March 11, 2021 — Global Fishing Watch data has shown a significant drop in fishing effort last year, apparently correlated to global COVID-19 lockdowns.
Founded in 2015, Global Fishing Watch is a partnership between Google and the advocacy groups Oceana and SkyTruth that collects vessel location data from satellite images and tracking systems.
March 3, 2021 — China’s longstanding policy goal of obtaining more seafood from overseas may be changing.
The country’s commitment to investing in global aquaculture projects has gone tepid in the past year, despite a policy set by its Ministry of Agriculture to increase China’s international cooperation in aquaculture, with the goal of shifting away from large-scale domestic aquaculture production and toward sourcing more domestically-consumed seafood abroad.
February 11, 2021 — The Chinese government’s effective measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 will lead to further GDP growth this year but the cancellation of some Chinese New Year celebrations will drag down consumer spending, according to Alicia Garcia Herrero, Asia economist at the Hong Kong offices of French investment bank Natixis.
Business and consumer sentiment has been dented by new containment measures before the Chinese New Year, but an increasingly stronger renminbi will be of some comfort to seafood importers, Garcia Herrero said.
February 4, 2021 — New Zealand Wild Catch Limited has reached an agreement with leading Chinese traditional medicine retailer Beijing Tongrentang for exclusive sales of dried and instant sea cucumber in New Zealand. One of the largest global retailers of traditional Chinese medicine, Beijing Tongrentang has eight stores in Auckland, New Zealand.
Chinese buyers are using sea cucumber as a home remedy to prevent infection from COVID-19, New Zealand Wild Catch Limited Co-Founder and CEO James Parfitt told SeafoodSource. The firm sells the gold tip sea cucumber (Stichopus mollis), which is native to New Zealand waters, under the Gold Tip brand.
January 28, 2021 — Illegal, unreported and unregistered (IUU) fishing, a global issue that many experts attribute to large state subsidies for fisheries, is more than simply an environmental or economic concern. Such activity heightens the risk of conflict at sea.
Most notably, China’s expanding fishing fleet—called the distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet—has precipitated tensions around the world. In 2016, an Argentine naval vessel sank a Chinese fishing boat illegally trawling in its waters, and the Argentine Coast Guard seized another Chinese-flagged vessel in May 2020. The vessel had turned off its identification system, illegally entered the Argentine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) at night, and carried 300 tons of fish in its hold. Similar incidents have occurred in the East China Sea. A South Korean attempt to interdict Chinese IUU fishing turned deadly in 2016, and Seoul recently announced enhanced efforts to seize Chinese fishing vessels illegally operating within its EEZ.
On Jan. 18, the World Trade Organization (WTO) reconvened negotiations for an agreement on fishing subsidies. Such a deal could stabilize global fish stocks, reduce IUU fishing and mitigate a potential source of maritime conflict. But an agreement is unlikely to come easily— geopolitical tensions and conflicting interests among major fishing powers have complicated subsidies negotiations since the 2001 Doha Round.
Four years ago, the WTO set 2020 as the deadline for an agreement to eliminate subsidies that promote overcapacity and IUU fishing. Although negotiators failed to meet the 2020 target, WTO leadership remains optimistic that efforts will prove successful in 2021. However, in a brief for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Alice Tipping and Tristan Irschlinger outlined several issues that may impede success. The application of “special and differential treatment” for China remains one contentious question, and its resolution implicates maritime security in the South China Sea and beyond.
January 28, 2021 — China’s seafood market is facing increased turbulence and uncertainty at the onset of what is usually its busiest period, the run-up to Chinese New Year, which falls on 12 February.
“The market is up and down” following a rash of new COVID-19 outbreaks, which has resulted in the key port city of Dalian going into lockdown, according to an executive from a leading importer.
January 26, 2021 — Over the last few years illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing has become more recognized as a national security concern. At first glance, fish hardly seem to be on par with other cutting edge national security issues — cyber, space, artificial intelligence, drones, nuclear proliferation, and perhaps most importantly the return of strategic competition now commonly referred to “great” power rivalry (although perhaps not for long). But in the years to come, make no mistake, fishin’ may indeed become an increasingly important mission for the United States and its security partners and allies around the world, and most certainly those in the Indo-Pacific.
To succeed in this mission, the Biden administration should lean on the U.S. Coast Guard to do what it does best, especially in the Pacific, where Chinese fishing fleets do double-duty as maritime militias that threaten and intimidate the fishers from neighboring nations. The administration should also continue to develop counter-IUU bilateral agreements, including those that may allow prosecuting masters of vessels that commit “grave breaches.” It may also need to make a hard choice between partnering with China’s neighbors, or with China itself, to best address this threat.
Fishing, a $401 billion global industry, provides 20% of the protein intake for nearly half of the world’s population, and global fish consumption has been on the rise for almost 60 years. Yet 93% of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited, or significantly depleted, and global climate change is adversely affecting stocks.
January 22, 2021 — A severe shortage of shipping containers is leading to rising shipping costs and difficulty moving goods, playing havoc with seafood exporters in Asia.
The shortage has been felt by all major exporters in Vietnam, Thailand, China, and India. Data from Vietnamese seafood exporters show that the shipping cost to the European Union rose between 145 percent and 276 percent in January, compared to December last year.
January 13, 2021 — The construction of Calysseo’s new FeedKind alternative protein plant in Chongqing, China, poses no long-term challenge to the fishmeal and fish oil industry, according to the sector’s largest trade group.
Work commenced in early January on Calysseo’s new plant in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing as part of a joint venture between animal feed additives firm Adisseo and protein innovator Calysta. The plant will initially produce 20,000 metric tons of fish-free aqua-feed per year, with more capacity to be added in a second phase of construction. The product is produced from a gas fermentation process involving a naturally occurring bacteria.
January 11, 2021 — A Chinese state-owned company has signed a deal to redevelop and manage a fisheries port in Brunei.
China’s Guangxi Beibu Gulf International Port Group has signed a deal to expand and run the Muara Fish Landing Complex alongside its partner Brunei’s Darussalam Assets, a government-backed investment agency. The two jointly own the Muara Port Company Sdn Bhd, a joint venture set up in 2017.