Saving Seafood

Deadly conditions for Indonesian migrant crews tied to illegal fishing

January 7, 2020 — D, 28-year-old Indonesian man, was witness to a deadly assault on a fellow boat crew member by the captain when they worked aboard the Taiwanese fishing vessel Da Wang a few years ago. The captain hit his friend in the head, then forced them to continue working.

“In the morning when we woke up for breakfast, we found him dead in his room. The captain wrapped up my dead friend’s body with a blanket and then stored him in the freezer,” D said in an interview in July 2019.

D is one of 34 Indonesian sailors featured in an investigative report by the environmental group Greenpeace and the Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union (SBMI) published on Dec. 9. The organizations looked into their complaints of forced labor during their employment on 13 fishing vessels registered in China, Taiwan, Fiji and Vanuatu.

The crews’ statements described conditions in which they experienced overwork, withholding of wages, debt bondage, and physical and sexual violence. These conditions eventually forced them to cut short their working contracts, which typically run about two years, and forfeit the deposits they were typically required to pay to get the jobs.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Indonesia Mobilizes Fishermen in Stand-Off With China

January 6, 2020 — Indonesia will mobilize fishermen to join warships in the South China Sea to help defend against Chinese vessels, the government said on Monday, as the biggest stand-off with China for years escalated off Southeast Asia’s largest country.

In an unusually strong statement, President Joko Widodo told reporters: “There is no negotiation when it comes to our sovereignty.”

The stand-off since last month in the northern Natuna islands, where a Chinese coastguard vessel has accompanied Chinese fishing vessels, has soured the generally friendly relationship between Jakarta and Beijing.

Indonesia’s chief security minister, Mahfud MD, told reporters that around 120 fishermen from the island of Java would be sent to the Natuna islands, some 1,000 km (600 miles) to the north.

Read the full story from Reuters at the New York Times

Greenpeace report says forced labor persists in Southeast Asia fishing sector

December 11, 2019 — Slavery continues to plague the fishing sector in Southeast Asia, according to a new report from Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Relying on interviews, documents, and other information, the report painted a picture of Indonesian, Filipino, and other Southeast Asian migrant fishermen working aboard distant-water vessels owned by foreign countries and suffering from mistreatment, human rights abuses, and forced labor.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New national-level FIP gets underway in Indonesia

September 17, 2019 — The following was released by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership:

The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) is pleased to announce the development of a new, national-level fishery improvement project (FIP) concerning longline tuna in Indonesia.

SFP made the announcement today in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signing ceremony in Jakarta with the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. The prospective FIP includes albacore, yellowfin, and bigeye longline fisheries in the Indian Ocean (WPP 572 and WPP 573) within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Indonesia and international waters (FAO Region 57), as well as yellowfin and bigeye longline fisheries in Western Central Pacific Ocean WPP 714 and WPP 715 (archipelagic waters), and WPPs 716 and 717 (EEZ; FAO Region 71).

SFP’s Target 75 initiative was a part of the driving force behind this FIP. The initiative has set a goal of seeing 75 percent of global production of key seafood sectors, including both shelf-stable and fresh and frozen tuna sectors, to be either sustainable, as in certified by organizations such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), or showing regular, verifiable improvements. SFP’s analysis of the global tuna sector recommends focusing on larger-scale FIPs like this one that offer economies of scale.
Members of SFP’s Fresh and Frozen Tuna Supply Chain Roundtable (SR) are supporting this developing FIP.

“Since Indonesia is considered to be the world’s largest producer of tuna and has the most abundant tuna fisheries in the world, it was only natural for SFP to promote a national-level FIP of this kind in that country,” said Blake Lee-Harwood, programs strategy director at SFP.

ATLI, the Indonesia Longline Tuna Association, is backing the FIP, along with 14 Indonesian tuna fishing companies and processors, involving more than 250 longline vessels that have committed to participate in this FIP. The ATLI Office in Benoa, Bali, will coordinate ongoing organizational efforts.

“This could be a historical milestone for the longline tuna fishery improvement project towards MSC certification,” said ATLI Chairman Dwi Agus Siswa Putra. “We hope that longline tuna will regain its position as a prominent product from Indonesia that makes all of us proud.”

Read the full release here

MSC and Indonesia join forces for sustainable fishing

September 5, 2019 — The Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) focused on increasing the accessibility of the MSC’s market-based program to fisheries in Indonesia.

The agreement covers cooperation in the development of fishery improvement projects (FIPs), sharing of sustainable fishing best practice using the MSC ‘s Fisheries Standard, and capacity building. The MoU was signed by Nilanto Perbowo, MMAF’s secretary general, and Patrick Caleo, MSC’s Asia Pacific Regional director.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee Sees ‘Overwhelming’ Positivity From Retailers Since Blockchain Supply Chain Launch

July 10, 2019 — In the fall of 2018, leading shelf-stable seafood provider Bumble Bee Foods began utilizing blockchain technology to track products all the way through its supply chain. The brand has seen significant success from harnessing the abilities housed within the cutting edge technology.

“We’ve had nothing but overwhelming positive feedback from the industry and retailers,” Bumble Bee Foods senior vice-president and CIO Tony Costa told me in an interview.

As a top provider of shelf-stable seafood in North America, Bumble Bee produces products such as canned tuna, salmon and clams. The company also works with frozen goods. “Part of this project is [an] extension of our company. We have another frozen piece of our business called Anova, which we do most of our procurement and resourcing through Asia, mainly out of Indonesia,” Costa said. “The blockchain project has focused around the handline fisheries in Indonesia,” he noted. The project is underway for Bumble Bee’s Natural Blue line, which is part of its Anova brand.

Bumble Bee’s blockchain incorporation uses the technology to track its products from fishers to end consumers, ensuring aspects such as data accuracy and tracking all the way through the supply chain. The beef and grain industries saw similar blockchain application for supply chain with BeefChain and GrainChain.

Read the full story at Forbes

Sharks killed in secretive Indonesian trade despite government efforts to protect some species

June 7, 2019 — There were only a few sharks for sale on the day the ABC was invited to the fish market in the north Japanese city of Indramayu.

“No-one breaks the rules here … when [the fishermen] catch sharks in their nets, they release them back to their habitats, if the sharks are still alive,” said the chief of the local fisheries cooperative, Darto.

However, the following day the ABC turned up unannounced and found evidence of a thriving shark industry, with workers cutting off hundreds of shark fins right there on the dock.

Walking over a carpet of shark carcasses, the auctioneer barked numbers rapid-fire into a megaphone, as a small pack of buyers crowded around him.

Among the dead animals at their feet, leaking blood from their gills, were endangered hammerhead sharks, with their heads carved into a point to hide their distinctive mallet-shaped snouts.

Further down the dock, juvenile sharks were being stacked like firewood into trucks, and taken away for export.

Read the full story at MSN News

In Indonesia, bigger catches for a fishing village protecting its mangroves

May 3, 2019 — The phone signal comes and goes and the electricity grid has yet to reach this patch of jungle on the west coast of Borneo. The quickest way into the village of Sungai Nibung is by boat through the rivers. (Sungai means “river” in Indonesian.) You arrive at a small dock put up by fishermen, onto which shrimp catches are pulled from nets and sorted by size.

Tauke, a fisherman descended from pioneer Chinese traders, concentrates as he keeps count of the incoming shrimp. “These large ones are Class A,” Tauke tells Mongabay, his eyes fixed on a calculator. “If you want smaller ones we also have them further in.”

For years, weak law enforcement and low public awareness meant environmentally dangerous practices were commonly employed in global fisheries. Here in western Borneo, fishermen often bombed, poisoned and netted catches indiscriminately. Closer to shore, mangroves were ripped up for aquaculture, and much of the tree cover inland converted to plantations.

A consequence of overfishing and depletion of the habitat on which fisheries stocks rely is both a dwindling catch and declining incomes. But local and national government reforms, combined with customary traditions and ambitious NGO programs, are beginning to address the problem.

Read the full story at Mongabay

17 applicants chosen to move forward in Aquaculture Innovation Challenge

April 18, 2019 — The initial round of the Aquaculture Innovation Challenge (AIC) is complete, with 17 of 56 applicants moving onto the second round, contest organizers announced on 18 April.

A panel of judges was tasked with grading each proposal individually, selecting innovations that held the most promise and potential to progress into the later rounds of the challenge. Among the successful proposals moving forward in the competition are six out of the 23 initial Design applicants, with innovations in their early stages; eight out of the 23 Demonstration applicants, who presented fully conceptualized innovations; and three out of the six applicants entered in the Upscaling category, where innovations already have proof of concept and an operational business.

The judges remarked on the “multitude of interesting innovations showing their potential to realize the positive change in the Indonesian shrimp sector,” which is what the AIC initiative aims to foster. Technology and techniques entered into the competition included those focused on improving feed and feed conversion, disease mitigation, farm process optimization, and more.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US shrimp imports down for second straight month

April 18, 2019 — Shrimp imports into the United States fell again in February, with a drop of nearly 10 percent over the same month a year prior.

The U.S. brought in 42,871 metric tons (MT) of shrimp, 9.9 percent less than the 47,568 MT imported in February 2018. Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Thailand all saw significant decreases in the amount of shrimp they sent to the U.S. in February.

The major outlier to the trend continued to be India, which saw its total rise from 13,361 MT in February 2018 to 16,053 MT in February 2019, an increase of more than 20 percent. India also saw an increase in January 2019, and it was by far the largest importer of shrimp into the U.S. in 2018, becoming the first country to import 500 million pounds of shrimp in a calendar year.

The shrimp import figures were released on Wednesday, 17 April, by NOAA’s Office of Science and Technology.

Read the full story at Seafood Source