Saving Seafood

Overfishing is Getting Filleted by Markets

December 9, 2015 — Overfishing is a serious threat to the nearly 200 million people who depend on the world’s oceans for sustenance. After all, nearly one in five people around the world consume fish as their primary source of protein and overfishing has deleterious cascade effects on other marine ecosystems.

Illegal and excessive fishing are to a degree inevitable because oceans, rivers and many lakes are publicly administered. This gives fishermen an incentive to take from them as much as is legally possible. Yet, market-based resource management is offering a concrete solution to this “tragedy of the commons” and has already begun alleviating strains on U.S. fish stocks.

The U.S. economy is intertwined with the fate of the high seas. By conservative estimates, commercial and recreational fishing alone account for 1.3 million jobs and nearly $60 billion in economic activity. Overfishing has pernicious effects on Americans’ livelihoods: commercial anglers can lose out on up to 80 percent of potential revenue when local fish species see drastic population decline, as was the case in New England when cod, flounder, and halibut populations were unexpectedly low in 2009.

With market-based resource management, data from September 2015 show that the total number of wild stocks placed on the “overfishing” watch list has fallen to its all-time lowest level since 1997. Since the 2007 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, annual catch limits (ACLs) have allowed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to reduce the number of overfished U.S. stocks by nearly 75 percent since 2007 alone (from 41 in 2007 to only 10 in 2014). ACLs create total tonnage allotments based on a series of population growth factors specific to certain fish species.

Read the full story at Economics 21

 

Warmer waters affecting the New England fishing industry

December 9, 2015 — A new study has found the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost every other ocean in the world. For the first time, it links warming sea temperatures to the collapse of cod stocks in the region.

For Portland’s fishing community, the first hours of daylight are the most important. At the town’s fish exchange, boats rush to unload their catch, ready to be sorted, and sold.

They are not just working against time.

Today’s landing at the Portland fish exchange was about 40,000 pounds worth. That’s not considered very much. Out of that, just seven boxes worth of cod; that’s about 500 pounds.”

Cod stocks have been declining here for decades. Federal quotas were slashed by 75 percent back in May, to help the species recover.

Now a new study suggests that intervention may have been too late.

Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute says, “You assume that if you pull back on the fishing, the stock will have the same productivity that it had in the past.  But our work really shows that the productivity in Gulf of Maine cod was declining pretty rapidly as the waters were getting warm and so by not factoring that in they weren’t able to rein in the quotas fast enough.”

Read the full story from CNN at WWLP

 

DAVID SCHALIT: Report from ICCAT

December 7, 2015 — The following is a commentary submitted to Saving Seafood by David Schalit, the Vice President of the American Bluefin Tuna Association:

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) used to be the regional fishery management organization everybody loved to hate.  Its dysfunctionality was legendary.  ICCAT became famous because it is the regional fishery management organization responsible for Atlantic bluefin tuna, the famously “iconic” and “charismatic” tuna stock that has been the subject of intense media interest for a very long time and the only tuna species to star in its own cable television series. 

ICCAT’s Problem

In the mid-late 1990’s, due to concerns expressed by ICCAT scientists about the status of Atlantic bluefin, ICCAT began adopting measures to limit harvest of both east and west stocks.  Only the west Atlantic harvesters heeded the advices of ICCAT scientists.  European Union fishing countries and other eastern harvesters who target east Atlantic bluefin weren’t listening.  During the next several years the east Atlantic stock was subject to consistent and increasing overfishing, illegal fishing and unreported fishing.  In 2007 – the worst year on record for east Atlantic bluefin – ICCAT scientists estimated that catch in the east Atlantic could be as high as 60,000 MT, almost twice the allowed quota.  

