Saving Seafood

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Applaud US and Russia

September 11, 2015 — The following was released by the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers:

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Applaud US and Russia for Historic Cooperation to Combat Illegal, Unregulated, & Unreported (IUU) Fishing

Portland, Oregon- Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers (ABSC) is pleased to announce the signing of a bilateral agreement between the United States and Russia to combat Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The agreement was signed earlier today as part of the 26th U.S.- Russia Intergovernmental Consultative Committee (ICC) on Fisheries meeting. This agreement has been several years in the making and signifies a new era of cooperation between the two nations in combating Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing.

ABSC President Edward Poulsen issued the following statement: “For far too many years the Alaskan crab industry has faced stiff market competition from illegally harvested Russian king crab. The blatant poaching on the Russian side has impacted not only Alaskan crab fishermen and Alaskan coastal communities, but also legitimate Russian producers and Russian citizens. We welcome this historic agreement and are hopeful that it will result in meaningful action being taken to halt this illegal activity.”

Today’s agreement includes provisions for increased coordination and cooperation between our two nations and should improve the ability for US customs agents to detect illegal crab shipments into the US as well as aid in the investigation and eventual prosecution of suspected criminals. The Alaskan crab industry has lost an estimated $600 million in revenue since 2000 due to illegally harvested Russian crab. In addition, Alaskan coastal communities have also lost millions more in tax revenue. As such, the agreement has broad support from within the industry.

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers (ABSC) is a seafood industry trade association representing more than 70% of the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) crab harvesters. ABSC is involved in regulatory issues, scientific research, marketing, and advocating for the safety of life at sea for Alaska’s crab fishermen.

 

 

Fishing pirates flee Thailand in black-listed boat

Bangkok, Thailand — September 9, 2015 — A notorious black-listed fishing vessel has broken free of Thai naval authorities off the Thai resort island of Phuket and sailed into international waters.

Thai officials say the rusting and decrepit 625-ton Taisan has left behind unpaid bills of  $US66,000 ($94,000) and has on board millions of dollars worth of illegally caught fish.

Thai authorities met on Wednesday to decide whether to send a navy ship in pursuit.

“We blinked and the ship was gone,” Charoen Chamniklang, chief of the Royal Thai Customs and investigation suppression bureau told Phuketwan​ news.

In January the New Zealand navy said the ship, then called the Kunlun, used “evasive tactics” to thwart boarding attempts in Antarctic waters.

Read the full story from The Sydney Morning Herald

Nestle accused of using illegally-caught fish in cat food

August 28, 2015 — NEW YORK — Swiss food giant Nestle is being sued in the United States for allegedly knowingly allowing its Fancy Feast cat food to contain fish from a Thai supplier that uses slave labor.

Pet food buyers who filed the class action lawsuit on Thursday in US federal court in Los Angeles seek to represent all California consumers of Fancy Feast who would not have purchased the product had they known it had ties to slave labor.

According to the lawsuit, Nestle works with Thai Union Frozen Products PCL to import more than 28 million pounds (13 million kilograms) of seafood-based pet food for top brands sold in the United States, and that some of the ingredients in those products came from slave labor.

Men and boys, often trafficked from Thailand’s poorer neighbors Myanmar and Cambodia, are sold to fishing boat captains who need crews aboard their ship, the complaint said.

Read the full story at AFP

JOHN VIRDIN: We can end illegal fishing in the ocean

August 31, 2015 — The killing of Cecil the lion has thrust the issue of wildlife crime into the international spotlight. And for good reason: wildlife crime is a highly profitable form of global organized crime that imperils precious natural resources and, at a minimum, offends our sense of equity and fair play. Far less publicized is that some of the largest volume of such crime happens not on land but in the sea through illegal fishing.

Overfishing is a key environmental challenge of our time. Experts estimate that, globally, 29 percent of assessed fish stocks are biologically overfished—up from 10 percent in 1970. Illegal, unregulated, or unreported fishing is a large contributor to this problem.

I’ve been working with governments to improve fisheries management for more than 10 years and have seen the devastating effects of illegal fishing, particularly by large vessels, on fish stocks, the environment, and the economies of coastal communities in places like Sierra Leone. However, in the past six months, I’ve noticed a convergence of improved surveillance technology, public awareness, and government interest that has given me hope that we can turn the tide on illegal fishing.

