Saving Seafood

China accuses Vietnam of illegal fishing, dismisses compensation claim

March 29, 2019 — China has dismissed a request from the Vietnamese government for USD 130,000 (EUR 116,000) compensation for the sinking of a Vietnamese trawler in disputed waters of the South China Sea, claiming instead that the vessel was guilty of “illegal fishing” and was sunk before a Chinese vessel reached the scene.

The Vietnam Fisheries Association, a state sponsored body, wants USD 130,000 paid to the owners of a trawler sunk at the weekend, but in a regular media briefing this week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Yu Shuang described Vietnam’s claims as “fabricated.”

A note from the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry describes the ramming of a trawler by a “Chinese vessel numbered 44101” off the Hoang Sa Archipelago, commonly known as the Paracel Islands. Water cannon was used by the Chinese, who drove the vessel onto a reef and sunk it, with five fishermen on board rescued by another Vietnamese fishing boat, according to the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry.

While China is Vietnam’s top trading partner, relations between China and its southern neighbor continue to be battered by China’s heavy-handed enforcement of claims of ownership over a large swathe of the South China Sea. Relations have long been testy since China seized the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam by force in 1974, and since it recently built a military base there that includes a runway capable of handling military aircraft.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Florida Targets ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ In Spiny Lobster Fishery

March 21, 2019 — State wildlife investigators announced Tuesday that they’ve wrapped up a two-year investigation targeting what they say is a criminal conspiracy in the spiny lobster fishing industry.

Lobster is Florida’s most valuable commercial fishery, with landings usually worth more than $40 million a year.

Investigators went undercover and conducted surveillance in what they called “Operation Thimblerig.” Thimblerig is another term for shell game.

Three people face felony charges including racketeering, fraud and identity theft.

Investigators say the primary suspect is Elena Reyes, 67, owner and operator of Florida Marine Fisheries Consultant, a business with an address in Palmetto Bay.

She’s accused of cheating the state out of about $200,000 by underreporting the sale price of trap tag transfers. Every commercial lobster trap in Florida is required to have a tag from the state and the number of those tags is limited, making them valuable.

When the tags are sold, the state gets a surcharge, so by underreporting the sale price, Reyes created a “considerable deficit” in the amount the state was owed, according to the FWC.

Investigators say she also stole personal information from about 60 people who hold commercial fishing licenses. That information was used to get a restricted species endorsement for people who would not otherwise have qualified. A restricted species endorsement is special permission from the state required to fish for certain kinds of fish, including spiny lobster.

Read the full story at WLRN

Latest Oceana seafood fraud report takes aim at SIMP, but misses mark

March 20, 2019 — The intention of Oceana’s most recent report was to call for an expansion of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP). SIMP is an electronic traceability program designed to reduce fraud in the import of seafood into the United States. The program was created under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 and is managed by U.S. Customs and NOAA. Currently, SIMP requires importers to maintain records for shrimp, abalone, Atlantic cod, blue crab, dolphinfish, grouper, king crab, Pacific cod, red snapper, sea cucumber, sharks, swordfish, and tunas, detailing how they were caught or harvested and tracking the products until they reach the U.S. The program however does not extend past the importation stage – once it is in the domestic supply chain, the traceability systems end. Oceana is using their latest report as advocacy for including all seafood species (not just the ones listed above) and to extend traceability further into the supply chain past the point of importation.

Oceana sought to expose the limitations of this program by, “launching a nationwide investigation of some popular seafood types not covered by the program.” “Oceana employees and volunteers collected more than 400 samples from over 250 locations in 24 states and the District of Columbia, including restaurants, large grocery stores and smaller markets.”

Same critique of Oceana’s approach to seafood fraud

There were 29 different seafood “types” collected, but no criteria for how they chose these “types” other than they were not found in the SIMP program. Oceana used DNA testing to match the results with the label as per FDA guidelines. If something was labeled as simply “seabass”, but was more specifically Patagonian tooth, that label was considered incorrect and fraudulent. The same can be said for a label that read “snapper” but was not specific to explain which exact species. This is a critical decision by Oceana because it raises the incidence of seafood mislabeling found in restaurants where menu descriptions are often more general than in retail settings. Indeed, samples obtained in this study from restaurants were mislabeled 26% of the time compared to retail 16% of the time. As for seabass and snapper, they saw rates of mislabeling at 55% and 42%, respectively.

Oceana also attempted to exaggerate its results around catfish. Swai (Pangasius bocourti), a species of catfish, and channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) are two major seafood imports to the US, typically from East Asia. Some of these imported catfish species have been associated with low sustainability ratings and health concerns; there is no doubt that this is a tricky labeling situation for the FDA to monitor. But there is already a strict labeling law that requires all imported catfish species – even true channel catfish – to be labeled differently. “Catfish” can now only be on labels of US caught or farm raised catfish products, even if it is the exact same species, as is the case with channel catfish imports. This law was enacted as an economic buffer a few years ago to protect the US catfish aquaculture industry. To this end, Oceana found only 7% of catfish labels to be incorrect. To me, that is a pretty low rate for one of the most consumed seafoods in the country, but Oceana framed this result much differently.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

 

Maine’s 2019 eel fishing season set to begin as state cracks down on criminal activity

March 18, 2019 — A year after eel fishermen in Maine earned their highest-ever pay rates for their catch, and as the global appetite for the snake-like fish continues to grow, the state’s annual baby eel fishing season is set to begin Friday.

But while fishermen hope again to be paid more than $2,000 per pound for the baby eels — also known as glass eels or elvers — that swim into their nets this spring, some things will be different for the licensed dealers who buy them. State officials have put new rules in place aimed at preventing dealers from buying elvers under the counter, out of view of regulators who are charged with limiting Maine’s annual statewide harvest to 9,688 pounds.

The new regulations come on the heels of the latest investigation of criminal activity in the fishery in which a few dealers were buying elvers with cash from fishermen, with neither party reporting the catch to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The 2018 elver season was shut down two weeks early after state officials learned of the scheme out of concern that the unreported catch may have put Maine over its annual harvest limit.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

FishWise report outlines steps to improve labor conditions at sea

March 15, 2019 — Nonprofit seafood sustainability consultancy FishWise has released a report providing suggestions for ways seafood companies can improve vessel monitoring and transparency.

The report, “Open Water: Guidance on Vessel Transparency for Seafood Companies,” recommends companies obtain an International Maritime Organization (IMO) number for each fishing vessel, be proactive in transferring data to public vessel lists, and support the implementation of international agreements related to illegal fishing, improving vessel safety and standards, and protecting workers.

The report was issued in response to growing concern for the treatment of fishing crews on the high seas, including from U.S. government agencies, FishWise CEO Tobias Aguirre said in a press release.

“In order to safeguard human rights and reduce illegal activity at sea, companies – along with NGOs and governments – must commit to initiatives which improve vessel monitoring and transparency,” Aguirre said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

What is seafood fraud? Dangerous and running rampant, report finds

March 7, 2019 — If you order a filet of snapper at a restaurant, you probably expect to be served snapper. But a new report suggests there’s a strong chance you’ll be getting something else.

Oceana, a marine conservation nonprofit with a recent history of studying seafood mislabeling, today published a new report on the state of seafood fraud in the U.S.

They found that 20 percent of the 449 fish they tested were incorrectly labeled. Orders of sea bass were often replaced by giant perch, Alaskan halibut by Greenland turbot, and Florida snapper by lavender jobfish, to name a few.

Oceana made headlines in 2016 by publishing a report finding massive seafood fraud on a global scale. Since then, NOAA created the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), to track 13 species deemed at high risk of being fraudulently sold or sourced illegally.

None of the 13 SIMP monitored species were sampled.

“We wanted to highlight that there are other species other than the high-risk species,” says Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana and one of the report’s authors.

Read the full story at National Geographic

UN, Oceana, insurer issue guidelines to stop IUU fishing

February 28, 2019 — Several environmental advocacy groups including UN Environment and Oceana have partnered with major insurer Allianz to write guidelines that could help the marine insurance industry better detect and prevent instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The newly issued risk assessment guidelines to marine insurers include a checklist of 18 warning signs to detect higher risk vessels and contracts, Oceana said in a press release.

In 2017, the UN Environment’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance initiative recruited several major insurers including Allianz, AXA, Generali, Hanseatic Underwriters and The Shipowners’ Club to join a statement to combat IUU.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Stand-off mounts in Russia between crab sector and government

February 21, 2019 — A fight between Russia’s crab fishing sector at the Russian government has escalated after two damaging reports aired on national television and the government initiated a public investigation into crab magnate Oleg Khan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed reallocating 50 percent of Russia’s crab quota via an auction system. The proposal has generated an uproar in Russia’s seafood industry, with some industry representatives calling the proposal potentially disastrous.

In December, separate reports by television stations Russia and NTV aired investigative reports alleging serious issues related to illegal, underreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Russia’s crab fisheries. Both stations editorialized that only a shift to auctions would stifle the illegal activity that they said had become rampant in the industry.

In its report, NTV, a private channel owned by Gazprom Media holding, the media body of the mainly state-owned conglomerate Gazprom, accused the Russian crab industry of fishing beyond its quotas, and of illegally exporting the illegally-caught crab to South Korea and Japan. They criticized authorities in South Korean and Japanese ports for not doing their best to prevent illegal import of Russian crab, alleging they often turn a blind eye on improperly filed papers.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Group detects illegal-fishing activities during Visayan Sea’s closed season

February 19, 2019 — Oceana Philippines expressed alarm over probable illegal-fishing activities in the Visayan Sea during the enforcement of the three-month closed fishing season.

The international organization made the pronouncement after analyzing data from satellite sensor called Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) to detect by satellites, in a supposedly dark environment such as large bodies of water, artificial light sources like superlights.

Ocena said these are likely used by fishing boats, such as purse seiners and ring netters, and were found inside the prohibited area and in this case, the Visayan Sea covered by the closed fishing season order.

According to the VIIRS data during the three-month period prior to the Visayan Sea closed season, from August 16 to November 14, 2018, the monthly average of lights detected in the delineated area was 142.  Oceana said during the three-month closed season from November 15, 2018 to February 14, the monthly average was 48.

Oceana said these were detected in the Visayan Sea off Iloilo, in the municipalities of Carles, Concepcion, Barotac Viejo and Aruy; Cadiz City, Negros Occidental; and in Madridejos and Bantayan in Cebu.

Read the full story at the Business Mirror

GFW’s new data cell to combat illegal fishing with $5.9m gift from Bloomberg

February 15, 2019 — Global Fishing Watch (GFW) has taken another step in its effort to detect and prevent illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, launching a new data and analysis unit with the help of a $5.9 million, four-year commitment from the charity started by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Tong Long, GFW’s CEO, announced the new operation at the Seafood and Fisheries Emerging Technologies conference, in Bangkok, Thailand, on Thursday.

“The next five years will bring an inflection point for ocean data thanks to dramatically increased opportunities for satellite tracking, more public tracking, information sharing, processing power and advances in machine learning,” he said. “Our analytical cell will translate this flow of data and technology into insights and evidence that can help coastal and under-resourced states better understand fishing activity, improve governance and aid monitoring of marine protected areas.”

Founded in 2015 through a collaboration between Oceana, SkyTruth and Google, GFW has been using 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