As a consequence, “the plight of the Atlantic bluefin” became the subject of ongoing public relations campaigns by numerous environmental organizations.  Annual meetings of ICCAT in the years leading up to 2008 developed a circus atmosphere, consisting of a full complement of delegates, a large number of industry representatives, media and environmental observers as well as environmental activists who regularly demonstrated outside of the meeting venue.  As a result, ICCAT meetings were regularly covered by media worldwide.  

ICCAT’s Redemption

ICCAT finally began to redeem itself during its 2008 meeting when it mustered the political will to cease overfishing and begin the process of rebuilding east Atlantic bluefin stock.  Today, both east and west Atlantic bluefin stocks have become a fishery management success story. 

The New Problem

However, ICCAT may be returning to its old ways.  This time, the problem is with Atlantic bigeye tuna.  ICCAT scientists turned in a stock assessment on Atlantic bigeye this October indicating that the stock is presently overfished and with overfishing presently taking place.  ICCAT scientists urged the adoption of conservation measures to immediately address this problem.  Last week, the 24th annual meeting of ICCAT was held in Malta.  Unfortunately, when the meeting came to a close on November 17, ICCAT had failed to achieve meaningful conservation measures for Atlantic bigeye tuna.  Sound familiar?

What Were the Objectives?

The scientists recommended steps that would lead to increasing “future chances that the stock will be at a level that is consistent with the convention objectives.” The primary means available to ICCAT for achieving this were a reduction in harvesting of mature bigeye in the central/south Atlantic and a reduction in bycatch of juvenile bigeye in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery.  Neither of these goals was met.

Major Harvesting Forces

The Atlantic bigeye tuna fishery consists of 8 major harvesters and 11 minor harvesters.  The eight major harvesters (China, EU, Ghana, Japan, Panama, Philippines, Korea and Chinese Taipei) are, in total, a fleet of 659 longline vessels plus assorted “support vessels”, mostly fishing in the equatorial Atlantic, in deep water, for mature bigeye.  The EU alone has 269 vessels in this fleet, and Japan has 245.  

In addition, there are 51 purse seine vessels permitted by ICCAT to operate in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery that are responsible for significant bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin.  Of those 51 vessels, the EU (France and Spain) is the largest fleet, with 34 vessels.

To put this in perspective, in 2014, the 8 major harvesters were responsible for over 53,000 MT of bigeye catch, whereas the 11 minor harvesters, including the U.S. and Brazil, were responsible for just under 14,000 MT.  (The U.S. reported 800 MT of catch in 2014.)  And there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the level of mortality on juvenile bigeye in the purse seine fishery. 

The Negotiations

During the negotiations at last week’s meeting, the U.S., Brazil and a few other minor harvesters squared off against the very well prepared forces of the EU and Japan who had the backing of their formidable fishing industries.  It is said that those who have “the most skin in the game” tend to prevail and so, notwithstanding the efforts of the U.S., Brazil and others to reduce fishing effort by these major harvesters, the EU, Japan and the 6 other major harvesters were the winners and Atlantic bigeye tuna was the loser.

Curiously, the major harvesters can make the claim to have reduced the overall TAC.  Atlantic bigeye harvesting is presently governed by an Atlantic-wide TAC from which each of the 8 major harvesters are given a fixed, “not to exceed” individual TAC. Last week, the major harvesters agreed to reduce their combined allowed TAC from its present level of 79,000 MT to to 58,000 MT.  This gives the distinct impression that significant conservation measures were taken.  However, landings averaged over the last 5 years are below 58,000 MT.  In actual fact, this agreement allows these harvesters another 9,000 MT above their reported landings of 2014.  Consequently, no actual cuts in catch were made. 

The Fiasco in the Gulf of Guinea

The problem in the Gulf of Guinea is an issue that has plagued ICCAT since the 1990s. ICCAT has made various attempts, beginning in the late 90’s, to reduce bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin typically weighing no more than 3-6 lbs, in the Gulf of Guinea purse seine skipjack fishery.  According to the scientists, none of these attempts yielded any reduction in bigeye bycatch.  Why?

