Saving Seafood

A spat about seafood shows the compromises that Brexit will force

July 5, 2017 — Britain’s fishing industry is a tiddler, contributing less than 0.1% of GDP. But the island nation has great affection for its fleet. During last year’s Brexit referendum campaign, a flotilla of trawlermen steamed up the Thames to protest against European Union fishing quotas. On July 2nd Michael Gove, the Brexiteer environment secretary (who claims that his father’s Aberdeen fish business was sunk by EU rules), announced that Britain would “take back control” of its waters by unilaterally withdrawing from an international fishing treaty.

Gutting such agreements is strongly supported by coastal communities. The pro-Brexit press cheered Mr Gove’s bold announcement. But landing a new deal for British fishermen will be legally complex, expensive to enforce, oblige Britain to observe European rules that it has had no hand in setting and, most likely, leave its businesses and consumers worse off than before. It is, in other words, a case study of the Brexit negotiations as a whole.

The EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) was drawn up before Britain joined, to its disadvantage. But membership has allowed Britain to improve the policy. Countries’ quotas are now set on a basis that is more scientific than political. Unwanted fish can no longer be discarded at sea, which has helped to reverse the depletion of stocks.

Unpicking decades of tangled legal agreements will be harder than it looks. Mr Gove has initiated Britain’s withdrawal from the London Fisheries Convention. But Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Brexit negotiator, argues that this 1964 agreement has since been superseded by the CFP. Regardless of these conventions, foreign fishermen may claim historic fishing rights going back decades or even centuries. Many of them have set up units in Britain to buy quotas from British fishermen. Unless the government overturns these property rights by decree, it may face a large compensation bill.

Read the full story at The Economist

Scandinavian biologists see threat in crossbreeding by American, European lobsters

June 7, 2017 — Scandinavian biologists say American and European lobsters are crossbreeding and their offspring can survive in European waters, but it is too early to tell if the hybrids can reproduce.

Susanne Eriksson of the University of Gothenberg in Sweden and Ann-Lisbeth Agnalt of the Institute of Marine Research in Norway presented their findings on the threat that American lobsters found in the northeast Atlantic Ocean pose to their smaller European cousins Tuesday during the second day of the International Conference and Workshop on Lobster Biology & Management in Portland.

“American scientists said your lobsters couldn’t survive in European waters, but we have proof they are not only surviving, but competing with the European lobster for food, shelter and mates,” Eriksson said. “They are crossbreeding, the hybrid eggs are hatching, and the larvae are surviving in our tanks, and in our oceans. We don’t know if they can reproduce yet, that’s a year or two away, but we know the males can produce sperm.”

Last year, Sweden asked the European Union to list the American lobster as an invasive species after scientists there found evidence of crossbreeding. The EU bans the import of invasive species, so a listing would have put an end to the $200 million annual export business. The evidence persuaded the forum of EU scientists who study alien species to support a ban, but not the EU politicians who must approve such a listing.

The EU said it might one day explore other protective measures that would not be so disruptive to trade if Sweden returns with further proof of an invasion.

That’s why Scandinavia is continuing to look at how American-European hybrids will fare in the northeast Atlantic, especially once they hit sexual maturity.

Read the full story at The Portland Press Herald 

NFI urges cut in U.S. tariffs to boost exports

May 23, 2017 — The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) encouraged the reduction of tariffs on United States seafood exports at public hearing before regulators in Washington, D.C., on 18 May.

Meanwhile, the American Shrimp Processors Association urged more restrictions on seafood imports from other countries in order to cut the United States’ significant overall trade deficit.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative asked for public comments on an executive order, “Omnibus Report on Significant Trade Deficits,” which impacts U.S. trade deficits with 13 countries: Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

“Addressing the U.S. goods trade deficit with any one of the 13 nations/blocs of nations identified by the department should focus on opening markets for American seafood, reducing overseas tariffs, and eliminating non-tariff barriers,” NFI President John Connelly said at the hearing. “Fully 95 percent of world’s consumers and nearly 80 percent of consumer purchasing power lie outside of the United States, and both numbers are likely to rise in the future.”

For example, per capita seafood consumption in Japan is 300 percent higher than in the U.S., and U.S. seafood exports to Japan were USD 681 million (EUR 608 million) in 2016, Connelly said.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership would have immediately eliminated and phased out Japan duties on U.S. roe, surimi, and cod,” Connelly said. “This would have allowed domestic fishermen, and particularly fishermen on the Pacific coast, to exploit opportunities in a country that already has a high opinion of the U.S. harvest, and in the process would help narrow the U.S. trade deficit with the nation’s closest Pacific Rim ally.”

In addition, implementation of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, a recently signed trade deal between Canada and the European Union, has placed U.S. exporters at a competitive disadvantage, according to Connelly.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU Calls for Better Enforcement of Fisheries Laws

April 26, 2017 — The European Commission has released a new review of its fisheries control regulation, which was adopted in 2009. While EU member states have put most of the regulation’s measures into effect, the EC said, many have not yet fully implemented it.

“Our evaluation . . . showed that more needs to be done to fully implement certain provisions. It is also clear that the current legislative framework is not entirely fit for purpose,” said commissioner for environment, maritime affairs and fisheries Karmenu Vella.

Many of the regulation’s objectives have been achieved, including national-level Fishing Monitoring Centers; national control programs; surveillance and tracking measures; and improved data collection and reporting. Compliance with the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is also up. However, the EC found that not all national fisheries authorities use the regulation’s enforcement tools consistently, and the regulations for small vessels (under 10 meters) are poorly implemented across the board.

Data obtained by environmental lawyers ClientEarth showed minimal use of the regulation’s punitive enforcement measures by certain member states. The NGO asserts that legal penalties are being assessed too infrequently, especially in Northern European nations, and the penalties that are imposed are often too mild to serve as an effective deterrent. As an example, ClientEarth found that about 90 percent of fisheries enforcement cases in France in 2014 were settled out of court, many with fines in the low four figures.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Corporate Coordination Can Stop Seafood Slavery

April 4, 2017 — In 2015, media investigations revealed horrific occurrences of physical and emotional violence, human trafficking, and murder on fishing vessels and in shrimp processing facilities primarily in Southeast Asia. The stories sent shockwaves through the seafood industry, but despite efforts by several companies to combat these abuses, seafood slavery persists and will continue to erode consumer trust without a more comprehensive response. At a moment when many U.S. policymakers and ordinary citizens are voicing skepticism over U.S. participation in a globalized economy, now is the time for the international seafood industry to take robust and unified steps toward a transparent and traceable seafood supply chain.

The U.S. Department of State has identified seafood-related human trafficking in more than 65 countries over the past half-decade, many of which supply seafood to the United States, including major exporters such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The paths by which seafood from these countries enters the United States is complex and often opaque. There are numerous points along supply chains at which fish caught or processed using forced labor are mixed with responsibly caught fish—some occurring even before the fish first hit dry land. For example, vessels will often offload their catch onto a supply ship in exchange for provisions and fuel, where it commingles with fish from other vessels. This practice, known as transshipment at sea, allows fishing boats to stay offshore for months—or even years—at a time, keeping laborers from escaping from what amount to floating prisons.

The international seafood supply chain is composed of tens of millions of people moving 158 million metric tons of fish and shellfish annually. This complexity alone poses a serious obstacle to eliminating slave-caught seafood from the U.S. market. The solution is not as straightforward as simply refusing to buy fish from boats with slaves on board. And yet, despite the complicated nature of the problem, the industry must address these abuses. The United States is the second-largest seafood importer after the European Union, and U.S. importers and retailers have a crucial role to play in the global fight against trafficking in persons and other labor abuses.

Read the full story at the Center for American Progress

Lobster industry fears lost sales from ramped-up Canadian exports

March 20, 2017 — A new trade deal looming between Canada and the European Union is setting off alarm bells in the Maine lobster industry.

The deal between Canada and the EU – the largest seafood consumer market in the world – would eliminate tariffs on Canadian lobster exports into Europe and give the Maritimes a competitive advantage over their American counterparts, who would be stuck selling lobsters with tariffs ranging from 8 percent for a live lobster to 20 percent on processed or cooked lobster.

A weak Canadian dollar, which is now valued at about 75 percent of a U.S. dollar, will only make Canadian lobster that much more attractive to importers in the 28 member nations of the European Union, which is the second biggest importer of American lobsters, second only to Canada, according to trade data. In 2016, the EU imported $152 million worth of lobsters from the U.S., most of it from Maine.

“This is a big deal,” said Annie Tselikis, director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association. “Canada recognizes that it is an export nation. They are putting their money where their mouth is and adopting a very aggressive trade policy. They are also developing a very aggressive, smart marketing campaign abroad. It is going to be very difficult to compete with that because we sell the same product.”

The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, has been under negotiation for years. The United States was negotiating one, too, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, but it has stalled. The Canadian-EU deal appears likely to get its final OK in May, and the first phase of the deal, including the trade tariffs, would go into effect in June.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

EU still vulnerable to illegal fish imports

March 17, 2017 — Disparities and weaknesses in import controls in key member states of the European Union mean illegally caught fish can still slip through the net and into EU supply chains, according to an analysis published today by the Environmental Justice Foundation, Oceana, The Pew Charitable Trusts and WWF.

The analysis provides a comprehensive evaluation of countries’ progress in implementing import controls under the EU Regulation to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which came into force in 2010. This is the first published analysis of data reported by member states to the European Commission for the most recent two-year reporting period, 2014 to 2015. It reveals significant problems with the way a number of EU member states are executing controls of fish consignments. For example, authorities in some major importing countries still fail to apply robust checks even where consignments come from countries that have been warned by the EU for having inadequate measures in place to prevent and deter illegal fishing. In some cases, the procedures implemented by EU countries appear insufficient to comply with the minimum control obligations laid down in EU legislation.

The study calls for more harmonised and rigorous procedures, as well as the digitisation of catch certificate information within the EU by the end of 2017, to ensure unscrupulous operators do not attempt to move their catch through ports where weaker controls are in place. Imports entering the EU in shipping containers are identified as particularly challenging for enforcement authorities, with procedures for these not harmonised to a sufficiently rigorous standard to date.

The import controls are a cornerstone of the European Union’s 2010 Regulation to combat IUU fishing, which is seen as a world-leading piece of legislation in the global fight against illegal fishing. The analysis reinforces the findings of a recent case study published by the four NGOs revealing that the fraudulent use of paper catch certificates and lack of an EU-wide system for cross-checking import documents means illegal catch is still getting through.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

EU fisheries chief outlines first multi-annual management plan for the Mediterranean

March 9, 2017 — European Union Commissioner for Environment, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Karmenu Vella, has presented a multi-annual plan for small pelagic fish stocks in the Adriatic Sea.

The proposal, which covers four different small pelagic stocks but is focused on anchovy and sardine – the most commercially valuable fishery – is the third multi-annual plan that the European Commission (EC) is putting forward since the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). It is also the first ever in the Mediterranean and if fully implemented has the potential to increase stocks by 20 percent.

This will bring tangible improvements in the working conditions for fishermen, with an expected increase in salary of approximately five percent and profits of around 10 percent.

According to the EC, the plan marks a milestone in its approach to fisheries management, and shows that long-term viability of fisheries can still be made possible in a sea basin in which 93 percent of the fish stocks are assessed as over-exploited.

Without this plan, anchovy and sardine stocks would most likely collapse between 2020 and 2030, said Vella.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Poll: 75% of UK Residents Say Brexit Will Not Stop Overfishing

March 8, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A poll carried out by YouGov for Oceana has revealed that 65% of the public are either “not confident” (46%) or “don’t know” (19%) when asked if they think the UK government will be better at stopping overfishing in the UK post-Brexit, compared to the existing guidance from the EU. Overfishing, or fishing too much, is one of the most critical issues facing our oceans. The fate of UK fisheries was a key feature of the Brexit debate with leading Brexit campaigners Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage frequently citing it as an example of EU mismanagement, even though the UK has always played an active role in setting catch limits.

“Brexit is an opportunity for the UK to revitalise its fishing industry, stabilise threatened ecosystems and create thousands of new jobs but this will only happen if overfishing is stopped. The UK government must fulfil the promises of the Brexit campaign that vowed British fisheries can thrive without EU guidance. This will only happen if overfishing is stopped,” explains Lasse Gustavsson, Executive Director, Oceana in Europe.

Interestingly, although 46% of respondents are not confident Brexit will be a positive influence on stopping overfishing, this figure rises to 60% in Scotland. The Scottish fishing industry contributes up to two thirds of the total fish caught in the UK and the country voted heavily to remain in the EU in last year’s referendum.

The poll also revealed a shocking lack of public knowledge about overfishing in Europe. A recent report commissioned by Oceana revealed that 64% of European fish stocks are currently overfished. However when asked, 83% of Brits either underestimated (31%) or said they didn’t know (52%) this figure.

Overfishing, or fishing too much, is reducing year after year the amount of fish available in the water and threatening marine ecosystems and fishers’ livelihoods. If overfishing was stopped and fish resources were managed sustainably, European fisheries could increase catches by almost 60% more fish in less than 10 years or 5 million tonnes. For this reason, Oceana has created a campaign that aims to mobilize European citizens in the fight against overfishing: #StopOverfishing.

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 7,203 adults from Italy, UK, Germany, Spain and Denmark, of which, of which 2085 were from the UK. Fieldwork was undertaken between 3rd – 6th February 2017. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative on a country-by-country basis and are representative of all adults (aged 18+) in the Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

SEAN HORGAN: Swedes still fighting lobster imports

February 27, 2017 — Our travel budget here at FishOn is just about enough to get us over to McDonald’s on Maplewood Avenue for a vegan Happy Meal, but we don’t let that dilute our international sophistication or our global reach.

So, let’s go to Sweden, where the Swedes continue to pour their Nordic angst all over our American lobsters by trying to label them an invasive species and ban their importation by the entire European Union. 

The Swedish effort continues, but an interesting analysis by the Atlanta-based King & Spalding law firm specializing in international law says Sweden’s request to ban the lobsters most likely violates rules of the World Trade Organization.

“The EU ban on American lobster, based on the risk allegedly posed by 32 lobsters that escaped during transportation, would seem to require the WTO to look very carefully at the proportionality of the measure to determine whether it is maintained without sufficient scientific evidence, as well as examining the necessity of the measure in light of alternative measures, such as stricter controls on transportation and more effective enforcement of existing relevant laws and regulations,” the analysis stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times