Saving Seafood

Maine fisherman acquitted of overfishing elver quota by 1/100th of a pound

June 26, 2019 — Henry Bear is the former representative in the Maine Legislature for the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. Three years ago the now-63-year-old tribal leader was issued a summons for overfishing his elver quota by 1/100th of a pound. Elvers are immature American eels, Anguilla rostrata, that ascend Maine rivers in the spring. The elver fishery is big money with the little eels selling for around a $1,000 a pound.

Overfishing elvers is a criminal offense in Maine. When a politically active Native American gets summoned for 1/100thof a pound over his elver quota, the equivalent of getting a criminal speeding ticket for going 50.5 miles per hour in a 50-mile-per-hour speed zone, it raises questions.

“They call this a test case,” says Bear. “I call it a political hatchet job.” Bear asserts that the Department of Marine Resources staff reviewed the charges and decided to press the case, against the recommendation of state assistant attorney general of Waldo County, William Entwisle.

The charges against him led Bear, who is currently studying law at the University of Maine, to investigate the grounds of the state’s authority in light of several treaties, particularly the 1776 Treaty of Watertown, which was signed by his ancestor, Ambrose Bear. While the states of Maine and Massachusetts agree the treaty has not been extinguished in any way, Maine has long asserted that the Implementing Act of the 1980 Land Claims Settlement Act brought tribal fisheries under state jurisdiction. But Bear has uncovered evidence that indicates the Implementing Act was never properly enacted, possibly putting Maine’s Indian land claims back on the table.

“I calculated we’re talking about $20 billion, based on the current value of the land,” says Bear.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

EU, Pacific fish forum engage in first ever policy dialogue

June 24, 2019 — The first ever discussions between the EU and the 17 members of the Forum Fishery Agency (FFA) regarding the management of marine resources took place in Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia on June 21.

The two-day meeting was arranged under the framework of the Pacific-European Union Marine Partnership program (PEUMP), a four-year initiative that aims to reduce levels of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the region, as well as find trade negotiations to remove the need for fishery subsidies.

FFA director general, Manu Tupou-Roosen said: “This policy dialogue is important because it is an opportunity for FFA members and the EU to have an in-depth discussion on key issues relating to the sustainable management of tuna in our region, its importance for Pacific island countries, and our cooperation in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to tackle issues like IUU fishing.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Five jailed, fined €1.5m, for eel smuggling in Spain

June 17, 2019 — The Spanish National Court has prosecuted five people for breaching EU legislation — and endangered animal treaty CITES — by trying to smuggle European eel between 2011 and 2012.

The network attempted to remove 724 kilograms of live eels, with a value equating to €580,000, from Spain to Asia but were stopped in the first major operation carried out by SEPRONA, Spain’s nature protection service of the Civil Guard.

The network falsely documented the eels for transit to Asia as other species not subject to regulations, including the American eel, the California red worm, and the flathead grey mullet, according to a release from the Sustainable Eel Group.

The export and import of European eel out of and into the EU has been suspended since 2010. However, the scale of the illegal trade remains vast: according to Europol, 300 to 350 million European eels are illegally trafficked every year from Europe to Asia, accounting for almost one-quarter of the total number of glass (juvenile) eels entering European waters every year.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Thailand-based fisheries association threatens protests over IUU rules

June 13, 2019 — The National Fisheries Association of Thailand is threatening protests against the government in the wake of measures by the government to curb illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

According to the Bangkok Post, the association members are threatening to camp out in front of Thailand’s Agriculture Ministry due to rules implemented in the last five years. Those rules partially stemmed from the issuance of a yellow card by the European Union – which was lifted in January – that the country received in 2015 in response to the lack of effective sanctions to prevent IUU fishing.

Those new rules have caused a shortage of workers, forcing operators out of business, association president Mongkol Sukcharoenkhana told the Bangkok Post.

“If these laws aren’t changed, the fishermen will head to Bangkok and camp out in front of the Agriculture Ministry,” he told the paper.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Latest Oceana report showcases power of Global Fishing Watch

June 13, 2019 — A South Korean-flagged fishing vessel with a history of illegal fishing and involvement in human rights abuse cases, repeatedly stopped transmitting its public tracking data while off the coast of Argentina, Oceana says in a brief report released Thursday that identifies several suspicious activities observed with the help of the recently enhanced Global Fishing Watch (GFW) program.

Oceana said GFW detected 77 gaps in Automatic Identification System transmissions by the vessel, which it doesn’t name, over a nearly five-year period, including four inside its national waters. One gap lasted almost 12 days, ending when the Argentine Coast Guard captured the vessel for fishing illegally inside Argentina’s waters.

GFW — a program started by Oceana, SkyTruth and Google — uses a combination of satellite and radar technology and vessel monitoring system data to support the enforcement of laws that prohibit fishing out of season or in protected areas. The group now reports maintaining about 20 staff distributed globally, with individuals and small teams spread across the US, Asia, Europe, Central and South America.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Slave labor is used to catch fish. This tech aims to stop it.

June 13, 2019 — New technology is making advocates and law enforcement optimistic that they might finally have a chance at freeing men held captive at sea on large commercial fishing vessels.

The men [and it is almost always men] who get forced into slavery aboard those ships have often gone willingly, seeking work, says Val Farabee, director of research at Liberty Shared, an organization that fights human trafficking. But once isolated at sea, their wages are withheld and they’re subjected to violent, bleak working conditions for years.

Forced labor and slavery are terms used interchangeably by human trafficking experts to refer to people working against their will. Though well documented in ships that fish illegally, the fishing industries’ dizzying network of enforcement and regulation, as well as the vastness of the oceans, make it difficult for law enforcement to help those trapped on such ships.

It’s unclear how many people are held on fishing boats, but an estimated 21 million people are trapped in enslaved labor around the world, according to the International Labour Organization.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Human rights groups criticize MSC’s new Chain of Custody Standard

June 11, 2019 — Thirteen human rights and environmental groups have released a statement criticizing the effectiveness of the Marine Stewardship Council’s new Chain of Custody Standard.

The 13 groups – including Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, Freedom Fund, the International Labor Rights Forum, and more – have criticized the program’s new standard, saying that the standards will not be effective enough to identify and protect seafood workers from labor rights violations and abuse. The groups, which are a part of the Thai Seafood Working Group, have a number of concerns about the standard.

A key concern, according to the joint statement, is the classification of countries into “low-risk” and “high-risk” categories, with due diligence in certification required only in “high-risk” countries.

“The way that MSC defines the criteria for risk will allow seafood operations that may have serious labor abuses – such as processing and shrimp-peeling facilities – to be certified without any labor due diligence simply because they are in countries classified as low risk,” ILRF Executive Director Judy Gearhart said in a release.

Another point of criticism is the process on-shore operators – like processing facilities – will need to undergo to obtain certification. The MSC standard is for companies to undergo one of three labor audits recognized by the organization: Amfori Business Social Compliance Initiative, SEDEX SMETA, or Social Accountability International’s SA8000.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine elver fishermen come close to record year

June 10, 2019 — Fishermen who catch baby eels in Maine came close to topping a record for the value of the tiny fish this year.

Maine has the only significant fishery for baby eels, which are also called elvers, in the U.S., and the fishing season ended on Friday. The elvers were worth more than $2,090 per pound this year, according to preliminary state data, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said.

The figure is the third highest on record. Fishermen set a record high last year with a price of $2,366 per pound. The amount of eels caught this year was close to the annual quota of a little less than 10,000 pounds, according to the preliminary figures.

The eels are worth so much money because they are used as seed stock by Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity for food use. Worldwide availability of the baby eels has declined in recent history, and that has pushed up the value of Maine’s eels.

They are eventually used all over the world in eel dishes such as kabayaki, which is a skewered fillet of eel that is popular in restaurants in Japan and elsewhere, including the U.S.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

FAO launches anti-IUU campaign on Chinese social media

June 10, 2019 — The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is reaching out directly to the Chinese public in a bid to turn opinion against illegal fishing.

The FAO recently launched a social media campaign on Chinese social media in Mandarin, aimed at popular platforms including microblogging site Weibo. The campaign calls for locals to “fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing” and also calls for the protection of fisheries to guarantee food security around the world.

The campaign is a new effort to inform the Chinese public of the impact of illegal fishing on the high seas – some of it conducted by Chinese vessels. The FAO’s campaign is an interesting contrast with state media, which tends to portray the development of China’s distant-water fleet as a strategic national priority.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

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