At each ICCAT meeting in which this bycatch problem was addressed, the EU has tendered its own fully detailed proposal to address the problem.  In each instance, their proposal involved a variation on the concept of a time/area closure in the Gulf of Guinea for a fixed period during each fishing season.  Since the EU purse seine fleet is the dominant force in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery, it is difficult to imagine why ICCAT would have ever seriously considered an EU proposal.  Clearly, the EU’s interests are best served by thwarting any conservation action that would have a negative effect on its seining activities in the Gulf.  However, in each instance, ICCAT has adopted the EU’s proposal.  And in every instance, ICCAT scientists subsequently found that these closures did not result in the reduction of bycatch.  Today, these facts are well known to ICCAT member countries.  So, why did ICCAT, in last week’s meeting, adopt a new EU-authored solution to the problem of bigeye bycatch that is likely to achieve nothing?  This, too, is reminiscent of the “old” ICCAT.

Final Outcome

We can point to other successes that came out of the ICCAT meeting such as significant progress on Convention amendments, eBCD and the development of harvest control rules; all important issues.  But if ICCAT fails in its primary task – the “conservation of Atlantic tunas” – all other successful initiatives are diminished in importance because of that failure. 

Fortunately for ICCAT, it has a chance to partially redeem itself at next years’ meeting, when it will address Atlantic yellowfin tuna, a stock that has some of the same problems as Atlantic bigeye.  Unfortunately, ICCAT will have to wait until 2018 to have a chance to again address the issue of conservation of bigeye tuna.

Reps. Walter Jones, Patrick Murphy ‘Ask for Answers’ on Red Snapper

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — December 3, 2015 — Last week, Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) and Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-FL) wrote to Dr. Roy Crabtree, Regional Administrator of NOAA’s Southeast Regional Office, requesting the Agency explain its decision to close the commercial and recreational red snapper fisheries for 2015.

The Congressmen question the data used by the Agency to close the red snapper fishery, noting that NOAA’s estimate for red snapper landings in an abbreviated 2014 fishing season was “nearly 3 times the estimate for a full fishing year in 2013; and similar to the average annual catch estimate for the period 1992 to 2009 when fishing occurred year-round.”

The letter raised several questions about the quality of scientific data available for fish stocks in the South Atlantic. It asked why the Agency has not conducted a stock assessment for red snapper since 2010, and why, despite the “controversial closure” of the fishery following that assessment, no follow-up has yet been conducted. Among other data issues, the letter also inquired on why most stocks in the South Atlantic are considered to be “data-poor,” and why requests for cooperative research with the regional fishing industry “have largely fallen on deaf ears.”

The Congressmen’s letter, and its requests for answers regarding the quality of scientific data on red snapper, was praised by regional fishery advocates.

“We are very pleased that Congressmen Jones and Murphy wrote the letter to Dr. Crabtree,” said Jerry Schill, President of the North Carolina Fisheries Association. “While their words address a huge concern with the red snapper fishery, it highlights the much larger issue of science in all of fisheries management. Industry knows the importance of basing fishery management decisions on science; however, with the lack of confidence in regulatory agencies to provide adequate science, including stock assessments, we are constantly faced with draconian measures due to these uncertainties. The negative effects are on fishermen and their communities. The cause, however, lies with the failure of the regulators to do their part, which is to provide adequate science and stock assessments.”

Bob Jones, Executive Director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association, was similarly positive about the letter.

“Congressmen Walter Jones Jr. and Patrick Murphy have been steadfast in their efforts to protect fisheries in Florida, North Carolina, and the entire Southeast for all users. They have worked to make certain the seafood industry is treated with respect and equity, and we are proud to support their efforts here.”

