Saving Seafood

Hawaii: Longliners codify ethics in push-back against human rights allegations

April 9, 2018 — Stung by lingering allegations of human trafficking and forced labor, the Hawaii fishing industry has developed a formal code of conduct, crew handbook and model employee contract aimed at protecting the workers aboard its fleet of more than 140 vessels.

“It makes the most amount of sense that we give the public a certain degree of confidence that none of this is happening in our industry,” said Khang Dang, owner of 22 fishing boats and a member of the Hawaii Longline Association board of directors.

The documents — available in five languages and distributed to fishermen in the harbor last week — are designed to let the largely foreign ranks of contract fishing crew members clearly understand their rights, benefits and grievance procedures while they are working in Hawaii.

The Hawaii Longline Association initiated the effort following a September 2016 Associated Press investigation that brought national attention to allegations of forced labor, human trafficking, mistreatment and unsafe conditions.

The owners of the boats that make up the Pacific fishing fleet based in Honolulu were portrayed as taking advantage of a loophole in federal law to abuse foreign workers via inhumane working conditions, broken contracts and lousy pay.

The report prompted wholesale buyers and retailers to question whether the fish being sold was ethically sourced and led to an effort by state lawmakers to propose leveraging state fishing licenses to improve conditions in the industry.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Star Advertiser

 

Rise in reports of abandoned fishing nets washing up in Hawaii

April 3, 2018 — HONOLULU — Organizations are dealing with a surge in reports of abandoned fishing nets washing up along Hawaii’s coastlines.

The nets pose a entanglement threat to marine life and can also destroy coral reefs.

“A lot of the debris accumulation is due to our geographic location in the North Pacific,” said Mark Manuel, Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program. “We’re just prone to having high levels of debris accumulate on our shorelines and coral reef environments.”

POP Fishing & Marine maintains a drop-off bin for derelict nets at Honolulu Harbor’s Pier 38 as part of Hawaii’s Nets-to-Energy Program.

“In the past several months, there’s been a large uptick, a large volume of nets and debris washing up, probably due to ocean current conditions. We’ve never seen this much volume in such a short period of time,” said Neil Kanemoto of POP Fishing & Marine.

The marine debris is taken to a scrap metal recycling facility where it is chopped into small pieces. The fragments are then sent to the city’s H-POWER facility to be burned, producing steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity.

Last month, the Hawaii Wildlife Fund sent 11.6 tons of marine debris from the Big Island to Oahu in a Matson container. The non-profit is now working with its partners to start removing a massive pile of netting from Kamilo Beach.

Read the full story at KFVE

 

Rogue waves hit Hawaii fishing vessel that sank, owner says

March 28, 2018 — HONOLULU — The owner of a fishing vessel that sank off Hawaii over the weekend said Tuesday two massive rogue waves hit the boat, swamping it and forcing the crew to abandon ship.

One wave hit the back of the of the 61-foot (19-meter) fishing vessel, the Princess Hawaii, and another hit the side, said owner Loc Nguyen in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. The boat was hundreds of miles off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island at the time.

“It was so big, they’ve never seen that before,” Nguyen said. There was “too much water on the top and it went down.”

Nguyen said the fishing crew had already set about 15 miles (24 kilometers) of line when the waves crashed, knocking five workers into the water. He said the captain, a federal observer and another crew member had been inside and were able to deploy the vessel’s life raft.

The eight people aboard were rescued by the vessel’s sister ship about 12 hours later. No injuries were reported.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the NY Daily News

 

Fishing boat sinks, crew saved hundreds of miles off Hawaii

March 27, 2018 — HONOLULU — A commercial fishing crew and a federal observer were rescued after their vessel sank and they spent hours in a life raft hundreds of miles off the coast of Hawaii, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.

The agency said it received an emergency distress alert from the Princess Hawaii late Sunday morning about 400 miles (644 kilometers) north of the Big Island. A few hours later, a Coast Guard plane got to the area, where rescuers saw a flare and found eight people in a life raft.

The 61-foot longline fishing boat was mostly submerged with only the bow above water.

