Saving Seafood

Tilapia has a terrible reputation. Does it deserve it?

October 24th, 2016 — When it comes to fish, no species brings out the haters like tilapia.

Read up on it, and you’ll find tilapia described with words like “muddy” and “earthy”; there are entire forum threads devoted to its inferiority. This very newspaper, back in 2007, called it “the fish that chefs love to hate.”

Should we really be so hard on this fast-growing freshwater fish?

In the world of food, there aren’t too many propositions that get universal agreement, but here’s one: Our oceans are overfished. If we’re going to continue to eat fish, and to feed it to the people scheduled to join us on this planet in the coming years, we have to farm it. And if we’re going to farm fish, an adaptable, hardy fish like tilapia is an excellent candidate.

Yet a combination of rumors and credible reports works against it. Perhaps you’ve heard that tilapia are raised in cesspools and live on poop? Even the USDA says there is — or, at least, used to be — some truth in that. The agency’s 2009 report on Chinese imports notes that “Fish are often raised in ponds where they feed on waste from poultry and livestock.”

Before we meet that fact with a chorus of “ewww,” it’s worth noting that turning feces into fish would be the agricultural equivalent of spinning straw into gold. Although there are important safety concerns in that kind of system, if you can manage those risks, you’ve got one of the most sustainable foods going. It’s a downright Rumplestiltskinnian miracle, and we should root for it, not against it.

The question is whether that still happens. To find out, I went to the source: Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which rates seafood choices based on whether they have been responsibly fished or farmed. Seafood Watch lists tilapia from nine different sources. Four (from Peru, Canada, Ecuador and the United States) are rated “Best Choices,” another four (from China, Taiwan, Mexico and Indonesia) are “Good Alternatives,” and only one (from Colombia) is rated “Avoid.” I asked Ryan Bigelow, the Seafood Watch program’s engagement manager, to give me a rundown on the sustainability issues.

Read the full story at The Washington Post 

Satellite Tracking Spots Suspicious Activity from 12 Chinese Fishing Vessels in Peruvian Waters

October 17th, 2016 — At least a dozen Chinese vessels have illegally fished inside Peru’s national waters between January 2015 and September 2016, according to data analyzed by the satellite tracking platform Global Fishing Watch. This data suggests that over the course of the last year, Hong Pu5, Shung Feng 002 and several other vessels entered Peruvian waters at least once to fish in violation of international law.

Global Fishing Watch — a joint initiative of Oceana, SkyTruth and Google — uses navigation technology known as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to track the movements of nearly 40,000 commercial fishing vessels around the world. AIS transmits a vessel’s identity, type, location, course and speed. Global Fishing Watch’s algorithm uses this information to identify fishing patterns, which helps fisheries officials and enforcement agencies spot potential criminal activity.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), illegal fishing in Peru is responsible for $360 million in losses each year. Peru is something of a “paradise” for pirate fishing, said Juan Carlos Sueiro, Oceana Peru’s fisheries director.

While neighbors Colombia, Chile and Ecuador have ratified a new FAO treaty aimed at curbing the trade in illegal fish in port cities, Peru has dragged its heels. As a result, Sueiro said, Chinese and other foreign vessels suspected of illegal fishing can freely dock, refuel, buy food and offload their catch in Peru.

Read the full story at Oceana 

Lobbyists circle shark-finning bill

October 12th, 2016 — Shark-fishing houses are banding together to fight a bipartisan bill that would ban the trade of shark fins.

The ad-hoc Sustainable Shark Alliance last week registered to lobby with the sole goal of defeating the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. -Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Del. Gregorio Sablan (D-Northern Mariana Islands), seeks to expand on Congress’s ban on shark finning, in which fishermen cut off the fish’s fin and return it to the ocean, usually to die.

Supporters say finning is cruel and has decimated populations of shark species, including endangered ones. The bill has dozens of co-sponsors, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). It was introduced at a news conference with actor Morgan Freeman.

But the shark industry, which supports the ban on finning, says the bill would shut down much of the industry.

