Saving Seafood

As China draws fire on IUU, China’s squid capital enjoys record growth

October 29, 2020 — With Chinese leaders meeting in Beijing this week to finalize the country’s five-year economic blueprint, the operators of China’s self-declared capital of squid processing are hailing a record growth in landings and processing volumes during the outgoing five year plan.

Officials from the Zhoushan National Distant-Water Fishery Industry Base invited regional media to tour the industrial park and port facilities to mark the completion of the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan, which will give way next year to the 14th Five-Year Plan, a document produced by the central government to guide China’s economy.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ISSF Announces First Conservation Measure Addressing Social and Labor Standards

October 29, 2020 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) today announced the adoption of a new conservation measure requiring ISSF participating companies to develop and publish a public social and labor standards and/or sourcing policy that applies to the company and its entire supply chain. The measure will be in effect for processors, traders, importers, transporters marketers and others involved in the seafood industry associated with ISSF and includes production facilities and fishing and supply vessels.

“With the announcement of this conservation measure, ISSF is pleased to formalize our commitment to human rights protections in global tuna fisheries, a topic we have increasingly supported as our work toward sustainable fisheries has evolved,” said ISSF President Susan Jackson. “Conservation Measure 9.1 Public Policy on Social and Labor Standards joins the now dozens of ISSF conservation measures for sustainability best practices. With the majority of the world’s canned tuna processing capacity conforming to these measures — and with major tuna companies being transparently audited against them — we are driving unique and positive change across the world’s tuna fisheries.”

Conservation Measure 9.1 Public Policy on Social and Labor Standards states that processors, traders, importers, transporters, marketers and others involved in the seafood industry shall develop and publish a public social and labor standards policy and/or sourcing policy that applies to it and its supply chain, including production facilities and fishing and supply vessels, that addresses, at a minimum, the following categories:

  • Forced labor
  • Child labor
  • Freedom of association
  • Wages, benefits and employment contracts
  • Working hours
  • Health and safety
  • Discrimination, harassment and abuse
  • Grievance mechanisms

Under the new measure, a company policy will be considered public if it is published on the company’s website or is otherwise available to the general public. The conservation measure will go into effect on January 1, 2021.

About ISSF Conservation Measures & Compliance Process

ISSF is a global partnership among scientists, the tuna industry and the environmental non-governmental community whose mission is to undertake science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks, reducing bycatch and promoting ecosystem health.

Since its inception in 2009, ISSF has adopted conservation measures and commitments to facilitate this mission with the intent that processors, traders, marketers and others involved in the seafood industry will follow them to facilitate real and continuous improvement across global tuna stocks. Each ISSF participating company commits to conform to these conservation measures to improve the long-term health of tuna fisheries. They also must adhere to the ISSA Compliance Policy.

ISSF participating tuna companies, which represent the majority of the world’s canned-tuna production and include well-known brand names, are audited yearly by MRAG Americas on their compliance with ISSF conservation measures.

How Fish-Recognition Tech Is Assisting Demand for Canned Tuna

October 28, 2020 — The pandemic is forcing marine protection observers to adopt technology that monitors fishing boats remotely instead of getting on the vessels and risking infection.

Commercial fishing fleets are facing a jump in demand for canned tuna, but the coronavirus outbreak has prevented industry watchdogs and environmental groups from sending people onto boats to monitor whether the catches are sustainable. Traditionally, those observers spend months on vessels collecting data and watching for illegal activity.

Instead, some vessels are installing video cameras, sensors and systems that use algorithms to detect different types of fish and marine life, similar to the way Facebook Inc identifies people tagged in photos, said Mark Zimring, large scale fisheries program director at The Nature Conservancy, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit organization.

The goal is to make sure boats don’t misreport the contents and volumes of their catches and ensure at-risk species like turtles and sharks are safely released when they’re caught by accident. Satellite imagery, machine-learning tools and artificial intelligence are also used to detect practices such as illegal shark-finning and labor abuses.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

JOHN KERRY: China’s Chance to Save Antarctic Sealife

October 26, 2020 — Even as the United States and China confront deep disagreements, there is a global challenge that simply won’t wait for the resolution of our differences: climate change.

While some have decided that we are entering a new Cold War with China, we can still cooperate on critical mutual interests. After all, even at the height of 20th-century tensions, the Americans and the Soviets negotiated arms control agreements, which were in the interests of both countries.

Climate change, like nuclear proliferation, is a challenge of our own making — and one to which we hold the solution. We have an opportunity this month to make clear that great power rivalries aside, geopolitics must end at the water’s edge — at the icy bottom of our planet in the Southern Ocean, which surrounds the entire continent of Antarctica.

The first post-World War II arms limitation agreement — the Antarctic Treaty signed in 1959 at the height of the Cold War — banned military activities, created a nuclear-free space, set aside territorial claims and declared the continent a global commons dedicated to peace and science. Now we have the opportunity to extend that global commons from the land to the sea.

Read the full opinion piece at The New York Times

Working group of nations go after China’s flags of convenience

October 22, 2020 — Fisheries officials from the European Union, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States have met to discuss cooperation on limiting the use of flags of convenience by distant-water fishery companies involved in illegal fishing.

The online meeting, which took place 15 October, follows a report by the advocacy group Environmental Justice Foundation criticizing the process whereby fishing companies buy flags from flag states, which are then unwilling or unable to monitor the activity of problem trawlers. The report, “Off the Hook: How Flags of Convenience Let Illegal Fishing Go Unpunished,” details the damage that flags of convenience cause to fisheries and how they are used to conduct illegal fishing. In the report, EJF calls for sanctions to end the practice and more transparency surrounding the registration of fishing vessels.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Six critically endangered sawfish found dead on the side of the road in Florida Everglades

October 22, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement is conducting an investigation involving the deaths of six critically endangered smalltooth sawfish in Everglades City, Fla. An employee with Everglades National Park reported the dead sawfish and two dead bonnethead sharks to NOAA experts. Two of the sawfish are missing their rostra (saws). One other had its meat removed, leaving only the carcass.

The animals were found along the causeway between Everglades City and Chokoloskee Island, Fla. A sawfish biologist from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will perform a necropsy on the animals to try to determine the cause of death.

Smalltooth sawfish are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. They were once found in the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida and along the East Coast from Florida to North Carolina. Their distribution has decreased greatly in U.S. waters over the past century. Today, the species is generally only found off the coast of Florida, especially southwest Florida where sawfish give birth. They reproduce every other year and give birth to just 7-14 young. The loss of these six animals is nearly equivalent to one mother’s entire litter.

NOAA officials seek information from anyone who may have details about this incident and are offering a reward up to $20,000 for information leading to a criminal conviction or the assessment of a civil penalty.

Please call the NOAA Enforcement Hotline at 1-800-853-1964. Tips may be left anonymously.

Read the full release here

Bluefin Tuna in Focus as Japan Seeks Boost to Catch Limits

October 21, 2020 — Countries involved in managing bluefin tuna fisheries are set to face-off over a Japanese proposal to raise its catch quotas for the fish, highly prized for sushi and sashimi.

At an online meeting that began Tuesday, Japan is seeking to raise its catch limits for both smaller and larger bluefin tuna by 20%.

A slight improvement in the spawning population for the fish has raised confidence that it can recover from decades of overfishing. But conservation experts worry that the capture of small fish used for farming bluefin tuna is may be putting the recovery of the species in peril.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission includes more than two dozen countries that collaborate to manage fisheries on the high seas and curb illegal and unauthorized fishing and other activities that endanger highly migratory species such as the Pacific bluefin.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

New Evidence Suggests China’s ‘Dark’ Vessels Poached in Galápagos Waters

October 20, 2020 — In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to attract and catch squid. For the next few months, the vessels remained around the edge of the Ecuadoran islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), raising concerns among conservationists that the fleet would overexploit the squid and capture endangered species such as rays and sharks.

Another worry was also hovering: would the vessels enter the EEZ and illegally fish, putting even more pressure on the delicate marine region and violating Ecuador’s sovereignty?

China’s ambassador to Ecuador said the fleet followed international fishing regulations and did not partake in any illegal activity, and Ecuadoran authorities said the fleet did not enter its waters. However, new information released last week by HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based data analytics company, shows that unidentified vessels were indeed present inside the Ecuadoran EEZ at the same time as many Chinese-owned fishing ships were undetectable via their automatic identification system (AIS), a GPS-based system that publicly transmits a vessel’s identify, speed and location.

There’s a strong correlation between these events, but they don’t necessarily confirm that illegal fishing took place, experts say. However, this new layer of information paints a fuller picture of what may have happened at the border of the Galápagos EEZ in the past few months.

Read the full story at The Wire

Fisherman Michael Foy’s Illegal Fishing Charges Dropped; Returning to Court on October 27

October 13, 2020 — Michael Foy, the American longline fishing boat captain who has been detained in the British Virgin Islands since June 8, has finally been released on bail. Foy’s daughter, Jordan Cassoff, confirmed his release on Thursday, but noted that “this isn’t over until it’s over.”

For those who haven’t been following along, Foy, who lives in Puerto Rico, left for a fishing expedition on May 29. On June 8 Foy was caught in territorial waters near Peter Island and Norman Island. Foy said that he believed that the BVI port had been closed because of the coronavirus, but not the border itself. He had been drifting near the coastal border off Norman Island while waiting to get customs clearance to return to Puerto Rico when a patrol boat escorted him to shore. BVI authorities then arrested Foy for illegal entry and illegal fishing. His vessel was seized, as well as the 7,000 pounds of tune and swordfish that was worth more than $60,000.

Read the full story at Seafood News

BVI court tosses illegal fishing charge against U.S. longline captain while trial continues

October 13, 2020 — After spending months in jail following his June 9 arrest in the territory’s waters, on Monday, United States fisherman Michael Foy went to trial in the British Virgin Islands on charges of illegal entry, operating an unlicensed or unregulated fishing vessel, and arriving at a place other than a customs port.

But on Friday, following a Tuesday adjournment, Magistrate Christilyn Benjamin threw out the fishing charge, which carried with it a fine of roughly $500,000, while allowing the defense to call additional witnesses to testify against the other two charges when the trial picks up again at the end of the month.

The bulk of the prosecution’s argument for the fishing charge rested on the testimony of a fisheries official, who described a picture, sent to her by a superior, of Foy’s vessel the day he was detained.

But according to Magistrate Benjamin, this evidence would not suffice before “a tribunal of fact.”

“There is no evidence on the prosecution’s case of who took this photograph, when this photograph would have been taken, and certainly there is no evidence of the photograph itself. As a matter of fact, the prosecution has closed its case and the court has no idea what this vessel even looks like.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman