Saving Seafood

Seafood industry investors buying into the blue economy

April 26, 2022 — Public appreciation that oceans provide essential protection to both the planet and humanity is growing, according to Chris Gorell Barnes, co-founder of private equity firm Ocean 14 Capital.

The entrepreneur, marine conservationist, and co-founder of the Blue Marine Foundation said “tremendous trigger-points,” which include documentaries like Blue Planet II and Seaspiracy, as well as reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have brought unprecedented public interest to the oceans. Additionally, luminaries such as U.S. Presidential Special Envoy John Kerry have been highlighting the role that the ocean plays in mitigating the climate crisis, and the new U.N. Decade of the Oceans platform is drawing attention to the need to reverse the decline of ocean health, Gorell Barnes said.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

On the Hook once again urges independent external review of MSC as it relaunches

July 1, 2021 — The On the Hook campaign has relaunched, shifting its focus back towards the pursuit of a “full, external, independent, and forensic review” of the Marine Stewardship Council’s standards and operation.

On the Hook was first founded in 2017 to challenge the Marine Stewardship Council’s certification of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement’s tuna fishery, the world’s largest.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NGOs urge rebuilding plan for overfished yellowfin tuna stocks ahead of IOTC meeting

May 24, 2021 — Non-governmental organizations are calling on the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to adopt a plan for rebuilding the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stock and improve the management of fish aggregating devices (FADs) to reduce catches of juvenile tropical tunas.

The Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) and the International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF), in a statement last week, said that these measures should be adopted during the upcoming virtual IOTC session, scheduled to take place 7 to 11 June, 2021.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Concerns emerge over IOTC delay of yellowfin tuna conservation plan

February 8, 2021 — The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) will maintain the status quo for the current yellowfin tuna conservation measures, barely three months after the organization had scheduled an emergency meeting for March 2021 to review its conservation plan.

In November 2020, the IOTC said its March 2021 meeting would focus on emerging trends of overfishing of yellowfin tuna, which delayed the stock’s rebuilding plan. However, advice issued 29 January by the IOTC’s scientific committee called on IOTC member-states to maintain the status quo until a new stock assessment is completed, likely to occur later this year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

IOTC adopts 10 percent catch reduction for yellowfin tuna

June 25, 2019 — The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission adopted an overall catch reduction of around 10 percent on yellowfin tuna at its annual meeting in Hyderabad, India, last week.

The environmental non-governmental organization Blue Marine Foundation was one of several NGOs to criticize the move as not going far enough to prevent a collapse of yellowfin stocks in the Indian Ocean.

“By ignoring the advice of their own scientists, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission has once again demonstrated that it is one of the most dysfunctional [United Nations] institutions and desperately in need of reform. The member nations should be sharing the pain of catch reductions made necessary by their incompetent management, rather than avoiding it and making stock collapse more likely,” Blue Marine Foundation Executive Director Charles Clover said. “The [European Union] continues to help itself to a share of the catch that is against its own regulations and the U.N. Law of the Sea. Retailers now need to step up and ask questions about the adverse influence of processors such as Princes and John West and nations guilty of illegal and excessive fishing such as Spain.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

At IOTC meeting, calls made to save yellowfin tuna stocks from potential collapse

June 19, 2019 — Yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean is being overfished and if unsustainable harvesting continues, it will bring the stocks to near-collapse, according to press statement from the environmental non-governmental organization Blue Marine Foundation deployed ahead of the ongoing 23rd Session of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission.

The London, United Kingdon-based NGO is calling on the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to take “decisive action to rebuild yellowfin tuna stocks in line with its own scientific advice.” It is also calling on consumers in the European Union to stop buying yellowfin until the European Commission adequately penalizes those who break the rules placing limits on yellowfin tuna fishing.

In a new report, “A case study on the management of yellowfin tuna by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission,” the group said the Indian Ocean yellowfin is currently “the worst-managed yellowfin stock in the world, by the industry’s own admission.”

“Consumers have been misled by misreporting, greenwash[ing], and so-called improvement projects into believing that yellowfin tuna from the Indian Ocean is sustainably caught. This report shows that it is not,” Blue Marine Foundation Executive Director Charles Clover said. “It has been disgracefully overfished for some time and we now hear that some of what has been on sale may have been illegally caught by E.U. fleets.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New Free App Helps Fishermen Manage Catch Data

November 9, 2015 — The Catch App, launched by SuccorfishM2M, is a revolutionary new fisheries management app that is being seen as a real solution to a growing need for much improved data evidence within global commercial fisheries.

Designed by SuccorfishM2M and developed in conjunction with Blue Marine Foundation, it provides the industry with a complete, up-to-date, online digital diary that gives users access to their own fishing data as well as the ability to share it with whom they choose.

Catch App integrates seamlessly with the SuccorfishM2M SC2-iVMS system to provide a highly detailed, real time picture of vessel location and activities.

Taking less than two minutes to complete, it digitally stores and submits catch entries that are typically recorded on paper and allows fishermen to compare gear, bait and season performance as well as calculate catch per unit effort in a bid to encourage efficient practices and fisheries sustainability.

The app promotes total traceability by allowing instant catch reporting prior to landing. It can manage quotas through efficient, real-time reporting, allows fishermen to configure the system according to local parameters and fully supports the need for documented fisheries.

Read the full story at The Fish Site