery. We’re not leaving it alone to do its thing,” he said. “So we’re definitely on top of this, but it’s for sure winding down. I’d expect it to go another day or two tops.”

Dupuis said the bulk of the fishing fleet has left Sitka. Fewer than three processors and three permit-holders are still participating, but due to confidentiality rules, Dupuis could not disclose the exact number. As of April 6, the commercial fishing fleet had harvested around 15,700 tons of herring.

Read the full story at KCAW

MAINE: Mitchell Center hosts talk about alternative seafood networks and fishing community resilience April 19

April 9, 2021 — The Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine will host a talk about how alternative seafood networks can support resilient fishing communities from 3–4 p.m. on Monday, April 19.

Global seafood trade is at an all-time high, with an estimated 36 percent of seafood worldwide traded across international borders at a value of $148 billion. In the U.S., 71 percent of the seafood consumed is imported. The benefits of this trade, however, are not evenly distributed and often disadvantage rural communities, small- and mid-sized harvesters and low-income nations.

In this talk, “A Fishy Tail About Our Food System,” Joshua Stoll will describe the recent emergence of alternative seafood networks in North America and their role in supporting resilient fishing communities, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also discuss ongoing work to better integrate seafood into local food systems.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

As halibut decline, Alaska Native fishers square off against industrial fleets

April 9, 2021 — Each year in mid-June, Father John, dressed in long black robes, heads to the small boat harbor on St. Paul, a tiny island of 500 souls in the middle of the Bering Sea. It’s the start of the fishing season, and the Blessing of the Fleet is a community affair, an opportunity to give best wishes to the fishermen heading out into the unforgiving northern waters in search of halibut.

The island’s small, independent fishing fleet of only 15 vessels needs all the help it can get: Far offshore, factory trawlers targeting other fish species net and chuck overboard as waste millions of pounds of the valuable fish each year. “They’re killing our halibut,” says St. Paul fisherman Myron Melovidov, who fishes with his grown sons.

Pacific halibut are flat and bottom dwelling, and can weigh hundreds of pounds. About 20 years ago, the population started taking a dive, and St. Paul fishermen—as well as halibut fishermen across Alaska—faced increasing cuts in their harvest limits.

Read the full story at Food & Environment Reporting Network

NEW YORK: NYSERDA chief to feds: No wind farms off Hamptons

April 9, 2021 — New York State will emphasize its position that windfarms off the Hamptons are a nonstarter as federal regulators begin the public process of auctioning off lease rights to waters off the South Shore.

Doreen Harris, the newly named president and chief executive of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, in an interview Thursday, said the state next week will make a detailed case for instead focusing on two other wind areas to the west. Harris had previously been acting chief executive of NYSERDA.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a highly anticipated announcement last month, released a map of proposed new wind-energy areas off New York and New Jersey in a body of water known as the New York Bight.

Read the full story at Newsday

Alaska Symphony of Seafood – 2020/2021 Events Cancelled

April 9, 2021 — The following was released by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation:

The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF), organizer of the Alaska Symphony of Seafood (Symphony), announces the cancellation of the rescheduled Symphony events planned for Spring 2021 due to ongoing health and safety concerns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The annual Symphony event is planned to resume with the Call for Product to be released in August 2021.

The Symphony is an exciting platform that encourages companies to invest in product development, helps promote those new products and competitively positions Alaska Seafood in national and global markets. Product development is critically important to the Alaska Seafood industry. Innovative new products enable the industry to remain competitive and relevant to consumers.

Before making the decision to cancel the Symphony events, AFDF polled industry partners and participants, and the results were clear that COVID-19 has hindered the industry’s ability to produce new value-added products or participate in large events. Without healthy participation by industry, the benefits of an in-person or virtual event are limited. Additionally, Diversified Communications recently announced the cancellation of the 2021 Seafood Expo North America (SENA), originally rescheduled for July 11-13 in Boston. SENA is the central event at which AFDF promotes the winning products of the Symphony each year. AFDF will continue to feature Symphony winners at SENA, including entrance in the Seafood Excellence Awards, when the in-person SENA resumes in March 2022.

AFDF will continue to monitor the COVID-19 health crisis and will provide updates to industry and partners on the 2021-2022 competition and events. Additionally, AFDF will explore exciting new opportunities throughout the year to promote past Symphony winners, as a part of the effort to expand the reach and positive impact of the annual competition.

Thank You to Sponsors
AFDF would like to recognize and thank our sponsors from last year. Major sponsors include Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, Lineage Logistics, Trident Seafoods, Marine Stewardship Council, Northwest Fisheries Association, Alaska Air Cargo, At-Sea Processors Association and the United Fishermen of Alaska. See here for a complete list of sponsors.

About the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation
Founded in 1978, AFDF is dedicated to identifying common opportunities in the Alaska seafood industry and developing efficient, sustainable outcomes that provide benefits to the economy, environment and communities. For more information, visit www.afdf.org.