Read the letter to Regional Administrator Crabtree here

Read a release from Congressman Walter Jones regarding the letter here

Europêche hits back at Pew response

November 23, 2015 — In a further letter to Pew, Javier Garat, President of Europêche and Pim Vasser, President of EAPO, said: “It is disappointing that your response fails to address the issues that we have raised. We drew attention to the startling divergence between the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) view and Pew’s claims about fishing pressure and the state of the stocks off North Western Europe.”

Just last week an initial open letter to Pew, Europêche accused the report of making the assertion that fishing in pursuit of food and profit off North West Europe in recent decades has dramatically expanded.

Read the full story at World Fishing & Aquaculture

CFOOD: Catch Shares vs. Sharing Catch

November 24, 2015 — The following is an excerpt from a commentary by Stephen J. Hall, David J. Mills, and Neil L. Andrew, written in response to an article published last year in Slate magazine, by Lee van der Voo.

The commentary was published yesterday by CFOOD, a project of the University of Washington involving top marine scientists from around the world, including Dr. Ray Hilborn. CFOOD’s mission is to identify and refute “erroneous stories about fisheries sustainability that appear in mainstream media.”

The commentary addresses issues, most notably fleet consolidation, related to the implementation of catch share systems. 

Writing last year in Slate magazine, Lee van der Voo considered catch shares in the US to be, “one of the coolest vehicles environmental policy has seen in decades,” because they reduce fishing effort, diminish incentives to fish in dangerous weather, can boost the value of seafood, and most importantly, were designed to keep fishing rights with the fishermen and their communities. However this last attribute has not worked for most catch share programs and increasingly these rights are bought by large investment firms and offshore companies that find loopholes in the loosely-regulated catch share laws and regulations.

Van der Voo fears that over the long term catch shares will increase costs, fishermen will earn less because of higher rental payments owed to, “people in suits,” that own the fishing rights. Consumers would then pay more in this scenario while a handful of investors would become rich.

Atlantic coast clam fisheries are the first example of this cycle: Bumble Bee Foods which has exclusive rights to almost 25% of America’s clams, was recently acquired by Lion Capital, a British equity firm. The Alaskan crab fisheries have also experienced a disconnect in recent years between fishing rights ownership and the people actually harvesting the resource.

Proponents of catch shares need to, “acknowledge that it’s an investment vehicle too, and the fish councils that manage it lack resources and political savvy to keep fishing rights in the US and in the hands of fishermen.”

Comment by Stephen J. Hall, David J. Mills & Neil L. Andrew

In the context of US fisheries, the term “catch shares” refers to a system in which the government grants fishing rights (quotas) to individuals or companies on a de facto permanent basis and establishes a market for buying, leasing or selling those rights. In other parts of the world, this same approach is referred to as Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), or Transferable Fishing Concessions (TFCs).

For ensuring the sustainability of fish stocks, catch shares in the US are “one of the coolest vehicles environmental policy has seen in decades.” Yet while the potential of catch shares to reduce fishing mortality to sustainable levels is clear, the long term benefits for fishers and fishing communities are much less so. Van der Voo describes how catch shares in the US clam fishery have accumulated in the hands of a few wealthy investors and offshore companies. Clearly, it is an issue that deserves much greater attention.

Lessons from Experience

The potential pitfalls of catch shares and other schemes to allocate private property rights in fisheries have not escaped scholars. For example, Benediktsson and Karlsdóttir (2011)  describes how the ITQ system in Iceland saw 50% of quota in the hands of 10 companies by 2007, a result that arguably contributed to the country’s financial crisis. Analyses of events in Denmark and Chile point to similar concentrations of quota with marked negative impacts on traditional fishing communities. In Chile, an estimated 68% of people working in the fisheries sector had to share 10% of the quota with the remaining 90% was owned by just four companies.

Rights-based fisheries (RBF), the concept that environmental and economic objectives in fisheries are best served by introducing private property rights, has been a dominating proposition over the last two decades. Zealous promotion of RBF (e.g. Neher et al. 1989, Cunnigham et al, 2009), and experiences such as those described above, has led to equally zealous rebuttal, largely on the grounds of social justice, particularly for small-scale fishers.

