Saving Seafood

NGOs rail against EU’s confirmed North Sea fishing plan

May 30, 2018 — Multiple environmental NGOs have railed against the EU’s North Sea fishing plan, which it has now voted in, claiming it does not implement the common fisheries policy (CFP) and allows overfishing.

On May 29 the European Parliament adopted in its final vote the North Sea Multi-Annual Plan (NSMAP). The plan covers nearly one-third of all fish catches in EU waters, and includes demersal species, such as: cod, haddock, whiting, sole, plaice and Norway lobster. According to Oceana, the final deal is not acceptable, as it does not fully implement the objectives of the CFP and still allows for overfishing of certain stocks in the region.

“The EU lawmakers have completely failed to meet the legally binding requirements set by the CFP and the parliament missed an opportunity to defend its own position adopted at the plenary vote in September 2017. The parliament also ceded to the [EU] council’s pressure and low ambitions on the matter,” wrote Oceana.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Maine elver catch surpasses USD 21 million

May 24, 2018 — The state of Maine, U.S.A., has surpassed USD 21 million (EUR 17.8 million) in total value for its elver fishery as the price-per-pound for the baby eels remains at an average of almost USD 2,400 (EUR 2,000).

The season, which kicked off on 22 March, still has time to increase that total before its closure on 7 June. However, 2018 is already proving to be a banner year for the fishery, as the season opened to record high prices that continued to stay elevated.

Those prices were attributed to a number of factors, including reports of low catch totals of japonica eels – the variety caught in Japan – and the complete ban on all exports of European Eels. The European Union recently began an evaluation of its EU Eel Regulation to determine the next step in conservation.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Protesters throw fish into Thames in Brexit deal protest

March 22, 2018 — Protesters have thrown dead fish into the Thames outside Parliament as they oppose the Brexit transition deal.

The fishing industry and many coastal MPs are unhappy that the UK will not regain control of the country’s fishing waters on Brexit day, 29 March 2019.

Instead it will be subject to EU rules for 21 months until December 2020.

Michael Gove has said he shares the “disappointment” but urged people to keep their “eyes on the prize” of getting full control of UK waters back.

In a sign of government unease about the reaction, Theresa May met MPs with fishing ports in their seats on Tuesday in an attempt to explain their approach.

Speaking from the fishing trawler, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage told Sky News the government did not have the “guts” to stand up to the EU.

“They told us they would take back control in 2019 – that is not happening. We are now told at the start of 2021 it may happen,” he said.

“I don’t think this government has got the guts or the strength to stand up and take back our territorial waters.”

Conservative backbencher Ross Thomson, who is MP for Aberdeen South, said he was “really disappointed” fishing communities will not regain control of UK waters as soon as it leaves the 27-nation bloc.

Speaking from the fishing trawler, he said: “Literally within seconds of our leaving (the EU), we’re handing all of that back.”

Mr Thomson, who was among the delegation of MPs to see Mrs May, said that while it was a “productive” meeting, “we were very, very clear that we’ll only support an end deal if it delivers for our fishing communities – and we have been absolutely clear that this is a red line for us”.

Mrs May is hoping the deal will be signed off at a meeting of leaders at the European Council summit in Brussels this week, clearing the way for crucial talks on post-Brexit trade to begin in earnest.

But 14 MPs, including leading backbench Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, said the proposal for Britain effectively to remain in the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy for almost two years after Brexit day in March 2019, with no say over the allocation of quotas, would not command the support of the Commons.

“These demands are completely unacceptable and would be rejected by the House of Commons,” they said.

Read the full story at BBC News

 

Terms agreed for Brexit transition, interim fisheries arrangements

March 21, 2018 — Brexit negotiators have agreed on many of the terms for a time-limited implementation period that they believe will provide greater assurances for businesses and citizens across the European Union and the United Kingdom during the separation process.

A transition period is set to last from 29 March 2019 to December 2020, which David Davis, U.K. secretary of state for exiting the E.U., said gives everyone the time they need to prepare for the future, by ensuring access to each other’s markets continues on current terms.

“Businesses need not delay investment decisions, or rush through contingency plans based on guesses about the future deal,” he said. “Instead they now have certainty about the terms that will apply immediately after our withdrawal. Meaning that they can continue to operate and invest with confidence, as the design of our future partnership with the European Union becomes clear.”

Davis also confirmed that specific safeguards had been agreed with regard to the annual fishing negotiations.

“These arrangements will only apply for the negotiations in 2019, since we will still be a member state for those that take place at the end of this year. Through 2020 we will be negotiating fishing opportunities as an independent coastal state, deciding who can access our waters and on what terms,” Davis said. “For the year where it is relevant, we have agreed the European Union will have to consult us ahead of the negotiations. And the United Kingdom’s share of the total catch cannot be changed, protecting the interests of the United Kingdom fishing community.”

However, in a statement, Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), said the new agreement falls far short of an acceptable deal.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

ILO Finds Progress in Fixing Thai Fishing Industry Abuses

March 7, 2018 — BANGKOK — A survey of working conditions in Thailand’s fishing and seafood industry conducted by the U.N.’s International Labor Organization has found that new regulations resulted in progress in some areas, including less physical violence, but problems such as unfair pay and deception in contracting persist.

The European Union in April 2015 gave Thailand a “yellow card” on its fishing exports, warning that it could face a total ban on EU sales if it didn’t reform the industry. Thailand’s military government responded by introducing new regulations and setting up a command center to fight illegal fishing.

The ILO report released Wednesday on “Ship to Shore Rights” recommends that the Thai government strengthen its legal framework, ensure effective enforcement, establish higher industry standards and enhance workers’ skills, knowledge and welfare.

“We want competitiveness in the global seafood trade to mean more than low prices and high quality,” Graeme Buckley, ILO country director for Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, said at a news conference. “We want it to mean decent work for all the industry’s workers, from the boat to the retailer.”

A Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press investigation in 2015-16 that uncovered severe rights abuses affecting migrant workers in Thailand’s fishing and seafood industries helped turn an international spotlight on the problem. The AP’s stories contributed to the freeing of more than 2,000 men from Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, more than a dozen arrests, amended U.S. laws and lawsuits seeking redress.

The ILO said that changes in Thailand’s legal and regulatory framework had contributed to positive developments since the group’s last survey of workers in 2013.

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

“Whitefish wars” driving Vietnam’s pangasius away from EU, US

February 7, 2018 — The rapid growth of Vietnam’s pangasius shipments has met with several markets barriers in the European Union and United States, where the fish is being gradually pushed away.

With similarity in texture and taste to other whitefish such as cod, sole, haddock, and pollock, but with much lower prices, pangasius from the Southeast Asia nation has quickly become a competitive alternative in the U.S. and E.U., Nguyen Tien Thong, an assistant professor of applied economics and marketing research at the University of Southern Denmark, told SeafoodSource.

But Thong, also a research associate with analytics firm Syntesa, with a specialty in price formation and consumer preference for seafood, said pangasius’ growth in the U.S. and E.U. markets has been actively thwarted by market barriers erected by both the industry’s competitors and erroneous reporting by mass media.

Vietnam’s pangasius exports were worth USD 1.78 billion (EUR 1.43 billion) last year, up 4.3 percent from 2016. But the export value to the U.S. and E.U. fell 11 percent and 22.3 percent, respectively, recently released data from Vietnam Association of Seafood Producers and Exporters (VASEP) revealed.

Three “wars” against pangasius

European and Vietnamese seafood experts have collectively created a new term for the campaigns surrounding pangasius, calling them the ”whitefish wars.”

The most recent round of this war broke out in early 2017, when a television segment on Spain’s Cuatro channel claimed pangasius farming was polluting the Mekong Delta. Two weeks later, French retail giant Carrefour decided to suspend sales of Vietnamese pangasius in all its stores in Belgium, France, and Spain. Carrefour attributed its decision to “the doubts that persist about the adverse impacts that pangasius farms have on the environment.”

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council responded to Carrefour’s move with a statement insisting the facts did not support Carrefour’s pangasius decision, and VASEP said repeatedly that the Cuatro report provided distorted information. Seeking to help combat the growing ”PR crisis,” 20 of Vietnam’s leading pangasius exporters joined together to create a market development fund in June 2017. But the rebuttals appeared largely ineffective at halting the negative impact on pangasius sales.

However, Thong argues that the “whitefish war” began as early as 2000, and started in the United States. In that year, about 90 percent of the catfish imported by the U.S. was from Vietnam. Feeling threatened, U.S. catfish growers and wholesalers started a campaign to curtail imports of Vietnamese pangasius into the country.

For years, pangasius faced high anti-dumping duties imposed by the U.S government, and a push for increased inspections. After a protracted political debate, in August 2017, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) began inspecting all imported pangasius. Only a few months after the decision, only two of 14 Vietnamese pangasius exporters are still shipping pangasius to the U.S., according to VASEP.

In the E.U., backlash against pangasius started in late 2010, when the World Wildlife Fund placed the fish on the “red list,” effectively branding it a no-buy for environmentally conscientious consumers, Thong said. The attempt, which Thong termed as the second “war,” was made after the fish became a significant substitute fish to other whitefish raised in many European countries.

A few years later, WWF reversed course on pangasius, giving its backing to all Vietnamese-produced pangasius awarded Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification.

Further controversy was ignited in 2011 when Member of the European Parliament Struan Stevenson, senior vice president of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee, attacked the pangasius’ environmental, social, and safety credentials during an address to the European Parliament.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Many in Thai fishing industry fail to see conditions as slavery: research

February 6, 2018 — NEW YORK — Thai fishing boat owners who trap workers on board ships and withhold wages often do not realize that is modern slavery, so authorities must ramp up their policing efforts, advocates say.

