Capitol Hill Ocean Week Archives

Food security starts at sea

November 13, 2019 — By 2050, global food production must increase by 70 percent to keep up with population growth. The pressure to grow, harvest and create more protein from America’s resources will be immense. Yet, America owns vast wealth in and near our coastal communities that permeates across state lines. This wealth must be protected for businesses, community survival and our nation’s food security.

Every summer, the wealth of our fisheries is seen coast to coast. Wild salmon return to pristine Alaskan waters, striped bass reappear near New England’s shores, and red snapper congregate in the Gulf of Mexico. As leaders of the Seafood Harvesters of America and lifelong fishermen, we shared stories like these — the story of the American fisherman — during the summer’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week.

Like any robust American resource, fisheries connect businesses, communities and families across the nation around hard work and resiliency. Renewable and sustainably managed, it has the capacity to help feed us in perpetuity.
But does it?

In 2017, U.S. commercial fishermen landed an astounding 9.9 billion pounds of seafood. Americans love the idea of eating American seafood. We celebrate it on menus and grocery store banners, devour dramatic fishing documentaries, and honor its heritage in our coastal towns. As a nation we’ve prioritized sustainability through laws like the Magnuson Stevens Act, which is why 91 percent of America’s fishery stocks are not overfished today — and that number is only improving.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

During Capitol Hill Ocean Week, The U.S. House Passed Four Bills To Study Changing Ocean Chemistry

June 12, 2019 — Since the end of the 19th century, several billions of tons of carbon have been pumped into our planet’s atmosphere, causing sea surface temperatures and sea levels to rise. Additionally, as the oceans have absorbed some of this carbon, their overall acidity has increased by 30 percent. Changes in acidity and overall ocean chemistry – termed “ocean acidification” – can negatively affect an animal’s sense of smell (which helps them avoid predators, find food, and identify good habitats) and ability to grow its shell.

“We first felt its effects in the mid-2000’s when more acidified water caused Pacific Northwest oyster farmers to suffer drastic losses and go nearly bankrupt,” says Dr. Sarah Cooley, Director of Ocean Conservancy’s Ocean Acidification Program, “Scientists later identified the threat acidification poses to other industries and the people who rely on them, including the $1 billion-dollar lobster industry in the northeast and the coral reef tourism industry of Florida.”

Last week, nearly 90 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives passed four bills to combat the ocean’s changing chemistry. The Ocean Acidification Innovation Act (H.R.1921) (which I previously reported on here), COAST Research Act of 2019 (H.R. 1237), Coastal Communities Ocean Acidification Act of 2019 (H.R.1716), and NEAR Act of 2019(H.R.988). Together, these bills, if passed by the U.S. Senate, would provide resources to monitor changes in ocean chemistry in both coastal and offshore environments, understand the effects of acidification on coastal communities, and elicit a National Academies of Science study that examines changing chemistry in estuaries – the bodies of water between freshwater rivers and the oceans. The passage of these bills coincided with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s annual Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW).

Read the full story at Forbes

California Wetfish Producers Association Recognizes Ocean Week With Video on the Latest in Sardine, Anchovy Science

June 7, 2019 — This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

For the duration of Ocean Week, Saving Seafood will share materials related to the sustainable and economically vital U.S. commercial fishing and seafood industries, including information tied directly to events being organized as part of the NMSF conference.

The following was released by the California Wetfish Producers Association:

In recent years, fisheries managers have made devastating cuts to California’s sardine and anchovy fisheries based on reports that populations of the two species have sharply declined. However, the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) is marking Ocean Week 2019 with a video documenting new research that shows increasing populations of both species in nearshore waters.

The CWPA has been working in cooperation with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Southwest Fisheries Science Center to develop sampling methods to assess sardine and anchovy in nearshore waters missed by NOAA’s acoustic trawl surveys. This research shows that both species are abundant in nearshore waters not surveyed by NOAA – in fact, approximately 70 percent of California coastal pelagic species landings are harvested in waters not surveyed in federal stock assessments.

More accurate biomass estimates and stock assessments for coastal pelagic species will benefit sustainable harvest policies, the fishermen and seafood processors who produce these species, and fishing communities and seafood consumers who rely on them.

“We’re doing [this research] partly to improve the science in cooperation both with federal and state fishery biologists,” says Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of CWPA, in the video. “And we’re doing it to save our lives.”

Watch the video here

About the California Wetfish Producers Association

The non-profit California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) was established in 2004 to promote sustainable fisheries and foster cooperative research. Voluntary membership includes the majority of wetfish harvesters and processors operating in California.

