Saving Seafood

Canada makes commitments to bolstering blue economy

December 14, 2020 — Over the past two weeks, the Canadian government has made multiple funding and administrative commitments to bolstering the country’s blue economy – both in terms of growing ocean and inshore fisheries and in boosting salmon survivability.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and 13 other heads of state or government announced the endorsement of the “Transformations for a Sustainable Ocean Economy: a Vision for Protection, Production, and Proseprity.” The new document is a product of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, a multi-nation panel committed to sustainably manage all of the ocean under the countries’ respective national jurisdictions by 2025.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

World’s biggest ocean sustainability initiative signed by 14 countries

December 2, 2020 — A new initiative designed to lessen humanity’s negative impacts on the world’s oceans has been signed by 14 countries.

Several of the countries belonging to the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, a consortium of ocean-dependent countries founded in 2018 to initiate action to improve global marine sustainability efforts, announced the Transformations for a Sustainable Ocean Economy: A Vision for Protection, Production and Prosperity initiative on Tuesday, 1 December.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New paper highlights spread of organized crime from global fisheries

September 8, 2020 — A new paper calls for greater coordination by governments around the world to tackle the persistent problem of organized crime in the fisheries industry impacting the wider economy.

The “blue paper” published Aug. 18 by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, an initiative by 14 world leaders, highlights the extent of crimes associated with global fisheries beyond illegal fishing, including fraud, money laundering, corruption, and drug and human trafficking. They occur worldwide throughout the entire fisheries value chain: onshore, at sea, in coastal regions, and online, it says.

The paper says these crimes are profit-driven while depriving states of national revenue, threatening the livelihoods of coastal communities and endangering marine ecosystems around the world. The authors add that the perpetrators behind organized crime in the fisheries industry are companies with complex operational activities in many countries. Some of these crimes are corporate in nature, as in the laundering of criminal proceeds through offshore financial centers where ownership can’t be traced.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Ocean Panel identifies organized crime as major threat to marine sustainability

August 19, 2020 — The High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, a consortium of ocean-dependent countries founded in 2018 to initiate action to improve global marine sustainability efforts, has issued a report detailing the threat that organized crime poses to the fisheries sector.

Also known as the Ocean Panel, the consortium consists of Norway, Palau, Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Palau, and Portugal, and is supported by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ocean investment could aid post-Covid-19 economic recovery

July 14, 2020 — As many countries roll out bailout packages to counter the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the report says investment in these four key ocean intervention areas could help aid economic recovery both now and in the future:

  • Conservation and restoration of mangroves
  • Decarbonization of the shipping industry
  • Scaling up offshore wind production
  • Increasing sustainable protein from the ocean close dialog

“They give jobs and livelihoods to people and communities and you’re doing so by investing in making your environment more sustainable,” said Manaswita Konar, lead author of the report. The study found that these four areas all give between five and 10 times the return on investment in terms of economic, environmental and health benefits, and could provide minimum net returns of $8.2 trillion over 30 years.

The report builds on research last year from the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy showing how ocean-based climate action can provide a fifth of the carbon emissions cuts needed to achieve the Paris Climate Accord goal of only 1.5 degrees of global warming.

Read the full story at CNN