Read the full opinion piece from John Virdin at The Hill

Crossing Borders and Defying Policing, Abuses of Thailand’s Fishing Industry Challenge International System

August 18, 2015 — Somewhere off the coast of Thailand, “ghost ships” bump and crash along the choppy waves scrapping the sea floor with nets that spare nothing. Pulling up these illegal hauls in shifts that sometimes last 20 hours are thousands of migrant fishermen, many of whom have been forced into indentured servitude or kidnapped. Far from shore on unregistered boats, they have little hope of escape and face daily abuse and squalid conditions. More recently, some captains have turned to trafficking Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar, pressing some into service, extorting others, and taking sex slaves.

As explored in an investigative series in The New York Times and reporting by The Guardian and AP, a cycle of human rights abuses, environmental destruction, and impunity revolves around the fishing industry in Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand. What’s more, it’s in part due to growing demand from consumers around the world, like you and me.

Catch rates for the region’s fish have been decimated in recent years. The Environmental Justice Foundation reports Thailand’s fish stocks are 85 percent depleted compared to levels 50 years ago. The Times series follows boats that are now catching “trash fish” – small herring and jack mackerel that are processed into dogfood, fish oil, or feed for factory-farmed shrimp sold to companies like Walmart and Cost Co. But to make decent profits on these small fish, and what’s left of the bigger species, fishing boats need to work longer hours and move further out to sea.

Meanwhile, Thailand faces a major labor deficit, particularly in the maritime industry, where conditions and pay are poor. The fishing fleet is annually short as many as 60,000 workers. Combined, these pressures are pushing some captains to resort to kidnapping crewmembers from shore, spending longer and longer periods at sea, and even participating in human trafficking.

Read the full story at NewSecurityBeat.com

Indonesia Navy Nabs Cargo Ship Loaded With Slave-Caught Fish

August 13, 2015 — JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A massive refrigerated cargo ship believed to be loaded with slave-caught fish was seized by Indonesia’s navy and brought to shore Thursday, after The Associated Press informed authorities it had entered the country’s waters.

The Thai-owned Silver Sea 2 was located late Wednesday and escorted about 80 miles (130 kilometers) to a naval base in Sabang on the Indonesian archipelago’s northwestern tip, said Col. Sujatmiko, the local naval chief.

The AP used a satellite beacon signal to trace its path from Papua New Guinea waters, where it was also being sought, into neighboring Indonesia. The navy then spent a week trying to catch it. The ship was close to leaving Indonesian waters by the time it was finally seized.

“I’m so overwhelmed with happiness,” said Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, adding it was difficult to find because the boat’s signal had a delay. “It was almost impossible, but we did it.”

The Silver Sea 2 is the same 2,285-ton vessel captured in a high-resolution satellite photo last month in Papua New Guinea showing its hold open and two fishing trawlers tethered to each side, loading fish. Analysts identified the smaller trawlers as among those that fled the remote Indonesian island village of Benjina earlier this year, crewed by enslaved men from poor Southeast Asian countries who are routinely beaten and forced to work nearly nonstop with little or no pay.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times 

Bering Sea Crabbers Issue White Paper on Measures to Deny IUU Crab Entry to US

The Bering Sea Crabbers along with Frequentz – a traceability company – have released a white paper on IUU crab.

The group has argued that large amounts of IUU crab entering the US have cut into the market value of Alaskan crab, although the amounts vary considerably from year to year.

The white paper supports three solutions that would cut back IUU crab even further.

The first is for the Senate, which has ratified the Port States Treaty, to pass the implementing legislation, which is necessary before the US ratification can be official. Ultimately, this would bring the policing practices of the rest of the world much closer to the standards that already exist in the U.S. and make it more difficult for illegal product to enter the supply chain and diminish the value of product caught by U. S. fishermen.

Secondly, the crabbers want to see country of origin labeling required on cooked king crab. Although many retailers disclose whether their king crab is a product of USA or Russia, because it is a cooked product normally sold unpackaged it does not fall under the same Country of Origin labeling rules as other seafood. Crabbers would like mandatory country of origin requirements on all forms of crab.