Sustainable Shark Alliance: Setting the Record Straight on Sharks for Ocean Week

June 5, 2019 — The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance:

This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

Today at 2:45 p.m. EDT, as part of Capitol Hill Ocean Week, there will be a panel “The State of Shark and Ray Conservation.” The following was released by the Sustainable Shark Alliance in advance of the panel:

With shark conservation one of the many issues being discussed at this year’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week, the Sustainable Shark Alliance (SSA) thinks it’s important to have a fact-based conversation about sharks. A recent interview given by SSA to Channel News Asia highlights the importance of sustainable domestic shark fisheries, and demonstrates why bills being considered by Congress would harm responsible U.S. fishermen, without benefiting global shark conservation.

SSA has long opposed attempts to punish law-abiding U.S. shark fishermen by banning the sale of responsibly harvested shark fins, which is what proposed legislation like the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act (SFSEA) would do. As SSA’s Rick Marks states in his interview, the U.S. represents less than one percent of the world shark fin market; banning the sale of shark fins here would not impact the global shark trade.

“It will have no effect on global shark conservation and will only harm law-abiding U.S. fishermen,” he stated in the interview.

Instead, SSA has advocated for more practical solutions, like the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act (SSFTA). SSFTA creates a transparent certification program for countries seeking to import shark products into the United States. Countries involved in the U.S. shark and ray market must have an effective prohibition on the reprehensible and wasteful practice of shark finning, and have shark and ray management policies comparable to those under the U.S. Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Facts are important in the shark conservation debate, but the reality of U.S. shark fishing is often lost in the discussion. In 2017, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D, NJ) dramatically inflated the number of incidences of illegal shark finning in U.S. waters, based on a footnote error in a NOAA document. While the Senator claimed that there were over 500 incidences in a 10-year period, the actual number was only 85. Shark finning has been illegal in U.S. waters since 2000.

This confusion has continued into the current debate. At a hearing in March, Linda McCaul of EarthEcho International, the wife of Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, testified on behalf of SFSEA. Wearing her Congressional spouse pin, she delivered testimony including several pictures of shark fins and the aftermath of shark finning. However, several of the photos were taken overseas, not in the United States. They may reflect the horrific practice of shark finning as it occurs abroad, but they have no relationship to legal and sustainable shark fishing is practiced in the U.S., and should not have been used as evidence of an alleged need to restrict a well-managed domestic fishery.

SSA’s full interview with Channel News Asia is available here. More information on SSA’s support for the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act is available here.

How much U.S. Seafood is Imported?

June 4, 2019 — This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. EDT, as part of Capitol Hill Ocean Week, there was a panel “Addressing the US Seafood Deficit.” The following article looks at a new study that concluded more of the seafood eaten in the U.S. is produced domestically than previously thought. It was published last week by Sustainable Fisheries UW:

The commonly quoted statistic that “90% of seafood consumed in the United States is imported” is out of date and should stop being cited. In this post, I explain the origins of the 90% myth, the scientific paper that produced the updated numbers, and the implications for U.S. trade and seafood markets.

Where did the 90% statistic come from and why is the new estimate more accurate?

A lot of seafood farmed or caught in the United States is sent overseas for processing, then sent back. Due to varying trade codes that get lost in the shuffle of globalization, these processed seafood products are often mistakenly recorded as ‘imported,’ despite being of U.S. origin.

For example, pollock, the fish used in McDonald’s Filet-o-fish sandwich, is caught throughout U.S. waters near Alaska. Once onboard, a significant portion is sent to China (the U.S.’s largest seafood trade partner) to be cleaned, gutted, and processed into filets. After processing in China, the fish is sent back to the U.S. and sold in restaurants and grocery stores. Pollock is not a Chinese fish, but the trade codes used when sending them back from China signify them as Chinese-origin and they are recorded as imported or foreign seafood.

Recording fish caught in the U.S. but processed in China has led to a significant overestimation of Americans’ so-called ‘seafood deficit’, or the ratio of foreign to domestic seafood consumption in the U.S.

Unfortunately, the misleading 90% deficit statistic has become commonplace, mostly due to coverage of Oceana’s seafood fraud campaign that stoked consumer anxiety about imported seafood. Distorted import data had been taken at face value for several years because no one had pieced together the conversion factors that account for processing and return export/import—until three scientists, Jessica Gephart, Halley Froehlich, and Trevor Branch, published their work in PNAS in May 2019.

