Saving Seafood

China’s Monster Fishing Fleet

December 1, 2020 — On Aug. 5, 2017, China complied with a United Nations decision and formally imposed sanctions on North Korea, including a ban on seafood exports. Seafood, particularly squid, is one of North Korea’s few significant foreign-exchange earners, and the sanctions were expected to increase the pressure on the regime.

But just a few weeks after the ban came into effect, hundreds of squid-fishing vessels left Chinese waters and rounded the southern tip of South Korea. They entered North Korea’s 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), nearly doubling the number of Chinese fishing vessels operating there from 557 to 907, according a recent Global Fishing Watch report that tracked data from four different satellite systems. Even as China publicly claimed that is was complying with sanctions, many of the Chinese vessels continued to make trips to North Korea and back, including several round trips each year during both 2018 and 2019, said Jaeyoon Park, one of the report’s lead authors.

The Chinese fleet, made up of squid jiggers and pair trawlers, scooped up a staggering amount of squid—equal to almost as much as the entire squid catch in Japanese and South Korean waters combined over the same period, the report estimated. The Chinese decimated the squid population off North Korea to such a degree that Japanese and South Korean fishers saw their own take of the usually plentiful, migratory species plummet.

Read the full story at Foreign Policy

Northwest US maritime industry looks to a better 2021

November 27, 2020 — Battered by trade wars and COVID-19, the U.S. Northwest maritime industry is applying lessons learned from both crises, according to leaders who spoke at Pacific Marine Expo’s virtual Maritime Economic Forecast.

With China as its number-one trading partner, the Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle and Tacoma saw immense change as a result of U.S.-China trade disputes, followed by a steep falloff in vessel traffic as COVID-19 reverberated in the world economy.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine’s lobstermen and women hope Biden can boost fortunes

November 27, 2020 — Donald Trump positioned himself as a friend of New England’s lobster industry, campaigning hard in Maine, and even had lobsterman Jason Joyce speak at the Republican national convention.

But the president’s prolonged trade war with China resulted in a rocky few years for the industry.

Following Biden’s win in the presidential election, which saw him take three out of four electoral votes in Maine, which, along with Nebraska, has a split system, members of the industry now say they are looking forward to some much-needed stability.

Stephanie Nadeau, owner of the Lobster Company, a dealer in Arundel, Maine, said the industry needs assurance that it will be able to sell lobsters to other countries without punitive tariffs and is hopeful that such comfort will come in January following the inauguration of the Democratic president-elect.

She said of life under the Trump administration: “You can’t plan. You can’t live in chaos. The trade war, was it going to last a week, was it going to last a month, was it going to last four years? How do you operate around that?”

Read the full story from The Guardian at MSN

ISSF adds social and labor standards to membership requirements

November 24, 2020 — The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has added new labor and social standards to its requirements for member companies, which include tuna processors, traders, importers, transporters, marketers, and more.

The new standard – Conservation Measure 9.1 Public Policy on Social and Labor Standards – will require any business associated with ISSF to develop, and publish, social and labor standards and/or a sourcing policy that applies to the entire supply chain, which addresses forced labor; child labor; freedom of association; wages, benefits, and employment contracts; working hours; health and safety; discrimination, harassment, and abuse; and grievance mechanisms. The policy must be public – meaning it must be at a minimum available to the general public.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US ramping up pressure on China’s use of forced labor in distant-water fishing

November 19, 2020 — Fishery products from China and Taiwan have been added to a list of commodities associated with forced labor in the latest edition of a US government report on child and forced labour globally.

The 2020 edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor – a report required by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 – claims that the majority of workers on Chinese distant-water fishing vessels are migrants from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

RCEP trade deal opens new avenues for seafood exporters

November 19, 2020 — A new trade deal could open up Southeast Asia to Chinese e-commerce, while also boosting Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] as an alternative to Chinese processors.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was signed on 15 November, reduces barriers to trade between China and 15 Asian-Pacific countries. The partnership includes 10 Southeast Asian economies as well as Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia. It covers 2.1 billion people, with RCEP’s members accounting for around 30 percent of global GDP. Possibly the world’s biggest free-trading bloc, RCEP members account for almost a third of global economic activity.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

China COVID-19 restrictions to remain in place through January

November 17, 2020 — China’s testing of seafood for traces of COVID-19 will remain strict for the rest of the year, according to a leading marketing consultant in Shanghai.

Robin Wang, the CEO of SMH International, a seafood-focused marketing agency with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong with clients including the Alaskan Seafood Marketing Institute, told SeafoodSource the move will negatively impact the broader food market in China.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sunken boats. Stolen gear. Fishermen are prey as China conquers a strategic sea

November 13, 2020 — On a warm, cloudless morning in June, a giant vessel blasted through the still waters of the South China Sea toward a wooden fishing boat painted in cerulean blue and flying the red flag of Vietnam.

The veteran fishing captain cranked up the engine to flee, but the approaching ship dropped two motorized dinghies into the sea with uniformed officers aboard. The rubber crafts raced along either side of the fishing boat, squeezing it like a pincer.

As the captain slowed to avoid a collision, the large ship was soon upon them. The large letters across its steel hull read: China.

Crammed into their cabin for safety, the 17 men were knocked to the deck by a jolt that nearly tipped the boat. Then another. And another. “Like war,” recalled crew member Nguyen Day.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

As Biden emerges as likely election winner, seafood industry prepares for potential changes

November 6, 2020 — Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is increasingly poised to win the presidency with several key battleground states tilting his way in the Electoral College on Friday, 6 November.

In response to Biden taking the lead in the presidential contest, and a high likelihood that Republicans have retained the majority in the U.S. Senate while Democrats retained control of the U.S. House,  the seafood industry – and its advocates – are preparing to work with new leadership in Washington D.C.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

‘Prevent, discourage, confront’: South American states tackle Chinese fishing boats

November 5, 2020 — Four South American countries have joined forces in a bid to combat illegal fishing by huge Chinese fleets off their coasts.

Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have threatened measures “to prevent, discourage and jointly confront” illegal fishing near their exclusive economic zones in the Pacific.

The joint statement made no specific mention of China but environmental groups Greenpeace and Oceana have repeatedly warned of the growing presence of Chinese fishing fleets in the area.

The South American quartet said they would boost “cooperation and real-time exchange of information” to highlight the illegal fishing.

Ecuador in July complained to China over a 300-vessel fleet off Galapagos, saying around half of them had turned off their tracking systems so they could not be located.

Read the full story at The Guardian