Saving Seafood

Assessing El Niño’s impact on fisheries and aquaculture around the world

April 27, 2020 — While considerable resources are invested in seasonal forecasts and early-warning systems for food security, not enough is known about El Niño’s impact on the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, even though its name was given in the 1600s by fishers off the coast of Peru.

To remedy that, FAO is publishing, in partnership with French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD France), the report El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects on fisheries and aquaculture. This report captures the current state of knowledge on the impacts of ENSO events across sectors, from  to safety at sea, from fish biology and fishing operation to management measures.

El Niño is widely known as a climate pattern that begins over the Pacific Ocean but wreaks havoc on ecosystems in land and water far away from its origin. Its consequences include droughts and major harvest shortfalls in large swatches of Africa and Indonesia, forest fires in Australia, and serious flooding in South America.

ENSOs are often simplified to reflect two main phases: El Niño, an anomalous warming phase in the central and/or eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, and an opposite cooling phase called La Niña.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Small-scale fishermen suffering significantly from COVID-19 pandemic

April 27, 2020 — The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the entire seafood industry. Demand for fresh seafood has plummeted as restaurants, hotels, and catering businesses shutter. And trade has faltered as transportation restrictions prevent supply chains from moving product.

But while businesses in the developed world can apply for social safety provisions and major seafood companies’ balance sheets give them a fighting chance to weather the storm, small-scale fishermen face severe risk. Especially in the developing world, where a day’s catch buys that night’s meal, fishermen’s prospects are bleak.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Danielle Blacklock, director of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Aquaculture, discusses future of U.S. industry

April 21, 2020 — Danielle Blacklock took over as director of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Aquaculture in mid-March, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to come to a head in the United States. Over the past decade, Blacklock has served in multiple positions at NOAA, most recently as a senior policy advisor for aquaculture. In that role, Blacklock completed a six-month assignment at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, focused on aquaculture sustainability globally. She also served as the acting deputy in the office for several months.

Blacklock is charged with overseeing the aquaculture component of NOAA’s sustainable seafood portfolio and providing the strategic vision for developing a stronger aquaculture industry in the United States. Nearly a month into her appointment, SeafoodSource connected with Blacklock to discuss her goals as director, the office’s response to COVID-19 complications and what the future of U.S. aquaculture looks like.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New company offers social responsibility benchmarking for seafood industry

April 15, 2020 — Seafood companies looking to demonstrate their commitment to environmentally sustainable fishing can choose from an array of assessments, audits, and certifications. But when they decide to show their dedication to treating workers well, they’re left with few options.

Poor working conditions at sea are rampant, and numerous reports have emerged in recent years of labor abuse and human rights violations, spurring a reckoning within the industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US politicians call for shutdown of wet markets in China

April 14, 2020 — A group of more than 60 U.S. senators and representatives have signed a letter calling for China and other countries to shut down so-called “wet markets” where live wild animals are sold for human consumption.

Wet markets are found in many cities in China, and often feature seafood and other animals being sold alive to customers. A wet market in Wuhan is believed to have been the source of the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 100,000 people globally since December 2019.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FAO’s guidelines for human rights in fishing delayed after pushback

April 10, 2020 — Baseline international standards for human rights, labor conditions, and social responsibility in the seafood industry will have to wait.

Countries pushed back against draft guidance on social responsibility in fish value chains developed by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) when it was first officially presented in November in Vigo, Spain. As a result, FAO is spending the next year-plus creating a scoping paper that will more explicitly spell out what should be included in the guidance.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Seafood importing countries could lock out illegal fish with better control schemes, group says

February 26, 2020 — Aligning countries’ seafood import control schemes would reduce cost burdens for seafood companies while helping prevent illegally caught fish from reaching global markets.

A coalition of NGOs is arguing that major seafood importing countries and Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) need to ensure that their import regulations require the collection of 17 key data points that reveal the who, what, when, where, and how of seafood in the supply chain. Currently, a lack of data prevents cross-checking against authorization records – making it impossible to confirm the legality of imported seafood.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Big Brother is watching at Global Fishing Watch

January 2, 2020 — In 2016, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation joined with Google, Oceana and Environmental Defense, and other funding partners to create a mapping and data platform called, Global Fishing Watch. The system currently tracks over 65,000 fishing vessels worldwide. In November 2019, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released the “Global Atlas of AIS-based Fishing Activity,” utilizing the data.

“With the data Global Fishing Watch provides, governments, fishery management organizations, researchers and the fishing industry can work together to rebuild fisheries and protect critical marine habitats,” De Caprio says, on the GFW website. It appears the FAO agrees.

Global Fishing Watch uses AIS and other tracking systems, such as government run vessels monitoring systems to follow the activities of large fishing vessels in near real time, and the UN is using that data in its report. At the start, the technology was intended to help nations to stop illegal fishing off their coasts, assist in certification of sustainably harvested seafood, and keep vessels out of marine protected areas.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Global salmon production set to rise 6.5% in 2019, the highest increase since 2014

December 6, 2019 — Global production of farmed Atlantic salmon is expected to rise by around 6.5% this year, to approximately 2.6 million metric tons, which would be the highest year-on-year increase since 2014.

This was pointed out by a new report produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The bullish scenario could be offset, however, by a mounting challenge with sea lice in Chile, the report predicted.

For 2020, the FAO foresees Atlantic salmon supply to grow around 4–5% year-on-year, but it noted that the ability of the Chilean industry to bring the biological situation under control will be an important consideration.

In the longer-term, the inherent growth limitations of traditional open net-pen aquaculture will continue to drive the development of alternative regions and methods for salmon production, the FAO said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

FAO Symposium Discusses the Future of Fisheries and Global Food Security

December 4, 2019 — Organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Symposium on Fisheries Sustainability discussed opportunities to reform the capture fisheries sector to contribute to global food security, eradicate hunger, promote gender equality, and achieve the SDGs. At the event, the High Level Panel on the Sustainable Ocean Economy released a blue paper that analyzes the current status and future potential of food production from the ocean.

The Symposium convened from 18-21 November 2019, in Rome, Italy. The Forum focused on the theme, ‘Strengthening the Science-Policy Nexus’ and aimed to identify pathways to strengthen the science-policy interface in fisheries production, management and trade based on sustainability principles. Panelists discussed opportunities for the fisheries sector to respond to challenges and support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).

The High Level Panel released a paper titled ‘The Future of Food from the Sea,’ at the Symposium. The paper finds that the ocean could provide more than six times the food it does today with improved management and technological innovation. In comparison with current fishing projections, the report stresses that reforming the world’s capture fisheries by ending overfishing and improving global fisheries management could result in 20% more catch compared to today and 40% more fisheries catch than current projected future catch. This amount is over two-thirds of the animal protein needed to feed projected future global populations. In addition, the paper emphasizes “highly nutritious nature of seafood,” which contains essential vitamins, minerals, omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients not contained in terrestrial animal proteins or plant-based foods. The report also highlights the potential of the sustainable expansion of marine aquaculture to enhance food security and help eradicate hunger, in line with the SDG 2 (zero hunger).

Read the full story at ISSD