Officials said the Coast Guard air crew dropped a radio to the life raft and helped establish communication with the vessel’s sister ship, the Commander, which was fishing nearby and went to rescue the survivors. It arrived nearly 12 hours after the distress call and brought the crew aboard, Coast Guard spokeswoman Tara Molle said.

She said the crew was in good condition and was expected to arrive back in Honolulu later this week.

Most longline fishing vessels in Hawaii use foreign crews with no U.S. work visas. The workers cannot legally enter the United States so they are required to live aboard their vessels for the duration of their contracts, often a year or two at a time.

Most workers come from impoverished Southeast Asia and Pacific island nations and are paid between $300 and $600 dollars a month.

The observer on the boat was part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration program that monitors the actions of commercial fishing crews at sea. Observers log data about catch, interactions with endangered species, vessel conditions and crew safety.

NOAA officials said they could not identify the observer who was aboard the Princess Hawaii. The agency is working with the Coast Guard to determine what role the observer played in alerting authorities to the sinking, spokeswoman Jolene Lau said.

A request for the NOAA observer’s log from Sunday’s Princess Hawaii voyage was denied.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act states that “all observer information is confidential and may not be disclosed, subject to certain very narrow exceptions,” said NOAA’s Office of General Counsel Pacific Island Section Chief Frederick Tucher in an email. “Observer information includes all information collected, observed, retrieved, or created by an observer.”

The boat was inspected by the Coast Guard in February, and no safety violations were found. It was in 10-foot (3-meter) seas with winds around 20 mph (32 kph) before it sank, authorities said.

The Coast Guard said in the statement Sunday that it “called the registered owner, who confirmed the vessel had gone out early that morning to fish.” The agency said Monday that it could not confirm the name of the owner or any information about the crew.

According to NOAA permit records, the Princess Hawaii is owned by Holly Fishery LLC. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission lists the captain of both the Princess Hawaii and the Commander as Loc Nguyen of Honolulu.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

 

Western Pacific council hopes to build up aquaculture around US-controlled islands

March 16, 2018 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRMC) took initial action on March 15 to establish an aquaculture management program for the exclusive economic zone of the US Pacific islands.

“Supplementing the harvest of domestic fisheries with cultured product would help the United States meet consumers’ growing demand for seafood and may reduce the dependence on seafood imports,” said Kitty Simonds, the council’s executive director.

The aquaculture plan would establish a regional permitting process and provide a comprehensive framework to regulate activities so as to protect wild fish stocks and fisheries. Requirements would include a federal permit that is renewable and transferable, an aquaculture operations plan, prohibition areas, allowable species, and record-keeping and reporting.

The council is expected to take final action on the plan during its next meeting, scheduled for June 12 to 15, 2018, in Honolulu, Hawaii, pending completion of a programmatic environmental impact statement by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Marine debris threatens Hawaii’s ecosystem, but collecting it can get complicated

February 15, 2018 — Marine debris continues to litter our beaches, and more of it is on the way if our current weather patterns continue.

Nets, floaters, and other rubbish aren’t just ugly and dangerous to marine life.

They hide small organisms and creatures that could harm our fragile shorelines.

Scott Godwin works with the Hawaii Department of Land and National Resources Division of Aquatics Resources Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) team. He’s been studying invasive species and marine debris for more than 15 years.

“There’s a lot of stuff out there all the time,” Godwin said, “and Hawaii seems to be in the right place to get that stuff just because of the oceanographic conditions.”

He explained that the current winds and currents have simply been washing debris onshore that would normally otherwise float by the islands and go unnoticed.

The debris poses many dangers. Marine mammals and fish get tangled in floating masses of nets and die.

Read and watch the full story at KHON2

 

Foreign fishermen settle human trafficking suit

January 3, 2018 — Two Indonesian fishermen who say they were enslaved on an American fishing boat have settled their lawsuit against the vessel’s owner seven years after escaping and receiving special U.S. visas as victims of human trafficking, their lawyers told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The attorneys said Sorihin, who uses just one name, and Abdul Fatah settled their lawsuit against Thoai Van Nguyen, the California-based owner and captain of the Sea Queen II.