Domestic fisherman use more than just the fin, but the fin — usually exported to China for use in soup and other culinary purposes — represents about half the monetary value of the fish, said Shaun Gehan, the lobbyist for the ad-hoc coalition.

Read the full story at The Hill 

‘Indiana Jones’ shark gains protection at Cites meeting

October 4, 2016 — Known for its long whip-like tail, the threatened Thresher shark is among a number of marine species given extra protection at the Cites meeting.

Devil rays and Silky sharks have also been given additional safeguards.

These shark species have seen huge population falls over the past decades, due to the demands of the shark fin trade.

Devil rays are valued for the gill plates which are used in Chinese medicine.

Campaigners believe the safeguards under Cites will make a real difference to these species survival.

Few sharks protected

It’s estimated that around 100 million sharks of all types are killed in commercial fisheries – with their fins often destined for markets in China and Hong Kong.

Despite the scale of the fishing, there are just eight species given some protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

At the previous Cites meeting in Thailand in 2013, hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and porbeagle sharks were added to Appendix II as well as all species of manta rays.

Appendix II means that trade is allowed but it has to be shown to be sustainable.

Read the full story at the BBC

‘Aquatic Cocaine’ Is Killing The World’s Cutest Porpoise

September 26th, 2016 — Five feet long and weighing about 120 pounds, the vaquita is the world’s smallest porpoise.

It may also be the world’s cutest porpoise, what with its snub snout and panda-like dark spots around its eyes. But with fewer than 60 of its kind left in the world, the vaquita is without doubt the most endangered.

And according to a new report issued on the eve of a major international meeting on wildlife conservation, these diminutive sea mammals face almost certain extinction unless action is taken to stem the illegal trade in “aquatic cocaine.”

Not familiar with the term? Aquatic cocaine is slang for the dried swim bladder of a marine fish known as the totaoba, itself an endangered species.

Dried fish innards may sound icky to you. But in certain parts of China, aquatic cocaine (also known as fish maw) is a believed to have medicinal value. And its cost rivals that of illicit drugs ― hence the “aquatic cocaine” moniker.

One pound of the stuff could set you back $5,000, The New York Times reported earlier this year. The report says a really good fish maw specimen can command a whopping $50,000.

Why would stopping the fish maw trade help save the vaquita from extinction? Because as luck would have it, both vaquitas and totoaba live only in Mexico’s Gulf of California ― and the former are drowning in the illegal nets that poachers use to catch the latter so that the maws can be smuggled to China.

Read the full story at The Huffington Post

On the Verge of Extinction, a Chinese Fishing Village Resists

September 26, 2016 — YUMINGZUI VILLAGE, China — On a moonless night, when there was nothing in the air except the smell of rotting seaweed and the songs of drunken fishermen, Wang Xinfeng sneaked onto a boat by the dock and sailed into the darkness.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Mr. Wang, 53, made a living combing the Yellow Sea for flounder, herring, fat greenling and yellow croaker. But now the government, hoping to limit environmental damage and encourage villagers to find new jobs, had banned fishing during the summer.

Mr. Wang, desperate to pay medical bills, had taken to venturing into the water at night to avoid detection.

“I was raised at sea — this is my home,” he said. “Even if it’s a rough life, I have to fish.”

For centuries, residents of Yumingzui, a village of 562 people in the eastern province of Shandong, enjoyed a quiet life by the ocean, harvesting enough fish, sea cucumbers and abalone to support a prosperous seafood trade. While nearby villages fell victim to tourism and development, Yumingzui persevered, clinging to ancient fishing rites and homes made of seaweed.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Taiwan Protests Exclusion From UN Fisheries Conference

September 22, 2016 — BEIJING — Taiwan has protested its exclusion from a United Nations conference on the global fishing industry, allegedly at the behest of chief rival China, the official Central News Agency reported.

CNA said in a report late Wednesday that the Foreign Ministry delivered a letter to the Food and Agricultural Organization protesting against what it called “discriminatory treatment” against two Taiwanese representatives who were barred from the organization’s Committee on Fisheries meeting being held in Italy this week.