In South Africa, that rebuttal ultimately took the form of class action to challenge the prevailing system. Based on ITQs, this system was intended to reduce poverty by creating small-scale fishing enterprises that generated wealth for fisher households. Unfortunately, it was a system that saw 90% of the country’s 50,000 small scale fishers lose their rights. As Isaacs (2011) notes:  

This system failed as many new entrants were allocated unviable fishing rights, most of them were vulnerable, many sold their rights to established companies, and some fell deeper into poverty. At local community level, the wealth-based approach of allocating small quotas to many rights holders resulted in the community elite (teachers, artisans, shop-owners and local councillors) capturing the rights. Many bona fide fishers with limited literacy and numeracy skills were unable to comply with all the formal requirement of the rights allocation process.

In 2007, the courts granted an order requiring the government to develop a new small-scale fishing policy. This new policy was endorsed in 2012. Instead of being based on the principles of individual property rights, the focus was on collective rights granted to communities.

As with the US clam fishery, these examples suggest that, even when measures are put in place to try and avoid unwanted social impacts and retain an equitable distribution of benefits, catch share (rights based) schemes often fail to maintain social justice and the livelihoods of small-scale fishers and fishing communities.

A Confused Debate

Setting a total allowable catch and allocating rights can certainly be an effective way of ensuring the sustainability of a stock, provided that the level is appropriate, ongoing monitoring processes are well designed and there is compliance. Arguably, it is for this reason that many NGOs have convinced philanthropic investors of the merits of this approach. In the last decade, fisheries improvement projects in both the developed and the developing world have become big business; establishing “catch shares” is often a key selling point.

What is not always clear, however, is the extent to which these NGOs, in promoting “catch shares” are also advocating the allocation of private property rights in a market-based system. The language that distinguishes between this strict definition of “catch shares” and other approaches for ‘sharing the catch’ (which, of course, all systems must ultimately do) is terribly blurred.

Exploring this idea, Macinko (2014) argues that a tool (pre-assigned catch, i.e., catch shares) is being confused with an ideology (the sellable, but simplistic notion that private ownership promotes stewardship). everal social movements, for example, feared the now defunct Global Partnership for Oceans’ (GPOs) use of terms such as “community rights” reflected “a new euphemism and language strategy in pursuit of more private and individual access rights regimes.”

A more generous interpretation of the GPO terminology is that, after an early period of advocacy, the pitfalls of “catch shares” with respect to social outcomes were recognized and other ways of sharing the catch were acknowledged. The same interpretation can also be applied to NGOs currently involved in fisheries improvement projects around the world. The proof of that generosity will lie in the approaches that are adopted for inclusion of small-scale fishers. What should those approaches be?

Read the full story at CFOOD 

Voices of Alaska: Unified effort in Congress protects Alaska’s seafood powerhouse

November 20, 2015 — Alaska is our nation’s seafood powerhouse. With nine of our country’s top twenty fishing ports by volume, we understand the vital role our seafood industry has played in our communities in the past, how important it is now, and how central the industry will be in the future. Protecting and enhancing Alaska’s fisheries is one of the top priorities of our delegation.

That’s why we were particularly pleased to have passed bipartisan legislation to help protect and enhance our fishing industry. H.R. 477, the Illegal, Unregulated and Underreported (IUU) Fishing Enforcement Act of 2015, increases enforcement capabilities for U.S. authorities to combat illegal fishing and protect fisheries off the coast of Alaska, and around the world. It was signed into law on November 5, 2015.

At issue is how illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, or “pirate” fishing, is hurting our economy, our fishing communities, our healthy seafood stocks, and our sustainable oceans.

