Saving Seafood

Global fisheries: Benefits, trade-offs of alternative approaches to recovering depleted fisheries

May 18, 2016 — The dangers for the world’s seas and oceans are many — from climate change and warming waters to overfishing related to the needs of growing world populations. As a major 2015 paper in the journal Science noted, extinction of many species is a looming reality, given the current decline in quality of aquatic ecosystems. The perils for large marine mammals, sharks and other large fish are well known to the public. But there are many other dangers. For example, the rapid rate of ocean acidification, which appears to be unprecedented in Earth’s history, threatens to decimate shellfish populations.

Of course, debates about overfishing and sustainable management practices rage in virtually every fishery across the world. These policy debates are seldom simple to resolve and involve complex tradeoffs: Traditional fishing rights versus government regulation; short-term profits versus longer-term sustainable growth; local population food needs versus larger ecological and stewardship concerns. Organizations such as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations keep statistics on the state of fisheries and their relative health. The FAO’s annual The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture provides a comprehensive overview. For U.S. reporters and editors covering these issues on the nation’s coasts, it is worth getting to know some of the long and complex policy and regulatory history in this area, which for nearly four decades has been governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

Read the full story at Journalist’s Resource

United Nations Treaty to Fight Illegal Fishing Will Take Effect

May 17, 2016 — The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), an international treaty intended to help stop illegal fishing, will enter into force now that it has been ratified by more than the 25 governments needed.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced May 16 that six countries—Dominica, Guinea-Bissau, Sudan, Thailand, Tonga, and Vanuatu— had ratified the binding agreement, bringing the total to 30. They join other governments large and small around the world, including the United States and the European Union, and demonstrate the broad range of support for the PSMA.

This is a critical step in the global fight to end illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU)  fishing and  should lead to more governments signing  on to the treaty.  That would strengthen the PSMA and extend its reach to new regions.  We know that more countries are in the process of ratifying the pact, and we expect the numbers to grow.

Read the full story at the Pew Charitable Trusts

UN Agency Puts Fast-growing Fish Trade on the ‘Sustainability’ Menu

February 22, 2016 — Top fishery officials are gathering in Morocco this week to discuss sustainable trade practices in a $144 billion industry that provides developing countries with more export revenue than meat, tobacco, rice and sugar combined.

Lower-income nations’ exports of fish and fishery products reached $78 billion in 2014, more than triple the value of global rice exports, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“Sustainably serving those lucrative markets is of critical importance to developing countries, where most fish are produced, whether caught in the wild or grown in cages or farm ponds,” the agency’s news release says.

The biennial high-level meeting of FAO’s Sub-Committee on Fish Trade, being held in Agadir through Friday, 26 February, has drawn delegations of fisheries ministries from more than 50 countries to discuss emerging governance needs of the fisheries sector.

“Trade in fish is much more important than people think, both in absolute and relative terms,” said Audun Lem, Deputy-Director in FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division, who serves as Secretary of the meeting.

Dialogues will help FAO, its member countries and industry representatives understand new trends, opportunities and challenges in the fishing sector, fostering the development of strategies that can “best position developing countries to develop their fisheries sectors in a sustainable manner and to maximize their economic benefit from the growth we expect to witness,” Mr. Lem said. Traceability

Read the full story at Bloomberg Business

U.S. Fisheries Management Clears High Bar for Sustainability Based on New Assessment

January 28, 2016 — Today, NOAA Fisheries announced the publication of a peer-reviewed self-assessment that shows the standards of the United States fishery management system under the Magnuson-Stevens Act more than meet the criteria of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s ecolabelling guidelines. These same guidelines serve as a basis for many consumer seafood certification and ranking schemes. The assessment demonstrates that the U.S. fisheries management system is particularly strong when considering responsiveness and science-based criteria. Beyond the biological and ecosystem criteria, the assessment also pointed out that the U.S. system incorporates the social and economic components of fisheries essential for effective long-term stewardship.

This assessment was authored by Dr. Michelle Walsh, a former NOAA Fisheries Knauss Fellow and current member of the Marine Science Faculty at Florida Keys Community College. Walsh evaluated the sustainability of how U.S. federal fisheries are managed using the FAO’s Guidelines for the Ecolabelling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries. These guidelines are a set of internationally recognized criteria used to evaluate the sustainability of fisheries around the world.

“While the performance of U.S. fisheries clearly illustrates that the U.S. management system is effective, my colleagues and I wanted to evaluate the U.S. approach to fisheries management as a whole against these international guidelines for ecolabelling seafood,” said Walsh.

Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries

Marine Protected Areas Increase Survival of Atlantic Cod

November 11, 2015 — Marine fish populations are in decline worldwide. Of the 600 marine fish stocks monitored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 69 per cent are fully or over-exploited.

To rebuild fish populations, MPAs, which ban some or all fishing activities in an area, have become widely used. Under the Natura 2000 network, almost 4 per cent of European waters have been designated as MPAs .

Despite their widespread use, understanding of how MPAs affect harvested fish populations remains poor, especially for areas where some fishing is still permitted (PPAs).

This study investigated the effect of a PPA on Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) along the southeast Norwegian coast of Skagerrak.

In 2006, a 1 km2 PPA was established in the region, where only hook and line fishing and research sampling (which involves fixed nets that do not harm the fish, so they can be captured and released alive) are permitted.

The researchers wanted to know whether implementation of the PPA changed fishing mortality proportions, and also if the protection caused survival rates to increase.

To investigate this, they collected data on live re-captures and dead recoveries of cod before and after its implementation, as well as at several unprotected sites along the coastline. Data was collected from 2005–2013 along Skagerrak.

Read the full story at The Fish Site