Read the full story at SeafoodNews.com

 

AP investigation tracked to Papua New Guinea; 8 enslaved fishermen rescued so far

July 31, 2015 — Authorities in Papua New Guinea have rescued eight fishermen held on board a Thai-owned refrigerated cargo ship, and dozens of other boats are still being sought in response to an Associated Press report that included satellite photos and locations of slave vessels at sea.

Two Burmese and six Cambodian men have been removed from the Blissful Reefer, a massive quarter-acre transport ship now impounded in Daru, Papua New Guinea, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) north of Australia. Officials said the fishermen appeared to be part of a larger group of forced laborers being transported from Thailand to be distributed onto various fishing boats, said George Gigauri, head of the International Organization for Migration in Port Moresby, which has assisted with the operation. He added that nearly 20 other crewmembers from the Blissful Reefer have not yet been questioned, and that if victims of trafficking are found, “there are lives at risk.”

The men are part of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of poor migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos who are forced to fish for the Thai seafood industry. When workers run away, become sick or even die, they are easily replaced by new recruits who are tricked or coerced by false promises of jobs in Thailand.

The story of Aung San Win, 19, who was among the rescued men, started the same way as with hundreds of other enslaved fishermen interviewed in person or in writing by AP during a year-long investigation into slavery at sea. He said a broker came to his home in Myanmar and convinced him and several other young men to go to Thailand where they could find good work in factories. But when they arrived, their passports and identification cards were taken. They were then pushed onto boats and told they would have to fish for three years and owed nearly $600 for their documents, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News and World Report

 

Do Fish Names Encourage Fishy Business?

July 29, 2015 — Order a rockfish at a restaurant in Maryland, and you’ll likely get a striped bass. Place the same order in California, and you could end up with a vermilion rockfish, a Pacific Ocean perch or one of dozens of other fish species on your plate.

This jumble of names is perfectly legal. But it’s confusing to diners — and it can hamper efforts to combat illegal fishing and seafood fraud, says the ocean conservation group Oceana.

Under current Food and Drug Administration rules, a single fish species can go by multiple names from the time it’s caught to the time it ends up on your plate. Conversely, lots of different fish legally can be sold under a single name.

For example, that “grouper” on a menu could be one of 64 different species. It could be a fish known by the common name sand perch (scientific name: Diplectrum formosum), which is plentiful. Or it could be a goliath grouper, a critically endangered species. The FDA says all can be sold under the acceptable market name “grouper.”

Oceana wants the entire supply chain — from boat to plate — to ditch the FDA’s list of “acceptable market names” for seafood. Instead, it wants the FDA to require that a species’ Latin scientific name or common name be used in all cases.

Oceana says more precise labeling of seafood — the kind it calls for in its One Name, One Fish report — will go a long way toward protecting vulnerable or endangered species and deterring illegal fishing. And it says it will help to put a stop to seafood fraud — an issue the nonprofit group has been working on since 2011.

“It’s another tool to help with enforcement,” says Oceana senior campaign director Beth Lowell. “People have a right to know about the food they eat. It shouldn’t be that hard to find out what fish I’m eating without having to do a DNA test or ask the server, who has to ask the manager, who has to ask the distributor.”

Read the full story at NPR

CAMPAIGNERS AIM TO NET ILLEGAL FISHING VESSELS WITH NEW ONLINE DATABASE

July 30, 2015 — Efforts to crackdown on illegal fishing received a boost this week with the launch of a new transparency initiative designed to make it easier to identify vessels guilty of landing catches unlawfully.

Who Fishes Far, which has been developed by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), Oceana and WWF, features a database of more than 15,000 EU vessels which were authorised to fish outside of the EU between 2010 and 2014.

The information was compiled after a successful access-to-information request to the European Commission and users can search the website by vessel, flag state, year and type of agreement issued under the EU’s Fishing Authorising Regulation (FAR).

María José Cormax, fisheries campaign director of Oceana, said that greater transparency is crucial if the fishing industry is to deliver sustainable European fisheries.

Read the full story at BusinessGreen