Our country’s fishermen have long been subject to sustainable management-based rules and regulations to ensure the long-term vitality of our species; pirate fishermen are not. These rogue vessels raid our oceans wherever, whenever, and however they please. Globally, legal fishing operations lose an estimated $10 to $23 billion a year to pirate fishing. Here at home, the Alaska King Crab fishery alone is estimated to have lost more than $550 million in the past 14 years.

Read the full opinion piece at Peninsula Clarion

 

EU fishing sector accuses Pew of knowingly publishing misinformation

November 19, 2015 — The following is an excerpt from a story originally published on November 18 by Undercurrent News:

European fisheries industry body Europeche has issued an open letter to Pew Charitable Trusts, warning that statements which are “demonstrably untrue and contrary to scientific opinion” can cause damage.

Javier Garat, Europeche president, pointed to the Pew report ‘Turning the Tide: Ending

Overfishing in North Western Europe’ as containing such misleading inofrmation.

The report makes the assertion that:

  • Fishing in recent decades, in pursuit of food and profit, off North West Europe has dramatically expanded
  • Calls by scientists and environmentalists to reduce fishing pressure have been ignored
  • Many fish stocks collapsed throughout the region
  • The reformed CFP should prove a successful first step in restoring and maintaining the health of the fisheries and fish stocks

The unambiguous view of the scientific community has been clearly stated, most recently at the State of the Stocks Seminar in Brussels, said Garat, quoting Eskild Kirkegaard, chair of the ICES advisory committee:

“Over the last ten to fifteen years, we have seen a general decline in fishing mortality in the Northeast Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. The stocks have reacted positively to the reduced exploitation and we’re observing growing trends in stock sizes for most of the commercially important stocks.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News 

NEW JERSEY: Massive school of fish fights off predators in Raritan Bay

November 16, 2015 — A group of New Jersey fishermen pulled their boat into a breathtaking scene last week and captured video of massive numbers of menhaden schooling to avoid the jaws of predator bluefish.

“My father and his friend have a combined 120 or so years of experience on the water and they had never seen anything like that,” said Nick Kita, 22, of Manville, who shot the video and posted it to Youtube. Kita also provided the video to NJ.com.

A professional photographer, Kita used both a submerged GoPro camera and an overhead drone to capture dramatic footage of the fish.

Read the full story at New Jersey Advance

 

Iran seeks revival of caviar industry in post-sanctions era

November 13, 2015 — GOLDASHT, Iran (AP) ” On the shores of the Caspian Sea, an ambitious project is underway to produce a pricey delicacy that could boost Iran’s economy as sanctions ease: caviar.

Iran, once the world’s biggest exporter of the luxury food, sold over 40 tons of sturgeon eggs in 2000. Exports plunged to just 1 ton last year due to dwindling fish stocks and economic sanctions imposed by world powers in response to Iran’s nuclear program.

After Tehran struck a landmark deal this summer to curb its nuclear ambitions in exchange for lifting sanctions ” including those on caviar ” some in Iran are now counting on a revival in exports of the exclusive eggs.

“We hope that as a result of the Iranian government’s interaction with the world, the path will be opened for us to export our products abroad and bring in foreign currency earnings. It does not make a difference where we export to, the United States or Europe,” said Ishaq Islami, manager of the private Ghareh Boron Caviar Fish Farm in the coastal village of Goldasht.

The farm and two nearby facilities are breeding half a million sturgeon fingerlings a year, filling its pools with water pumped in from the Caspian Sea.

Islami began the $100 million project in 2005 but it takes at least 12 years for sturgeon to mature and produce caviar. About 110,000 are beluga species that produce prized silver-gray eggs, the world’s most expensive caviar.

The fish farm aims to export 30 tons of salt-cured caviar and 2,000 tons of sturgeon meat in three years. Islami expects to earn $90 million a year based on an average price of $3,000 a kilogram (about $1,360 a pound) for caviar. The United States, Europe and Japan have traditionally been Iran’s biggest export markets.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times