Knowing the conversion factor for seafood products caught or farmed in the U.S. is the key to accurately estimating the amount of domestic seafood processed abroad. Froehlich describes a conversion factor as a number that can be used to back-calculate a processed seafood item to its pre-processed weight. Basically, when pollock are sent back to the U.S. after being processed in China, a conversion factor can be applied to estimate how much fish was originally sent and domestic seafood statistics can be corrected. When U.S. seafood is processed abroad but consumed in the U.S., it should be counted as domestic seafood consumed domestically.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

RAY HILBORN: Keep eating fish; it’s the best way to feed the world

June 3, 2019 — This week, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (NMSF) is convening Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C. Additionally, President Trump has declared the month of June “National Ocean Month” in recognition of the importance of the ocean to the economy, national security, and environment of the United States.

To kick off the week, Saving Seafood is sharing the following article on the importance of eating fish to global food security and the environment. It was written by renowned fisheries scientist Dr. Ray Hilborn and published by the Oxford University Press Blog last week:

The famous ocean explorer, Sylvia Earle, has long advocated that people stop eating fish. Recently, George Monbiot made a similar plea in The Guardian – there’s only one way to save the life in our oceans, stop eating fish – which, incidentally, would condemn several million people to starvation.

In both cases, it’s facile reasoning. The oceans may suffer from many things, but fishing isn’t the biggest. Earle and Monbiot’s sweeping pronouncements lack any thought for the consequences of rejecting fish and substituting fish protein for what? Steak? That delicious sizzler on your plate carries the most appallingly large environmental costs regarding fresh water, grain production, land use, erosion, loss of topsoil, transportation, you name it.

Luckily for our planet, not everyone eats steak. You’re vegan, you say, and your conscience is clean. An admirable choice – so long as there aren’t too many of you. For the sake of argument and numbers, let us assume that we can substitute plant protein in the form of tofu, made from soybeans, for fish protein. Soybeans need decent land; in fact it would take 2.58 times the land area of England to produce enough tofu to substitute for no longer available fish. That extra amount of decent arable land just isn’t available – unless we can persuade Brazil, Ecuador and Columbia to cut down more of the Amazon rainforest. We would also add 1.71 times the amount of greenhouse gases that it takes to catch the fish.

And, again for the sake of argument, were we to substitute beef for fish, we would need 192.43 Englands to raise all that cattle and greenhouse gases would rocket to 42.4 times what they are from fishing.

But aren’t there alternatives that we can eat with a clean conscience? It depends. First, we must accept the inescapable truth that everyone has to eat. You and I and another few billion humans right down to the single cell organisms. The second inescapable truth arises from the first but is often ignored, is that there is no free lunch. The big variable in this business of eating is deciding the appropriate price to the environment.

Read the full opinion piece at the Oxford University Press (OUP) Blog

Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance Members Engage with Lawmakers, Represent Gulf in Washington

June 15, 2018 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance:

Members of the Gulf Coast Seafood Alliance, representing Gulf fishermen, seafood dealers, and restaurants, travelled to Washington last Wednesday to participate in a roundtable hosted by the House Committee on Natural Resources. While in Washington, Alliance members also represented Gulf Coast seafood by participating in the 43^rd Annual NOAA Fish Fry as the main event of Capitol Hill Ocean Week.

The round-table discussion was led by Natural Resources Committee Chairman, Rob Bishop (R-Utah), and addressed legislation that impedes economic growth and development along working waterfronts.

“Working waterfronts and our nation’s vast ocean resources are essential to coastal communities, generating billions of dollars each year,” read a statement issued by Chairman Bishop on the meeting. “We heard from real people whose livelihoods depend on a healthy ocean economy and their message was clear: without a rational regulatory framework, responsible economic growth and success is at risk.”

Participants also discussed legislation aimed at easing the pressure of unnecessary regulation, most notably the Strengthening Coastal Communities Act of 2018 introduced by Rep. Neal Dunn, (R-Fla.).

“What the Gulf Coast needs is fair, equitable management of key species,” said GCSA founding member and Gulf Coast restauranteur, Dewey Destin. “Sustainable management is paramount to the survival of communities along the Gulf Coast, and we were able to express that while in Washington.”

At the NOAA Fish Fry, Alliance members drew awareness to Gulf-specific issues — like the management of Gulf red snapper. They also had the opportunity to communicate those issues to high-ranking government officials. Members spoke with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, and cooked Gulf red snapper and oysters alongside President Trump’s nominee to head NOAA, Barry Myers.

Alliance members that travelled to Washington include: Dewey and Parker Destin of the Dewey Destin Restaurant Group, David Krebs, President of Ariel Seafoods, and Greg Abrams, Owner of Greg Abrams Seafood.

Learn more about the GCSA by visiting their site here.