It said China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, was behind their rejection but did not say how that information was obtained.

Taiwanese representatives had participated in the biennial conference since 2003 as experts or members of non-governmental organizations.

As a major deep-sea fishing nation, Taiwan had argued that its presence at the conference was appropriate and necessary.

However, the exclusions are seen as the latest sign of how China is tightening the diplomatic screws on Taiwan as a way of pressuring the island’s new independence-leaning president, Tsai Ing-wen.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Indonesia’s Solution to Illegal Fishing Boats Is Just to Blow Them Up

September 21, 2016 — The South China Sea and its surrounding waters are the most hotly contested fishing grounds in the world, with China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei all laying claim to parts of the region and the delicious seafood within. But while the competing nations are engaging in dangerous standoffs and fishing the Sea to collapse, nearby, around the Natuna Islands, Indonesia has developed a policy of dealing with illegal fishing that’s having some unexpected benefits: by blowing up poachers’ boats.

And it’s working! They’ve put a dent in overfishing and rejuvenated their fisheries. Bloomberg reports that Indonesia’s policy of destroying illegal fishing vessels is giving the fishing stocks within Indonesia’s economic exclusivity zone (EEZ) the chance to rebound, according to Indonesia’s Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti. In recent years, Indonesia’s fishing haul has risen from 2.5 million tons to 6.6 million tons this year. Next year, the stock might even be sustainable, with Indonesian fishermen bringing in nearly 10 million tons of seafood.

Since the end of 2014, Indonesia has blasted 220 boats to the briny depths, making something of a show of the whole thing by dramatically blowing up the boats in public in various locations around the country.

Read the full story at VICE

Blowing Up Boats Sets Indonesia’s Scarce Fish Swimming Again

September 19th, 2016 — Indonesia’s crackdown on illegal fishing — with the public spectacle of seized boats blown to smithereens — may have sparked tensions with China, but the country’s fisheries minister says it has led to a significant drop in overfishing.

The rejuvenation of fishing stocks will help Indonesia’s economy as other growth drivers falter, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said Thursday in an interview in Washington, DC. Growth is under pressure and set to be closer to the lower end of the central bank’s 4.9 percent to 5.3 percent target this year.

“Mining is going down, everything is going down, fisheries is the only one growing,” Pudjiastuti said.

Her role sees her defending an industry that along with farming and forestry makes up 14 percent of the economy of the world’s largest archipelago, and employs millions of Indonesians. The decline in fish stocks in north Asia has seen boats push into the territorial waters of Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia, often shadowed by their home country’s armed coast guards, which raises the potential for clashes at sea.

Pudjiastuti, 51, has been in cabinet since October 2014 and is popular with the public for her tough stance. Since the end of that year, Indonesia has destroyed 220 foreign boats. It has also faced increased Chinese claims that waters surrounding the gas-rich Natuna Islands are part of traditional Chinese fishing grounds.

Read full article from Bloomberg

China Suppresses Protests in Fishing Village, Arresting 13

September 13, 2016 — BEIJING — Chinese police fired rubber bullets at villagers and arrested 13 people Tuesday in an overnight crackdown to suppress demonstrations in a southern fishing village that became internationally known five years ago for protesting land seizures.

Police stormed into the village of Wukan in the southern province of Guangdong and arrested leaders of ongoing demonstrations in their homes. Videos posted on social media show one person with blood on his arm and chest, and another being treated for an apparent bullet wound on his hand.

Another video shows a line of black police vans streaming into the village, a hamlet of about 13,000 people on the South China Sea near Hong Kong.

Wukan carries symbolic importance due to the success of 2011 protests that broke out over land seizures and corruption. Villagers were able to expel government officials and police, and barricaded the village. The siege was resolved only after the provincial secretary of China’s ruling Communist Party agreed to allow a local election.

The winner of that election was Lin Zuluan, a former protest leader. Lin was planning to lead a new round of protests this year over more land grabs. Instead, authorities detained him and then charged him with taking bribes.

Read the full story at The New York Times