Saving Seafood

Appeals court hears arguments on NOAA’s authority to regulate aquaculture

January 9, 2020 — The fight over whether offshore aquaculture should be allowed in US federal waters and which agency should regulate it is back in court with lawyers for a group of fishing and food safety interests arguing that new legislation is needed for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to regulate it.

In September 2018, US district court judge Jane Triche Milazzo, in the Eastern District of Louisiana, granted a motion by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and a coalition of fishing and public interest groups it represented to grant a summary judgment in its lawsuit against NOAA’s National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) to block its efforts to establish aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico.

CFS had successfully argued that the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), which gives NOAA and NMFS much of their legal authority, gave the agencies authority over only wild-capture fisheries, not aquaculture.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Fair Trade founder heralds the rise of the conscious consumer

June 12, 2019 — The age of the conscious consumer has arrived, much to the delight of Fair Trade USA founder and CEO Paul Rice.

The keynote speaker at this year’s SeaWeb Seafood Summit – taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, from 10 to 14 June – Rice shared some promising news about modern consumer behavior with conference attendees, all of whom have a vested interest in the sustainable seafood movement.

“Consumers are changing the world,” he said. “Their purchasing decisions are both luring more companies into the sustainability space and rewarding those companies that do.”

Shoppers are increasingly opening up their minds and wallets to seafood that appeals to their growing sustainability sensibilities, Rice explained, referencing an impressive leap in sales experienced by one of the certifier’s seafood partners after the supplier introduced Fair Trade scallops to its portfolio.

“One of the companies that we work with in our sustainability program had scallop sales of 3 percent year-over-year growth – they introduced Fair Trade scallops and their sales growth on the scallop line jumped to 38 percent,” Rice said. “Now that’s an extraordinary and probably unusual sales bump as a result of adding the Fair Trade label, but it illustrates the point, which is regardless of what certification it is or what sustainability attribute we add to products, consumers are hungry to reward companies that are doing the right thing and are looking for products that speak to their values.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Plan to Establish Aquaculture in Offshore Waters Challenged by U.S. Conservation/Environmental Groups

New Orleans, LA — February 17, 2016 — Center for Food Safety has filed a new lawsuit challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) new federal regulations permitting, for the first time, industrial aquaculture offshore in U.S. federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The plaintiff coalition CFS is representing in the case make up a broad array of significant interests in the Gulf of Mexico, including commercial, economic, recreational, and conservation purposes: the Gulf Fishermen’s Association; Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance; Charter Fishermen’s Association; Destin Charter Boat Association; Clearwater Marine Association; Alabama Charter Fishing Association; Fish for America, USA, Inc.; Florida Wildlife Federation; Gulf Restoration Network; Recirculating Farms Coalition; and Food & Water Watch.

“Offshore industrial aquaculture will cause irreparable harm to the Gulf ecosystems and coastal communities,” said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for CFS and counsel for the plaintiffs. “We need to better manage and protect our native fisheries, not adopt destructive industrial food practices that put them at risk. This lawsuit, brought by a range of concerned stakeholders, aims to halt these shortsighted plans.”

“Our intention in being a part of this lawsuit is to not only help protect our members and commercial fishermen but to also help protect the fishing and non fishing public who depend on the wild fish stocks from damage that may occur from a numerous amount of various dangers from farm raising fish in open ocean pens in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Glen Brooks of the Gulf Fishermen’s Association.

The questionable federal permitting scheme, more than ten years in the making, is NOAA’s attempt to do an end-run around the United States Congress: multiple national bills that would have allowed and regulated industrial aquaculture never made it into law in the past decade. In an effort to push offshore aquaculture forward without a new law permitting it, NOAA exceeded its authority to regulate fishing under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and now plans to permit offshore aquaculture as a “fishing” activity.

Read the full story from The Fishing Wire