Saving Seafood

Change.org Petition Has Over 4,000 Signatures to Free Imprisoned Commercial Fisherman Michael Foy

September 2, 2020 — A petition created on Change.org to free imprisoned commercial fisherman Michael Foy has gathered over 4,000 signatures.

Foy, who lives in Puerto Rico, has been imprisoned in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, since June 8. As the captain of commercial fishing vessel Rebel Lady, Foy departed Puerto Rico for a fishing expedition on May 29. His vessel was carrying 7,000 pounds of fish when he was detained for illegally entering the British Virgin Islands during the pandemic. Foy allegedly believed that the BVI port had been closed, not the border itself. He was reportedly 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. Authorities arrested Foy for not only illegal entry, but for illegal fishing. His vessel was seized, as well as the cargo, which was worth a reported $60,000. He was placed in a cell, where he’s been sitting ever since.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Supporters seek U.S. government help for jailed longline captain who faces half-million-dollar fine

September 2, 2020 — Family and friends of an American longline captain are pressing the U.S. government to help free him from jail and return his boat that was seized after he was led by customs officers into a British Virgin Islands port.

Michael Foy, 60, of Manahawkin, N.J., has been jailed in Tortola since June 11, initially charged with illegal entry in violation of the island’s covid-19 precautions, then with a charge of illegal fishing — although he had been fishing south of Puerto Rico, far away from BVI waters.

Foy’s family says his vessel Rebel Lady was laid-to offshore June 8, waiting for clearance to enter the port of Road Town as he had done many times before. He and his crew were approached by BVI authorities and instructed to follow their boat into port. Foy was under the impression that he was getting customs clearance. Instead, to his surprise, he was taken into custody by officers at the dock, and the Rebel Lady was impounded.

Initially charged with illegal entry, Foy was also charged a few days later with not arriving at an “authorized port,” and with operating an unlicensed or unregistered fishing vessel — a move that suddenly jacked up potential penalties to $511,000.

Foy’s family and other fishermen have pressed the U.S. State Department for action, invoking a 1970s law called the Fishermen’s Protection Act. According to a summary of its provisions, the law requires that the federal government, “after a U.S. vessel has been seized by a foreign government, to take such steps as are necessary to protect the vessel and the health and welfare of its crew; to secure the release of such vessel and the crew; and to determine the amount of any fine, license fee, registration fee, and any other direct charge that is reimbursable.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Federal charges filed in a 2018 shark fin trafficking case

September 1, 2020 — Hamada Suisan Co. Ltd., the owner of a Japanese-flagged fishing vessel, was charged in federal court Monday tied to the illegal trafficking of shark fins.

The charges of aiding and abetting the attempted export of shark fins stems from a November 2018 discovery of hundreds of fins in the possession of workers from the fishing vessel, M.V. Kyoshin Maru No. 20.

According to the Department of Justice, the vessel’s Indonesian workers legally came to Hawaii to board flights out of the Honolulu International Airport. During routine TSA screenings of carry-on luggage, agents found some 962 shark fins within their bags, weighing in approximately 190 pounds.

Read the full story at Hawaii News Now

The human impact of organized crime in fisheries extends far beyond the ocean

September 1, 2020 — Despite the name, organized crime in fisheries is not only about fishing. While illegal fishing is a serious problem across many regions of the world, organized crime in the fisheries sector extends much farther. It occurs globally throughout the entire fisheries value chain: on-shore; at-sea; at the coastal interface; and in cyberspace. Regardless of where it occurs or how it happens, its harmful effects take a massive toll on human populations worldwide.

Organized crime in the fisheries sector can take various forms including drug and human trafficking, fraudulent catch documentation, money laundering and corruption — crimes that have potentially dire humanitarian implications. These crimes are profit-driven, diverting government revenue to the shadow blue economy at the expense of coastal communities and the pursuit of key sustainable development goals such as zero hunger, zero poverty and peace, justice and strong institutions. These crimes also directly can endanger those who are exploited in their perpetration.

