Saving Seafood

Congress Urged to Fund National Seafood Marketing Campaign

April 6, 2022 — Legislators on Capitol Hill are being urged by those in the Massachusetts seafood industry to fund a nationwide marketing campaign showcasing seafood.

In a letter to the delegation in Congress representing the Bay State, members of major players in the seafood industry such as Gorton’s and North Coast Seafoods called for funding to boost a multi-year marketing effort.

The signatories said that campaign would improve public health, boost the regional economy, and aid a vital part of the workforce within Massachusetts–especially in the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

Stronger America Through Seafood sends letter to Congress in support of AQUAA Act

February 14, 2022 — Stronger America Through Seafood (SATS) has sent a letter signed by more than 65 supporters of aquaculture – including leaders in the U.S. seafood harvesting, production, and retail sectors – to Congress, requesting support for aquaculture expansion in the U.S.

The letter, sent on Monday, 14 February to both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, calls for support for the “Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture Act,” or “AQUAA Act.” An updated version of the AQUAA Act was recently introduced by U.S. Senators Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Marco Rubio (R-Florida); and U.S. Representatives Ed Case (D-Hawaii) and Steve Palazzo (R-Mississippi).

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

How a continuing resolution will Impact the next generation of commercial fishermen

February 11, 2022 — The commercial fishing industry is facing unprecedented challenges with a graying of the fleet and very few young fishermen joining our industry. In our coastal communities, the average age of a fisherman has increased significantly and the number of “greenhorns,” or beginning fishermen, has continued to decline. Inaction by Congress may make the situation worse.

Despite a deep fishing heritage, coastal and fishing communities across the country are experiencing a generational shift. As current fishermen look to retire, we see fewer younger fishermen stepping up and continuing our fishing tradition as captains and crew. The future of our industry, coastal communities, and access to sustainable, domestic seafood depends on our ability to recruit and train new fishermen. We are already seeing the landscape change as imported seafood becomes more common in our markets. The shortage of young fishermen will only exacerbate this problem and lead to fewer sustainable, domestically harvested seafood options for our fellow Americans.

It is critical that we work to solve this issue at all levels of government. Last year, Congress passed the Young Fishermen’s Development Act to support training for the next generation of commercial fishermen. This new program is modeled after the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program and is aimed at training and equipping the next generation of commercial fishermen with the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful in the fishing industry. This program will help encourage recruits in the commercial fishing industry by providing funding for states and organizations across the country to develop programs that create hands-on training opportunities for men and women interested in commercial fishing.

Read the full op-ed at The Hill

US fishing vessels now have permanent waiver from incidental discharge rule

December 10, 2018 — When U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act into law last week, it finally – and permanently – relieved the fishing industry from Environmental Protection Agency regulations regarding incidental discharge on their boats.

The regulation required vessel operators to get EPA permits to perform routine actions, such as using pumped ocean water to clean off the deck after harvesting. It stemmed from a 2005 federal court ruling, and the Southern Shrimp Alliance said the system was a hindrance to more than 80,000 commercial fishing boats.

“This permit requirement should never have existed,” said John Williams, SSA’s executive director. “It was lawsuit driven by environmental groups in a California court a long time ago. SSA has been working ever since with Congress and other fishing groups across the nation to put a temporary stop to it. I have to say, after working to prevent this disaster for more than a decade, it feels pretty good to finally put this one to bed, permanently.”

Read the full article at Seafood Source

Climate change report predicts drastic changes in US marine economy

November 30, 2018 — Increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation are the outcomes from climate change that will cause the most damage the world’s marine economy, according to National Climate Assessment report released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program on Friday, 23 November.

The federal program that released the report was mandated by Congress to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment and their impacts on society. Compiled by top scientists at 13 U.S. agencies, it paints a grim picture of the future of both U.S. and global fisheries as the effects of climate change continue to advance.

The report stated with “very high confidence” that the world stands to suffer “the loss of iconic and highly valued” habitats, and said intensifying ecosystem disruption as a result of ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, and other aspects of climate change will result in major changes in species composition and food web structure. In fact, these changes are already underway and have caused significant shifts in how the marine environment is functioning, especially in the warmest and coldest environments, and the report stated – also with very high confidence – these transformative impacts on ocean ecosystems cannot be avoided In the absence of significant reductions in carbon emissions.

Read the full story at Seafood Source 

More US Senators push for shrimp to be added to SIMP

February 13, 2018 — A bipartisan group of 11 U.S. Senators have signed on to a plan that would require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to add shrimp to the Seafood Import Monitoring Program.

In a letter addressed to Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the senators expressed their support for language in the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which mandates the inclusion of shrimp in the monitoring program within 30 days of the spending bill’s enactment.

SIMP, which officially took effect last month, requires imported seafood to be traced from the time it was caught or harvested to the time it reaches the United States. The program was created to crack down the sale of counterfeit or illegally caught seafood products to consumers.

Most of the seafood Americans consume is imported and shrimp makes up nearly two-thirds of those imports. Shrimp was one of the species included in the program. However, federal officials have waived it from compliance at this point until similar recordkeeping requirements are also in effect for domestic producers. That, however, has not stopped U.S. commercial fishing groups from pushing NOAA add shrimp to the program.

“The domestic, wild-caught shrimp industry has been in a state of decline for decades due to the flood of cheap, imported shrimp from countries such as India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam,” said Ryan Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. “This bill is a beacon of hope for our coastal communities that greatly rely on domestic shrimp production – the largest commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States.”

In their letter, the senators expressed concerns over the use of unapproved antibiotics in foreign farmed shrimp and cited reports of human rights abuses by processors in Thailand, one of the world’s largest shrimp providers.

“We believe that SIMP is a key step to restoring a level playing field for the U.S. shrimp industry,” the senators wrote.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

West Coast Fisheries Disaster Funding Included in Senate Appropriations Bill

February 8, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — As news of a Wednesday night Senate agreement on the federal budget bill that included millions for disaster aid filtered out, many fishermen and processors on the West Coast wondered whether fisheries aid was included.

The short answer: Yes, according to Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Executive Director Noah Oppenheim.

“We called on Congress to step up and provide fishery disaster assistance, and today they delivered. West Coast fishermen express their heartfelt gratitude to key senators and members of congress who fought hard for their constituents,” Oppenheim said in a statement. “Fishery disasters don’t flood cities or burn down houses, but they do devastate coastal communities and threaten the fishing way of life. These fishery disaster appropriations will go a long way towards beginning the healing process for hundreds of working fishing families on the West Coast.”

Read the full story with a subscription at Seafood News

 

Dr. Ray Hilborn talks U.S. fisheries policy at Bevan Series lecture

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) – January 8, 2018 – Last week, Dr. Ray Hilborn, a professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, presented on U.S. fisheries policy and how scientists can communicate with Congress to promote good decision-making. The lecture, “Is U.S. Fisheries Policy Working? Getting the Message to Congress,” was the first of the 2018 Bevan Series on fisheries management.

The Bevan Series features “internationally recognized experts” discussing current issues facing fisheries and marine conservation. This year’s series features 10 weekly seminars held at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Read more about the Bevan Series here

Watch Dr. Hilborn’s lecture here

A description of Dr. Hilborn’s lecture is below:

The Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management and Conservation Act of 1976 is the primary piece of federal legislation governing fisheries whose objectives include: exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing all fish within the exclusive economic zone; to promote domestic commercial and recreational fishing under sound conservation and management principles; to provide for the preparation and implementation, in accordance with national standards, of fishery management plans which will achieve and maintain, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery; to encourage the development by the United States fishing industry of fisheries which are currently underutilized or not utilized by United States fishermen. Optimum yield is defined the yield from a fishery, means the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems.

This talk will focus on how the U.S. is doing with respect to these objectives, and my perspective on how scientists can let Congress know how well we are doing, and help Congress make good decisions. I will discuss the success at rebuilding fish stocks and protection of marine ecosystems, a mix of success and failure at producing benefits to food production, and recreational fishing opportunities.  I will discuss my limited experiences at communicating with Congress through invited testimony to House and Senate committee hearings over 25 years, and two separate briefings of Congressional staff.

Ray Hilborn is a Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington specializing in natural resource management and conservation.  He authored several books including Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Ulrike Hilborn) in 2012, Quantitative Fisheries Stock Assessment with Carl Walters in 1992, and The Ecological Detective: Confronting Models With Data with Marc Mangel, in 1997. He has also published over 300 peer reviewed articles and served on the Editorial Boards of numerous journals, including seven years on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science Magazine. He has received the Volvo Environmental Prize, the American Fisheries Societies Award of Excellence, The Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award, and the International Fisheries Science Prize. He is a Fellow of the American Fisheries Society, the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

 

Sean Horgan: House bill gives fishermen glimmer of hope

December 18, 2017 — From a literary standpoint, there really isn’t much to say about the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The plot is murky, the characters non-existent and the writing so dense and boring that you’d swear it was written by some Beltway wonks.

Oh wait, it was. Perhaps the movie will be better. Or even the re-authorized version.

Following five years of stultifying futility, Congress finally seems on the threshold of formally re-authorizing the law that governs the management of our nation’s federal fisheries.

Last Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee voted H.R. 200 (or if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act) out of committee, setting the stage for a vote by the full House and, somewhere down the road, a clash with the Senate over whatever bill comes from the upper chamber.

But for now, the House bill has given commercial fishermen at least a glimmer of hope that their cries have carried from the wilderness and now are resonating in the halls of Congress.

The key word in all of this is flexibility.

Read the full column at the Gloucester Times

House Natural Resources Committee Passes Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization

December 13, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed H.R. 200, the “Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act.” Introduced by Chairman Emeritus Don Young (R-AK), the bill reauthorizes and modernizes the Magnuson-Stevens Act by implementing regional flexibility, tailored management practices and improved data collection for America’s federal fisheries.

“It has been 11 years since the Magnuson-Stevens Act was reauthorized and when we first passed this law, we saw tremendous success for the fisheries nationwide. Alaska is considered the gold standard of fisheries management and this industry is crucial to our local economy. I am proud to see my bill pass out of Committee today. This legislation will improve the management process by allowing regional fisheries to develop plans that match the needs of their area. Ultimately, this bill updates the Magnuson-Stevens Act to ensure a proper balance between the biological needs of fish stocks and the economic needs of fishermen and coastal communities,” Rep. Young stated. 

“America’s fisheries are governed by an outdated regulatory scheme and inflexible decrees imposed by distant bureaucrats. Fishermen and biologists on the ground should be partners in the formation of management plans, not powerless onlookers,” Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) said. “This bill provides flexibility so we can better meet local needs, expand economic activity and conserve ecosystems. Rep. Young has delivered a win for local management and I look forward to moving this bill through the chambers in the coming year.” 

Click here to learn more about the bill.

The following was released by the Democrats of the House Committee on Natural Resources:

Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today highlighted the broad-based economic and environmental opposition to H.R. 200, today’s highly partisan rewrite of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs fisheries and fishing quotas across U.S. waters. The GOP bill is opposed by the Seafood Harvesters of America and a wide swathe of restaurants and individual commercial fisherman and by dozens of environmental groups, including the Alaska Wilderness League, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Audubon Society, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ocean Conservancy and the Wilderness Society.

Opponents of the Republican bill have written a barrage of letters to Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and other Republican leaders, including Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans, urging them to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act and abandon today’s bill, which was written by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on highly partisan lines. The letters are available at http://bit.ly/2nYuEin.

“Republicans’ plan is to deregulate our oceans and fish everywhere until there’s nothing left, and we’re not going to let that happen,” Grijalva said today. “Ocean management is about sustainable use and enjoyment, not just making environmentalists unhappy. Like most of the bills advanced by the leadership of this Committee, this bill is extreme and has no future in the Senate. Until my counterparts decide to take the issues in our jurisdiction more seriously, we’re going to keep wasting time on unpopular bills that have no chance of becoming law.”

Grijalva also underscored the deep opposition to H.R. 3588, Rep. Garret Graves’ (R-La.) bill deregulating red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Many letter-writers who oppose H.R. 200 also oppose Graves’ effort, which an alliance of chefs and restaurateurs noted in a Nov. 7 letter “could inadvertently result in significant overfishing and deprive our customers of one of their favorite fish.”