The settlement outlines steps Nguyen must take to continue to fish but does not disclose a financial award. The captain denies all allegations of abuse or human trafficking and has always followed federal laws when employing foreign crews, Nguyen’s attorney said.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. court in San Francisco claimed the men were trafficked through the Hawaii longline fishing fleet and forced to work on the boat around Hawaii and off the shores of California.

Citing federal and international human trafficking laws, the suit sought an unspecified amount of money for fees they paid and compensation they were promised along with damages for mental anguish and pain.

The lawsuit was being prepared as a 2016 Associated Press investigation revealed the Hawaii fleet operates under a loophole in federal law that allows owners to use foreign laborers with no work visas or the ability to legally enter the United States. The lawsuit was in the works when the AP reported on the men’s ordeal.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Post

 

Coast Guard cites fishing boat for illegal foreign captain

January 1, 2018 — HONOLULU — The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday it found a foreign worker acting as the captain of an American-flagged commercial fishing vessel in federal waters off Hawaii.

The crew of the U.S. Cutter Oliver Berry boarded the unnamed vessel on Dec. 19 and issued a citation after they suspected a foreign national was acting as the captain and operating the boat, the Coast Guard said in a statement .

It’s illegal for a foreign national to operate a U.S.-flagged commercial vessel.

The Coast Guard said the vessel was cited for a violation known as a “paper captain.” The Coast Guard Hearing Office will review the violation and consider further legal action.

Officials boarded a total of six Hawaii-based commercial fishing vessels during a 10-day patrol. They issued eight violations.

A 2016 Associated Press investigation revealed the Hawaii fleet operates under a loophole in federal law that allows owners to use foreign laborers with no U.S. visas to work in the fleet.

While most U.S. fishing fleets are required to have 75 percent U.S. citizens as crews, the Pacific boats that target highly migratory species like tuna are allowed to have only one American, the captain, aboard.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at AM970

 

US appeals court: Feds erred in Hawaii fishery expansion

December 29, 2017 — HONOLULU — Federal agencies were wrong to allow Hawaii’s longline swordfish industry to expand fishing efforts while allowing the hooking or entangling of more endangered sea turtles, a U.S. appeals court ruled.

The panel of judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to consider scientific data that showed the loggerhead turtle population would significantly decline when it set limits for the industry. The judges also said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illegally allowed the industry to kill protected migratory birds.

Swordfish longline fishing involves hundreds of baited hooks on miles of line. The practice can ensnare birds, turtles and other marine life.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Hawaii Tribune-Herald

 

Should Papahanaumokuakea Be Open For Business?

November 22, 2017 — Republican House members are urging President Trump to “think big” in his ongoing review of 27 national monuments, including opening up the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument not just to commercial fishing — but to oil, gas and mineral exploration.

The Trump administration has been pondering the future of the monuments for months, with a final announcement expected in December.

The proposal to open Papahanaumokuakea to commercial uses came in a Nov. 9 letter from a group of 24 Republicans who are active in the western caucus.

The letter writers want the boundaries of three of the four Pacific reserves —  Pacific Remote Islands, Rose Atoll and Papahanaumokuakea — to be reduced in size and fishing restrictions to be lifted in all of the reserves.

But they only mentioned the possibility of energy extraction for Papahanaumokuakea and the Pacific Remote Islands reserve.

Problem is, there is no oil and gas development potential at Papahanamokuakea. The fight in Hawaii has been over whether to loosen commercial fishing restrictions in the monument

“It’s not applicable,” said William Aila Jr., former chairman of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources who’s now deputy director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. “There is no oil or gas at Papahanaumokuakea.”

He said the only possible resource of that kind is something known as “manganese nodules,” metallic minerals found in rock-like formations in deep water on the seabed. But Aila said that it is so costly and difficult to obtain minerals in such remote locations that it is more “futuristic” than a viable economic opportunity.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat