Saving Seafood

Fishing Smarter: AI and new technologies revolutionize fishing

July 6, 2022-The new documentary “Fishing Smarter”, from the Environmental Defense Fund, reveals how digital technology solutions can revolutionize fisheries to improve sustainability and profitability.

Released last October, the new film, “Fishing Smarter”, from Environmental Defense Fund, is a 20-minute documentary that reveals how, from the United States to Indonesia, fishermen are adopting innovative solutions to help revolutionize fisheries to improve sustainability, profitability and community resilience. “Fishing Smarter: How new technology can help our oceans thrive” was presented at the 2021 Florida Environmental Film Festival and the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival.

Watch as small-scale fishers, fishery managers and other stakeholders explore the ways new and emerging technologies strengthen the health, sustainability and profitability of their local catches and ecosystems. From blue swimming crab in Indonesia to curvina in Mexico’s Gulf of California, innovative uses of technology in fisheries are making a real-world difference. The documentary also shows how fishermen in the United States are adopting new technologies, like electronic monitoring, onboard their vessels, and reflects on some of the privacy challenges they may create and and what’s being made to solve them.

During the summer of 2015 an important milestone was reached, as every boat in the U.S. Atlantic longline fleet was equipped with a video monitoring system. Almost one year later, in February, scientists and fishermen working together to design electronic monitoring systems, agreed on one thing: although the system is going to be a key part of fishing ships in the future, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

One thing is true: these new technologies hold promise in making data collection more timely, accurate, and cost-efficient. To learn more about how NOAA Fisheries is investing in technology fishermen use to track their catch follow the link to the page under the title Electronic Monitoring Explained.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

What Makes Mahi Mahi A More Sustainable Seafood Option

June 7, 2022 — Mahi mahi is a fairly common fish found on restaurant menus throughout the U.S., but at one time its appearance sparked controversy when it was known by its other name of dolphinfish. People conflated the dolphinfish with the marine mammal and recoiled in horror at the prospect of Flipper being served for dinner.

Never mind that the dolphinfish is actually unrelated to the dolphin, but perception is reality. To avoid any confusion, the Hawaiian name of mahi mahi was eventually adopted to refer to the dolphinfish, which inhabits tropical and subtropical waters worldwide.

Like other species consumed across the globe, mahi mahi are subject to the industrial fishing industry. Overfishing, or catching too many fish at once and impeding a population’s natural ability to breed and recover, remains a dire concern for conserving aquatic life in our planet’s oceans. The Environmental Defense Fund cites that “nearly a third of the world’s assessed fisheries” are threatened by overfishing. Certain fish are more susceptible than others to this harmful human activity, but mahi mahi has certain attributes that make it a more sustainable seafood option.

Read the full story at Mashed

Poll shows Americans want local seafood, including aquaculture, with stronger environmental and consumer protections

August 16, 2021 — A new poll released by Environmental Defense Fund indicates U.S. voters are open to consuming more home-grown seafood that adheres to strong consumer and environmental standards for American aquaculture.

The poll found 84 percent of voters support a proposal that “would first examine the risks and opportunities of fish farming (also known as aquaculture) in U.S. federal waters before setting high standards and regulation for safe and sustainable aquaculture.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EDF building bridges between US, Japanese fisheries managers

August 4, 2021 — A virtual climate and fisheries workshop hosted in July by the Environmental Defense Fund had the goal of building bridges between fisheries managers in Japan and the United States.

The seminar organized by the New York City, U.S.A.-based NGO brought together scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service and Japan’s Fisheries Research and Education Agency to discuss current and future climate-related changes in fisheries, data gaps impeding optimal management practices, and opportunities for collaboration.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Representative Don Young, industry groups “welcome” bill to reauthorize Magnuson-Stevens Act

July 27, 2021 — In the moments on Monday, 26 July, after U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman officially announced the filing of a bill to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, statements supporting the legislation started to flow out from the press offices of seafood and fishing interest groups and environmental non-governmental organizations.

Conservation groups lauded H.R. 4690, sponsored by the California Democrat and U.S. Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii). In particular, those organizations appreciated the recognition of climate change as a factor in fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK panel hears lessons from abroad on building climate resilience

July 26, 2021 — Building climate resilience will be essential to the United Kingdom’s seafood indsutry if it hopes to maintain production and account for impendeing changes, speakers from around the world told the U.K. government’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Fisheries at its most recent meeting.

The panel, which is operated by the U.K.’s Fisheries Secretariat, is a cross-party body focused on issues affecting the U.K. fishing and seafood sector. The aim of its recent session was to gain insight into how to tackle issues resulting from climate change that could impact the country’s fishing industry in the future.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

A sustainable ocean economy is achievable, new paper finds, but barriers are high

June 18, 2021 — A paper published in Nature Communications, “Financing a sustainable ocean economy,” was among a long list of articles, announcements, and pledges that appeared on 8 June, commemorating World Oceans Day.

The paper’s authors, a group of international economists and ocean policy experts, found that public and private investment lags far behind that needed to ensure a thriving, resilient, and sustainable ocean economy.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MSC Announces £650,000 in Grants for Fishery Observer Safety and Bycatch Improvement Projects

April 21, 2021 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced 20 fisheries and research projects will receive up to £60,000 through its Ocean Stewardship Fund, a fund dedicated to sustainable fishing across the globe.

The awards include grants to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), WWF India and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) as well as to fisheries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia, the MSC said. A quarter of the funding will focus on Global South fisheries.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Marine Stewardship Council funds ocean projects to drive progress in sustainable fishing

April 20, 2021 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

Twenty fisheries and research projects around the world will receive up to £60,000 each from the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Ocean Stewardship Fund – a fund dedicated to enabling and supporting sustainable fishing around the world.

The awards include grants to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), WWF India and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) as well as to fisheries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. Nearly a quarter of the funding has been awarded in support of fisheries in the Global South.

Research into fishery observer safety is a special focus this year given the critical role observers can play in providing the data and evidence required to demonstrate fisheries are operating responsibly. An Ocean Stewardship Fund grant will support Saltwater Inc. – a company which trains and deploys fishery observers – in collaboration with the I.T. consulting firm Chordata, LLC, to create a ‘one-touch’ communications platform. This will enable fishery observers to safely communicate with their home office, or alert emergency services to unsafe working conditions.

Three other grants will fund research aimed at reducing bycatch – a major cause of ocean biodiversity depletion – whilst other projects focus on fisheries’ harvest strategies and improvements in bait fisheries.

The 20 awardees include:

  • RSPB and ISF (Icelandic Sustainable Fisheries) Iceland lumpfish fishery which will conduct research into how effectively a bobbing buoy, with eyes on it, deters seabirds away from fishing nets. This could be a simple, cost effective way to reduce bycatch.
  • The fishing association, Tuna Australia, will research alternatives to using Argentine shortfin squid as bait, including artificial bait, as this species is under threat from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The results will be important for the Australian Eastern Tuna and Billfish fishery as well as other fisheries that use bait.
  • A postgraduate student from IPB University in Indonesia will use environmental DNA analysis to identify bycatch species in blue swimming crab fisheries in the Java Sea. The data will be vital in progressing the fishery improvement project, led by APRI – the Indonesian Blue Swimming Crab Association – towards sustainability.

The Fund also supports fisheries that are in the early stages of improving their management practices. Six of the grants, totalling nearly a quarter of the funding (£157,724) are supporting fishery improvement projects in the Global South, including the deep-sea shrimp trawl fishery in Kerala, India and blue swimmer crab fisheries, squid fisheries and snapper and grouper fisheries in Indonesia.

The MSC’s Chief Executive, Rupert Howes, said:

“Congratulations to all the 2021 awardees of the Ocean Stewardship Fund. The MSC established the Ocean Stewardship Fund in 2018 to fund credible projects and initiatives that will deliver real improvements in the way our oceans are being fished and importantly, will help fisheries around the world to progress on their pathway to sustainability.

“The knowledge generated by these projects will inform the sector more widely and we hope, will catalyse and lead to further adoption and scaling of solutions beyond the immediate beneficiaries of the grants.

“I was very impressed by the quality of all of the applications this year and have no doubt the Ocean Stewardship Fund’s focus on collaborative projects is driving innovation and creativity. Without doubt our collective efforts can help to ensure our oceans remain productive and resilient in the face of the growing pressures and demands placed on them but much more needs to be done and urgently if we are to deliver the UN strategic development goals by 2030.”

Since 2019, the Ocean Stewardship Fund has awarded 35 grants totalling £1.3 million and the MSC hopes the impact of those projects will contribute to the delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water.

For more information about the Ocean Stewardship Fund, including previous grant awards, please visit: www.msc.org/oceanstewardshipfund

Ray Hilborn on the role of industry funding

April 12, 2021 — It is true that my research program receives funding from the fishing industry. Industry funding makes up about 22% of my total funding, while I receive similar amounts from environmental foundations, Universities, and private individuals unassociated with the fishing industry. In addition, I receive funding from environmental NGOs, including over the years the National Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Pew Institute for Ocean Science.

Here is my response to those who say this means you should not believe what I say about fisheries:

Science is collaborative, not individual

When I say that all fish will not be gone by 2048 or that fish stocks are increasing in abundance in much of the world, these are not personal opinions, but results of scientific papers authored by a large group of people, each of whom stands by the results of the paper.

When the claim that “all fish would be gone by 2048” came out, the lead author on that paper, Boris Worm, and I agreed to meet together to understand why we had different perspectives. We organized a group of about 20 scientists and looked at trends in fish stock abundance where it was measured and found no sign that these stocks were generally declining. In 2009, we published a paper in Science Magazine showing this, and the lead author was Boris Worm. It is absurd to say that because I, one of 21 authors, had received funding from the fishing industry this work was biased.

I was the first author on the 2020 follow-up paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Effective fisheries management instrumental in improving fish stock status, that showed that fish stocks were actually increasing in much of the world, but this paper had 23 authors, including professors from several different universities, an employee of The Nature Conservancy, a member of the Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy, a member of the Board of Directors of Environmental Defense, and an employee of the Wildlife Conservation Society all of whom stand by our conclusions. It is not my work, but group work, and where I get some of my funding is largely irrelevant.

Almost every paper with my name on it in fisheries has a range of authors and many of them have at least one author representing conservation organizations.

Look at the data and what was actually done

My research is not cloaked in secrecy. In every research paper I have been a part of, we tell the reader what data we used and how we used it to get the results we did. This is the methodology section. We describe our data and methods so you, or anyone else, can redo and/or verify the analysis.

This is an important part of science. I have criticized the methodology section of others before, and others have criticized mine—this is what makes information evolve closer to truth. Unfortunately, that part of science gets lost in press releases and hyperbolic headlines, which was a large reason I started this website—to explain the methodology sections of important fisheries papers to give the public (and journalists) proper context. For example, we have been highly critical of Oceana’s seafood fraud methodology on this website, but we appreciate the work they do and gave them a platform to respond to our criticism.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW