Saving Seafood

Public skeptical of Navy bombing plans

November 10, 2017 — HILO, Hawaii — Despite Navy assurances that the military is using the latest science to protect marine mammals during bombing and sonar training exercises, most of the approximately 75 people attending a public meeting Thursday evening remained skeptical.

The meeting, the final of four across the Hawaiian islands, is part of the Navy’s draft environmental impact statement seeking permission from the National Marine Fisheries Service to continue military training activity over the next five years.

Capt. Vinnie Johnson, commanding officer, Pacific Missile Range Facility, said the Navy can remain stewards of the environment and protect marine mammals while conducting tests that are necessary for defense of the nation.

“We can be responsible stewards of natural resources, we can be responsible stewards of cultural resources and we can be responsible stewards of our community,” Johnson said.

Officials said mitigation measures such as trained lookouts aboard ships who halt exercises if marine mammals are seen in the vicinity and extra precautions during humpback whale season keep harm to a minimum.

Fewer than .03 percent of mammals are expected to die from testing, although many more could experience temporary behavioral effects, they said. Disorientation, fleeing the area, or in extreme cases, beaching can occur when the mammals’ activity is impaired by noises from bombing and sonar.

Johnson said the Navy was not testing prior to a beaching last month of pilot whales on Kauai, which resulted in five whale deaths. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists are still investigating.

Members of the public, bringing their messages through speeches, on paper, through oli and even in song, weren’t buying it. Impassioned speeches urged the military to clean up areas it’s already polluted before continuing bombing practices.

 

Read the full story at West Hawaii Today

 

Hawaii congressional delegation seeks to improve conditions for foreign workers in the state commercial fishing fleet

November 10, 2017 — Members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation have filed bills that would extend visas to foreign fishermen working on fishing boats in the state.

The moves come more than a year after the Associated Press first reported allegations of labor abuses on commercial vessels. Reporters found about 700 undocumented workers, mainly from Southeast Asia and Pacific island countries, who work for less than USD 1.00 (EUR 0.86) an hour. The AP’s reports indicated those individuals also have been subjected to working long hours and living in squalor.

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) filed S.B. 2071, named the “Sustainable Fishing Workforce Protection Act,” filed the bill last week. In addition to giving visas to the workers, the Democratic senator’s bill also would detail what federal agencies have authority over the health and safety issues concerning Hawaii’s commercial fishing fleet.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Bill introduced allowing Hawaii’s foreign fishermen onshore

November 2, 2017 — HONOLULU — Hundreds of foreign fishermen currently confined to vessels in Honolulu for years at a time would be allowed to come ashore when they dock under legislation introduced Thursday in Congress.

The Sustainable Fishing Workforce Protection Act offers workplace protections a year after an Associated Press investigation found that Hawaii’s commercial fishing fleet is crewed by about 700 men who are never allowed off their boats, even when they come into the Honolulu Harbor to unload their catch.

Just a few miles from the sands of Waikiki, they work without visas, some making less than $1 an hour. Conditions vary – while some of the 140 boats are clean and safe, AP found some fishing crews living in squalor, forced to use buckets instead of toilets and suffering running sores from bed bugs. There have been instances of human trafficking, active tuberculosis and low food supplies.

They lack most basic labor protections during their one or two year stints onboard, catching premium tuna and swordfish sold at some of America’s most upscale grocery stores, hotels and restaurants.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WPXI News

 

HAWAII: Longliners Have Nearly Pulled In Their 2016 Limit Of Bigeye Tuna

July 14, 2016 — Hawaii’s longline fleet is about to hit its 3,554-ton limit for bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific, prompting a closure date for the fishery of July 22, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The longliners had caught an estimated 98 percent of their annual quota by Wednesday, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service reported. The feds had been predicting longliners would hit their bigeye tuna limit by Aug. 14.

But the closure will likely be short-lived thanks to a federal rule that proposes, like in years past, allowing U.S. Pacific Island territories — American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — to each allocate up to 1,000 tons of their 2,000-ton quotas to U.S. longliners under a “specified fishing agreement.”

In April, the Hawaii Longline Association reached such an agreement with the Marianas that involves paying the territory $250,000 in each of the next three years for up to half of its quota. That’s $50,000 more than the association paid the territory last year.

The money is deposited into the Western Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Fund, which the territories use for fishery development projects approved by their respective governors, according to Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council spokeswoman Sylvia Spalding. These includes boat ramps, fish markets, processing facilities, training programs and loan programs.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat