Saving Seafood

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

ARA BUAKAMSRI: Major change for the Thai and global seafood industry

July 27, 2017 — Thailand is on the brink of making real progress toward the elimination of destructive fishing and human rights abuses in its seafood supply chains. As a potential yellow card de-listing from the European Commission looms, it remains to be seen whether the country will take the steps needed to fully meet the standards to eliminate human rights abuse in the seafood industry.

It’s fair to say that Thai authorities have made progress in key areas, including reforms to the legal and regulatory framework for fishing that was drawn up in 1947, along with improvements to and the enforcement of labour regulations. At the UN Ocean Conference in New York this year, Thai delegates announced a voluntary commitment to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by rigorously controlling, monitoring, and inspecting all Thai-flagged fishing vessels operating inside and outside Thai waters. A key piece of this commitment is to eliminate all IUU fishing in Thai fishing fleets by 2019.

Understandably, this progress has been met with criticism, seen by some as insufficient and cosmetic.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangkok Post

EU opens consultation on 2018 CFP, overfishing

July 7, 2017 — The EU has announced a consultation period on the way in which levels of fishing effort and quotas are set according to the new common fisheries policy (CFP), and on the basis of scientific advice.

The contributions received, as well as the outcome of the seminar on the state of the stocks and the economics of fishing fleets that will take place in September, will feed into the European Commission’s proposals on fishing opportunities for 2018.

The consultation will run July 6 to Sept 15, 2017.

The EU claimed in its consultation documents that “significant progress in implementing the 2013 CFP reform” has been made:

  • Meeting the maximum sustainable yield objective. According to the latest assessment from the scientific, technical and economic committee for fisheries, based on 2015 data, 39 of 66 stocks assessed in the North-East Atlantic were exploited within FMSY (equating to 59%, up from 52 % in the previous year).
  • Rebuilding stocks. Average stock biomass in the North-East Atlantic increased by 35% between 2003 and 2015.
  • Improving overall economic performance. The EU fleet registered record net profits of €770 million in 2014, a 50% increase over the 2013 figure of €500m.
  • Better balancing fishing capacity and fishing opportunities. In recent years, the balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities across the entire EU fleet has improved.

“Despite this progress, further efforts are needed in particular to bring down the high levels of overfishing in the Mediterranean, to reduce the number of individual stocks exploited above FMSY in the North-East Atlantic and to implement the landing obligation.”

NGO ClientEarth took issue with what it said was an overly optimistic viewpoint.

“A report released today by the European Commission paints a misleadingly positive impression of progress towards sustainable fishing, by glossing over the fact that progress has slowed or reversed in recent years,” it said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

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

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

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

EU removes IUU yellow cards for two countries

January 24, 2017 — The European Commission (EC) has lifted the so-called illegal fishing “yellow cards” that had been placed on Curacao and the Solomon Islands, recognizing the significant progress both countries have made in combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

“This is a good day for Curacao and Solomon Islands, and good news for sustainable fisheries around the globe. Countries worldwide have a shared duty to fight illegal fishing, protect law-abiding fishermen, and keep our oceans healthy. I encourage others to join the European Union in this fight and contribute to better ocean governance,” said European Union Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella.

Under the IUU Regulation, the E.C. warned Curacao in November 2013 and the Solomon Islands in December 2014 that they were not doing enough against IUU fishing. Since then, both countries have embarked on a series of reforms to bring their fisheries legal and administrative frameworks in line with international law, and are now equipped to tackle illegal fishing effectively.

Working closely with the E.C., they have strengthened their sanctioning system, and have improved monitoring and control of their fleets.

The IUU Regulation is the E.U.’s main tool in the fight against illegal fishing. It encourages countries to work with the E.C. to improve their fisheries governance and retain access to E.U. markets.

The E.C. estimates that the global value of IUU fishing is approximately EUR 10 billion (USD 10.6 billion) per year, equating to as much as 15 percent of catches worldwide.

Curacao and the Solomon Islands join a growing list of countries that have reformed their fisheries governance systems following a warning by the E.U., including Sri Lanka, Ghana, and the Philippines.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Brussels tightens controls on EU fishing fleet

February 13, 2017 — Updates to the EU’s fleet register is to be made available in real time following the adoption of a new regulation by the European Commission (EC).

The regulation makes it easier for EU member states to update the fleet register, while giving the Commission the necessary tools to crosscheck the data that member states submit.

All fishing vessels flying the flag of a EU member state must be registered. The EU Fleet Register database is managed by the EC and is a compilation of information on the EU fleets.

The Commission said the register is a necessary tool to manage the balance between fishing capacity and opportunities in line with the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), as well as being a useful instrument for fleet monitoring and control.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

Time at sea limits canned for North Sea cod fishermen

November 23, 2016 — North Sea cod fishermen will be able to land every catch – not just cod – more easily following a decision by European Parliament to remove limits on the number of days a vessel can spend in a fishing area.

An update to European Commission (EC) Council Regulation No. 1342/2008 to establish a long-term plan for cod stocks and the fisheries exploiting those stocks in the Kattegat, North Sea, the Skagerrak and eastern Channel, west of Scotland and the Irish Sea, and fisheries exploiting those stocks makes it fully compatible with the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) by applying the obligation to land all catches in full.

MEPs removed the rule for calculating fishing effort – i.e. power of each vessel in kW plus the number of days it is present within a given area – as this led fishermen to discard unwanted catches by hampering further adaptation of fishing patterns, such as the choice of area and gear.

Under the new rule, fishermen will face no obstacles to landing all their catches as they will no longer be subject to time limits.

Read the full story at Seafood Source