People in many coastal nations, particularly developing countries, depend on the fisheries sector for food and jobs. Large ocean nations are particularly vulnerable to disruptions in the sector, as recently exposed by the impacts of COVID-19. Criminal networks operating in the fisheries sector exacerbate the economic dislocation of local coastal communities, threaten already tenuous food security and divert much-needed state revenue. But there is hope: effectively tackling organized crime in fisheries will help foster a sustainable ocean economy which, in turn, will benefit communities reliant on the ocean and its resources.

Read the full story at GreenBiz

US family fighting to free commercial fishermen held prisoner in British Virgin Islands

September 1, 2020 — A U.S. family from New Jersey is fighting to get the U.S. State Department to intervene in the imprisonment of Mike Foy, a commercial fisherman who has been held in the British Virgin Islands since 8 June.

Foy, according to a Change.org petition nearing 5,000 signatures, was waiting in the waters of Tortola for clearance to enter the island’s port in order to obtain passport stamps for the crew so they could obtain clearance to Puerto Rico – a requirement of U.S. Customs. Instead, Foy was imprisoned and charged with “illegal entry and unlicensed fishing” after being told to dock his boat off the coast.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The deadly secret of China’s invisible armada

August 26, 2020 — The battered wooden “ghost boats” drift through the Sea of Japan for months, their only cargo the corpses of starved North Korean fishermen whose bodies have been reduced to skeletons. Last year more than 150 of these macabre vessels washed ashore in Japan, and there have been more than 500 in the past five years.

For years the grisly phenomenon mystified Japanese police, whose best guess was that climate change pushed the squid population farther from North Korea, driving the country’s desperate fishermen dangerous distances from shore, where they become stranded and die from exposure.

But an NBC News investigation, based on new satellite data, has revealed what marine researchers now say is a more likely explanation: China is sending a previously invisible armada of industrial boats to illegally fish in North Korean waters, violently displacing smaller North Korean boats and spearheading a decline in once-abundant squid stocks of more than 70 percent.

Read the full story at NBC News

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

FCF-linked vessels outed by US government as likely using forced labor

August 18, 2020 — The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade has placed a Withhold Release Order (WRO) on all seafood harvested by the Taiwanese-owned, Vanuatu-flagged fishing vessel Da Wang “due to reasonable suspicion of forced labor on the vessel.”

The WRO will require detention of seafood harvested by the Da Wang at all U.S. ports of entry. Importers of any detained shipments “will have an opportunity to export their shipments or submit proof to CBP that the merchandise was not produced with forced labor,” according to a CBP press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Satlink leading shift from human fishery observers to land-based electronic monitoring

August 11, 2020 — Madrid, Spain-based Satlink, which specializes in technological solutions and developments based on satellite communications, has launched a program designed to train on-board human fishery observers to perform fishery monitoring through video data and satellite imaging.

The program will give regional fishery management organizations (RFMOs), governments, and fishing companies a method of observational compliance that sidesteps complications regarding placing observers on-board vessels during the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Despite Federal Ruling, Fish Farm Company Says Gulf Project Moving Forward

August 10, 2020 — This week a federal court ruled that offshore fisheries cannot be permitted in the Gulf of Mexico under existing policy. Opponents of a proposed fish farm off Sarasota’s coast called the decision a victory, but the CEO of the company spearheading the local project says he’s pushing ahead.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that it was illegal for the Department of Commerce to issue regulations that would have permitted large-scale aquaculture operations offshore in U.S. federal waters. The ruling affirmed a 2018 decision, which the Trump Administration had appealed.

“Basically, the case hinged on whether aquaculture could be considered fishing under the law and the court decided that it couldn’t,” said Marianne Cufone, a Tampa and New Orleans based environmental law attorney who argued against fish farming.

“That seems correct,” she said. “Fishing and fish farming are not the same thing–just like duck hunting and duck farming aren’t the same thing. The agency was essentially saying that because they pull the fish from the water out of the net pens, that that equates to harvesting a wild fish and as the court said in its opinion, they wouldn’t bite.”

Read the full story at WUSF