Saving Seafood

UK fishing federations adopt united stance on Brexit

November 30, 2016 — The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) have come to an agreement upon common principles for which they will jointly negotiate in upcoming talks on the terms of the United Kingdom’s separation from the European Union, also known as Brexit.

Following a meeting on 25 November in Edinburgh, Scotland, the two groups agreed on key outcomes they would like to achieve “to ensure the best possible deal for coastal communities in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations,” according to a press release.

“We see the UK’s departure from the E.U. and therefore the [Common Fisheries Policy] as an opportunity to address the distortions that were built into the CFP from its inception,” said Barrie Deas, chief executive of the NFFO, which represents a broad section of fishermen across England, Northern Ireland and Wales. “The U.K. industry is united that this is a once in a generation opportunity to put things right.”

Both organizations regard Brexit as an “historic opportunity,” as the U.K. regains full control of its 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
At the meeting between the two federations, the two organizations agreed to fight against any roll-over of the current Common Fisheries Policy and against negotiations that entangle fisheries issues other matters not related to fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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

Britain’s fishing industry voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU — now it feels ‘betrayed’ by May’s Brexit proposals

November 8, 2016 — Britain’s £1-billion fishing industry, which voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, says it feels “betrayed” by the current course of Brexit negotiations.

A poll before the referendum suggested 92% of fishermen would vote to leave the EU, but many are now worried about Theresa May’s plan to roll over the EU’s much-maligned Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) into UK law.

The CFP sets rules for how many fish each EU country’s boats can land. Several politicians have warned that dropping the policy will not benefit the industry, but most fishermen disagreed, believing that its restrictions are the cause of a rapidly declining UK fleet.

But Prime Minister Theresa May intends to introduce a ‘Great Repeal Bill‘ in the wake of Brexit, which will roll over all EU law into UK law — including the CFP.

Alan Hastings, a spokesman for Brexit campaign group ‘Fishing For Leave,’ told Business Insider that the proposal risks “throwing the industry under a bus.”

Read the full story at Business Insider

Annie Tselikis runs the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association

October 24th, 2016 — Annie Tselikis (it’s pronounced Sill-eek-us) is the executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association. That’s her part-time gig; her full-time work is as the marketing director for Maine Coast, a York-based wholesaler of lobster and seafood. We called the Cape Elizabeth native up to talk about Maine’s largest fishery, just as the European Union announced that it would reject Sweden’s request to ban Maine lobster from sale. (Phew.) Our conversation moved swiftly to about a dozen other topics; Tselikis is only 34 but she has packed a great deal into her career already. Starting with her deckhand days.

TALL ORDER: We reached Tselikis by cell phone as she was driving to Boston for a meeting about Tall Ships Boston, scheduled for summer of 2017. What do lobster dealers care about such things? “The tall ships are tying up on the Boston Fish Pier.” That’s where Maine Coast, as well as a lot of other dealers, have offices. “There are trucks on and off that pier from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m. every night.” It’s going to be a shipping nightmare, but obviously, a beautiful spectacle, so Tselikis is plotting a reception for her Maine Coast customers. “This will be the biggest Tall Ships festival ever,” she said. “Then on top of that, I am going to make things worse for our Boston facility. Those guys are going to hate me.”

RESUME: When Tselikis was a student at Connecticut College, she studied photography and documentary and spent the fall of her junior year at Maine’s SALT Institute. Fisheries hadn’t entered her mind. Maine never left it though, and she decided after college to join friends who were working for Casco Bay Lines as deckhands. She ended up staying two years. Her parents might not have been thrilled, but the economy wasn’t great in 2004 and money was steady on the ferry. Also, fun. “There were days in the summer time where it sort of felt like camp for grownups,” she said.

FISH TALK: That’s where she started to get a sense of the complex world of Maine’s fisheries. “I would hear fishermen talking about what was going in the industry,” she said. “Until that point, it just didn’t register with me that natural resource management was a thing.” That’s how most people are, she says. “They just see boats, they go to Harbor Fish and they buy lobster,” without a sense of the many moving parts involved (a partial list: buyers on the wharf, dealers with the trucks, holding tanks, processors, transportation everywhere from Portland to Hong Kong).

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald 

Swedish official won’t rule out national lobster ban

October 20, 2016 — A Swedish-backed proposal to ban live American lobster from the European Union as an invasive species has failed, though the possibility remains that the Scandinavian country could pursue its own ban, according to a Swedish diplomat.

“The political basis to do that is not there now,” Andreas von Uexkull, minister counselor at the Swedish embassy in Washington D.C., told the News Service on Tuesday of the decision by Europe’s government.

News emerged Friday that Europe would not ban the bottom-dwelling critters, which are a popular restaurant item. Sweden had sought to ban importation of live American lobsters, fearing they threaten European lobsters.

Uexkull raised the possibility of a regional or national ban of American lobster.

“We’ll see,” Uexkull said of the idea.

He said Norway had also proposed listing the creature as an invasive species, but is not a member of the European Union.

Lobster exports make up a significant piece of the Massachusetts lobster fishery’s business.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Lobster battle over? U.S., Canada hope so

October 18th, 2016 — The remainder of the European Union may be distancing itself from Sweden’s campaign to declare American lobsters an invasive species, but the head of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association isn’t yet ready to declare complete victory.

“We’re very excited about the news out of Europe that the rest of the EU doesn’t seem ready to follow Sweden’s lead,” MLA Executive Director Beth Casoni said Monday. “But we’re going to stay on this because it’s not over by any stretch.”

Last week, The EU Committee on Invasive Alien Species informed Sweden it would not support listing American lobsters as an invasive species because of the lack of strong scientific evidence. Doing so would have opened the door to a total EU ban on importing live American lobsters landed in the U.S. and Canada.

While that decision seems to strike a deadly blow to Sweden’s push to ban the importation of American lobsters, Casoni said the European Union Commission still plans to vote next spring on potential invasive alien species even if the American lobsters no longer are on the list.

“The lobsters were the only consumable product on the list of potential invasive species,” Casoni said. “The rest are plants. But we don’t know everything that could happen between now and then. Sweden might continue to try to persuade other countries to join them. So, we’re going to keep working on it and not let go.”

Casoni credited the full-court pressure mounted by scientists, regulators, members of the commercial lobster industry and elected state and federal officials for rebuffing the Swedish effort. An EU ban on imports would have crippled the approximately $200 million live lobster trade between the EU and the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times 

European Union decides it won’t ban imports of American lobster

October 17th, 2016 — The European Union has decided the American lobster isn’t an invasive species after all, averting a ban on the live import of Maine’s iconic crustacean.

The EU’s Committee on Invasive Alien Species told Sweden, the member nation that had sought the ban after discovering American lobsters off its coast, that it would not list Homerus americanus for technical reasons, even though Sweden’s argument had persuaded the forum of EU scientists who study alien species to pursue the listing just one month ago.

Instead, the committee – which is the political side of the alien species issue as compared to the forum, which is the scientific side – told Sweden that it couldn’t find support for an invasive species listing, which would trigger an import ban among member countries, according to an EU Commission source. However, it might one day explore other measures to protect the European lobster that wouldn’t be as disruptive to trade.

American lobster industry officials celebrated the apparent victory Friday, saying the decision had saved a $200 million-a-year export industry.

“This would have had a massive impact throughout the industry, from the fishermen on up to the processors to the restaurants who serve our lobsters and consumers who eat them,” said Annie Tselikis, marketing manager for Maine Coast Co. and a spokesman for the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association. “We are thrilled. We don’t have specifics about the decision, but are thrilled the European market is not in question.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald 

Danish Fishermen Fear Further Slashing of EU’s Cod Quotas

October 11th, 2016 — A stiff wind buffets Ulrik Koelle Hansen’s trawler as he heads out of this tiny fishing village in search of an early morning catch, but it’s nothing to the battering he predicts if the European Union slashes the fishing quota for cod in the western Baltic, as it did late Monday.

According to scientists and environmentalists, the region’s cod stock is on the verge of collapse. While scientists are pushing for the quota to be cut by about 90 percent, conservation groups want to shut it down temporarily.

“If we do not do something in time to allow the cod to recover, it may mean that we lose the (cod) fishery altogether in the near future,” said Inger Melander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish branch of the World Wildlife Fund.