Research shows many fishing operators are oblivious that the grim conditions on board their ships amount to forced labor, according to a recent report.

Many operators know smuggling people across borders and forcing them to work at sea for long periods of time is wrong but see withholding documents or forcing them to pay off debts as acceptable, said the report by Issara Institute, a Bangkok-based anti-trafficking organization.

Thailand’s multibillion-dollar seafood sector has been the target of scrutiny in recent years following investigations that found slavery, trafficking and violence on fishing boats and in onshore processing facilities.

“Vessel owners exploit fishermen yet view themselves as benevolent patrons,” said the report, released last month, based on interviews with 75 Thai captains and large fishing boat owners.

The findings show a need for stronger efforts to improve the working conditions and bring the fishing industry in line with anti-trafficking laws, advocates said.

“It’s all going to come down to enforcement,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The military government in Thailand has rolled out industry reforms since the European Union in 2015 threatened to ban its fish imports, but little has changed, Human Rights Watch said in a report also released last month.

Shawn MacDonald, chief executive of Verite, a charity fighting labor injustices, said the Issara findings provide insight useful for crafting incentives against forced labor.

Read the full story at Reuters

Another country has banned boiling live lobsters. Some scientists wonder why.

January 16, 2018 — Poached, grilled, or baked with brie.

Served on a roll, or in mac ‘n cheese.

Lobsters may be one of the most popular crustaceans in the culinary arts. But when it comes to killing them, there’s a long and unresolved debate about how to do it humanely, and whether that extra consideration is even necessary.

The Swiss Federal Council issued an order this week banning cooks in Switzerland from placing live lobsters into pots of boiling water — joining a few other jurisdictions that have protections for the decapod crustaceans. Switzerland’s new measure stipulates that beginning March 1, lobsters must be knocked out — either by electric shock or “mechanical destruction” of the brain — before boiling them, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS.

The announcement reignited a long-running debate: Can lobsters even feel pain?

“They can sense their environment,” said Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, “but they probably don’t have the ability to process pain.”

Boiling lobsters alive is already illegal in some places, including New Zealand and Reggio Emilia, a city in northern Italy, according to the animal rights group Viva.

A Swiss government spokeswoman said the law there was driven by the animal rights argument.

“There are more animal friendly methods than boiling alive, that can be applied when killing a lobster,” Eva van Beek of the Federal Office of Food Safety and Veterinary Affairs said in an email.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

 

North Korean workers prep seafood going to US stores, restaurants

October 5, 2017 — HUNCHUN, China — The workers wake up each morning on metal bunk beds in fluorescent-lit Chinese dormitories, North Koreans outsourced by their government to process seafood that ends up in American stores and homes.

Privacy is forbidden. They cannot leave their compounds without permission. They must take the few steps to the factories in pairs or groups, with North Korean minders ensuring no one strays. They have no access to telephones or email. And they are paid a fraction of their salaries, while the rest — as much as 70 percent — is taken by North Korea’s government.

This means Americans buying salmon for dinner at Walmart or ALDI may inadvertently have subsidized the North Korean government as it builds its nuclear weapons program, an AP investigation has found. Their purchases may also have supported what the United States calls “modern day slavery” — even if the jobs are highly coveted by North Koreans.

At a time when North Korea faces sanctions on many exports, the government is sending tens of thousands of workers worldwide, bringing in revenue estimated at anywhere from $200 million to $500 million a year. That could account for a sizable portion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, which South Korea says have cost more than $1 billion.

While the presence of North Korean workers overseas has been documented, the AP investigation reveals for the first time that some products they make go to the United States, which is now a federal crime. AP also tracked the products made by North Korean workers to Canada, Germany and elsewhere in the European Union.

Besides seafood, AP found North Korean laborers making wood flooring and sewing garments in factories in Hunchun. Those industries also export to the U.S. from Hunchun, but AP did not track specific shipments except for seafood.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Oceana claims four countries violated EU law by fishing illegally in African waters

September 14, 2017 — Environmental nonprofit Oceana is claiming vessels from the European Union’s distant-water fleet have been fishing unlawfully in the waters off the coasts of Equatorial Guinea and Gambia.

Using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data collected by satellite and terrestrial receivers tool Global Fishing Watch, Oceana said it tracked 19 vessels from Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain fishing unlawfully for more than 31,000 hours in African waters between April 2012 and August 2015.

The European Union has signed fisheries partnership agreements with several African countries, offering financial and technical support in exchange for fishing rights. However, its agreements with Gambia and Equatorial Guinea are “dormant,” signifying countries that signed fishing partnership agreements “without having a protocol into force, for structural or conjonctural reasons.” Under rules set by the European Commission, EU vessels are not allowed to fish in waters of countries with dormant agreements.

Read the full story at Seafood Source