After all-day negotiations in Luxembourg, the European Union late Monday agreed to set tougher cod catch quotas, but stayed well above targets sought by scientists and environmentalists. The EU fisheries ministers agreed on a 56 percent quota cut for the western Baltic cod caught off Denmark and Germany.

Officials said Denmark pushed hard to safeguard the livelihood of its fishermen to make sure there was enough that they would still be allowed to catch.

As Koelle Hansen sees it, cutting the quota would mean the end for the few fisherman still working out of Bagenkop, a sleepy fishing village of less than 500 people on the southern tip of the Langeland island.

Read the full story at The New York Times 

Baltic Cod Fishermen Get Better Quotas Than Science Wants

October 11th, 2016 — With Baltic cod drawing closer to the edge of commercial extinction, the European Union on Monday set tougher catch quotas for fishermen but stayed well above targets sought by scientists and environmentalists.

After all-day negotiations in Luxembourg, the EU fisheries ministers agreed on a 56 percent quota cut for the western Baltic cod caught off Denmark and Germany, while scientists were pushing for the quota to be cut by about 90 percent.

Officials said Denmark was pushing hard to safeguard the livelihood of its fishermen to make sure there was enough that they would still be allowed to catch.

EU Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella had been seeking a reduction of 88 percent “to bring back the stock to sustainability as soon as possible” but also had to compromise to keep member states on board for a unanimous decision.

“After listening to the member states’ arguments, and the impacts on the different fleets and in particular on artisanal fleets, I have accepted a lower reduction,” Vella said, insisting it would still give the species a good chance of survival in the Baltic waters.

The EU has agreed to revamp its fishing policies to protect dozens of species from commercial extinction, and by 2020 all fish must be sustainably caught. Member states, however, have a long tradition of rejecting scientific advice and instead sought the best deal possible for the industry, not for the survival of the fish. Over the years, it has driven many species to the edge of a full collapse, and instead of being plentiful, like cod in the Atlantic and North Sea and Bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, they became threatened species.

It is now the same for cod in the western Baltic and tough quota reductions are needed. Some environmentalists have called for a total closing of those fisheries.

Read the full story at The New York Times 

International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s marine zone closure proposal outrages fisheries sector

September 28, 2016 — The decision taken by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to close off 30 per cent of all marine areas from extractive activities by 2030 has caused outrage to Europêche and the European body representing producer organisations(EAPO).

The IUCN adopted the measure in its latest Congress held in Hawaii, on September 1-10, during which the entity adopted a series of non-binding commitments to recommend governments and other relevant international bodies such as FAO or the European Union.

According to Europêche, the IUCN takes decisions on fisheries issues whilst disregarding the huge socio-economic impacts that this 30 per cent area closure would have on coastal communities and food security.

“No-take zones (marine reserves) have become, in the eyes of many scientists, NGOs and lay-people, a solution for the overexploitation of fish populations. However, before we close off any area to extractive activities such as fishing we must first ask ourselves what are we protecting and why. MPAs are a tool, not an objective so in order for these closures to be successful, their existence has to be justified,” Javier Garat, President of Europêche, pointed out.

For its part, the fishing sector argues that fisheries is actually one of the most affected sectors by these recommendations, which do not take into account other impacts such as pollution and marine mining industries.

Moreover, those opposing the the decision consider the IUCN’s measure is not based on any broad consensus of the scientific community and disregards the unpleasant fact that a large proportion of MPAs already established are ‘paper parks’ with zero efficiency in meeting their objectives.

On the contrary, some scientists present at the Congress highlighted that there is little proof that the 30 per cent closure would bring about any major benefit to biodiversity and have objected very strongly to the proposal since it goes against efforts made by MPA proponents during the last decade to involve coastal communities in decision-making.

The fishing bodies also believe that any proposal which greatly impacts any economic sector should be accompanied by a thorough impact assessment from an environmental, social, economic and food security perspective, which was not the case in this decision. This would be the only tool which would highlight the consequences of the problems and allows states to decide whether to take action based on accurate, objective, comprehensive and non-discriminatory information.

The fishing sector also highlights that closing off parts of the ocean from extractive use would actually conflict with other the UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as increasing food security and reducing poverty; both of which require the use of the ocean. Closing 30 per cent of all coastal areas would be disastrous in the developing world, where coastal communities have no social safety nets and no unemployment schemes.

Read the full story at Fis.com