Saving Seafood

End of groundfishing ban only the first step of many for fishery

July 20, 2018 — It’s “finally” over, but it’s only the first step.

A saga that dragged on for nearly eight months ended Thursday when NOAA lifted its groundfishing ban that sidelined about 17 vessels and 80 fishermen.

What shocked Cassie Canastra, who is on the board of Sector VII, about NOAA’s final interim rule, was its finality.

“It was in effect immediately. That was shocking to me. That was great news. It allows us to start leasing right away …,” Canastra briefly paused before finishing her thought, “if we can. It’s tough.”

NOAA waived any comment or delay period, although comments will still be accepted. It approved Sector IX’s lease-only operational plan and allocated quota to Sector VII, establishing it as a lease-only operation until Carlos Rafael’s vessels are sold to an independent party.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Regulators to allow banned fishermen to sell quota

July 20, 2018 — In a long-awaited decision that could have a significant impact on New Bedford, federal regulators said Thursday they will allow fishermen who had been banned from operating to sell their quota to other vessels, a move that city officials hope will boost the local economy.

Last fall, in an unprecedented punishment, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration banned 60 fishing permit-holders in the New Bedford area from allowing their boats to sail, after the owner of many of those vessels failed to account for the fish they caught and pleaded guilty to orchestrating a major fraud.

That decision resulted in the forced docking of 22 groundfishing boats operated by Carlos Rafael, a disgraced New Bedford fishing mogul known as “The Codfather.”

Many of the boats’ captains and crews, who collectively held a quota of 20 million pounds — or roughly 10 percent — of the region’s cod, flounder, and other bottom-dwelling species, have been out of work since November. The ban has also hurt many related businesses in New Bedford that supplied the vessels with rope, fuel, ice, and other fishing necessities.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Sea to Table founder: Don’t let perfect be enemy of good

July 20, 2018 — Sea to Table founder Sean Dimin has at last responded to the Associated Press expose that reported finding his New York-based seafood source certification company not doing its job, alleging that the news service cut corners in its reporting and failed to deliver a complete picture of his organization’s work.

AP described in its story, published June 13, how it staked out America’s largest fish market, in New York, used time-lapse photography, conducted DNA tests, and interviewed fishermen working on three different continents to raise questions about seafood that was guaranteed by Sea to Table as being sourced locally and/or from companies that employed upstanding practices.

As a result of the article, many of the companies previously participating in the Sea to Table program have left for fear of being associated with the controversy, as they are “more focused on the perception than the truth,” Dimin said in a statement released Wednesday.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Bristol sheriff’s captain convicted in ‘Codfather’ case

July 17, 2018 — A captain in the Bristol County sheriff’s office was convicted Sunday by a federal jury in connection with helping Carlos Rafael, the New Bedford fishing magnate, smuggle profits from his illegal overfishing scheme to Portugal, the US Attorney’s office in Boston said in a statement.

Jamie Melo, 46, of Dartmouth was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States and one count of structuring the export of monetary instruments. He was acquitted of one count of bulk cash smuggling. Melo was indicted October 2017.

Rafael, known as “The Codfather,” allegedly told undercover agents that he would conduct his smuggling schemes sometimes by himself and sometimes using others.

During the trial, evidence showed that Melo traveled with Rafael to the Azores in Portugal for a charity event sponsored by the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office. At the time, Melo was an administrative captain with the sheriff’s office.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Oceana report claims Italy ignoring IUU

July 13, 2018 — Oceana released a report on 12 July that suggests multiple European governments, particularly Italy, are turning a blind eye to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Mediterranean Sea.

The report, which used data from Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) tracking from Global Fishing Watch (GFW), found suspected cases of bottom trawlers operating in Fisheries Restricted Areas (FRA) and foreign vessels active in waters that potentially qualify as IUU. The biggest offender, Italy, was found to have more than 10,000 hours of illegal fishing activity from Italian-flagged bottom trawler-equipped vessels in the FRA established in the Strait of Sicily.

The area in the Strait of Sicily is designed to protect young hake populations where the stock is already overfished. Trawling in the area is prohibited.

The IUU vessels were discovered using GFW’s fishing detection algorithms. According to Oceana, the actual amount of IUU may be even higher, as some vessels could have either “lacked AIS equipment or have turned off AIS broadcasting.”

The findings were discussed at two governmental meetings of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean. According to Oceana, the countries “failed to provide clarification on whether any vessel has been fined or if any punishable action will be taken” during that meeting.

“While Mediterranean governments and their leaders are committing globally to fight pirate fishing under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the very same governments are turning a blind eye to potential cases in their own Mediterranean Sea,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana Europe. “Information gathered by Oceana indicates that fishing vessels that can easily be identified are blatantly violating the law in fisheries-restricted areas. They’re doing nothing to uphold the law.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Levittown Man Trafficked More Than 3,500 Protected Turtles, Feds Say

July 11, 2018 — Federal prosecutors indicted a Levittown man Tuesday for allegedly trafficking protected diamondback terrapin turtles.

According to William McSwain, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, David Sommers, 62, of Levittown, was charged with smuggling the turtles and submitting false records for a shipment sent to Canada. The indictment included four violations of the Lacey Act for allegedly trafficking more than 3,500 turtles in interstate commerce.

Federal prosecutors said Sommers would capture the diamondback terrapins and their eggs from marshes in coastal New Jersey. The Levittown man would sell them illegally and had sent turtles across the border with Canada in 2014 in a package that he claimed contained a book.

Sommers is accused of violating the Lacey Act, a wildlife trafficking law, while transporting the turtles from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, according to prosecutors.

“Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) are a semi-aquatic species of turtle native to brackish waters in eastern and southern United States. They are not found in the wild in Pennsylvania but have a dwindling habitat range in neighboring New Jersey. The terrapins are prized in the reptile pet trade for their unique, diamond-shaped shell markings. The turtles are protected under New Jersey law and by an international treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (“CITES”),” prosecutors said in a press release.

Read the full story at Levittown.com

UN Predicts Growth in World Fish Production

July 10, 2018 — World fish production is expected to grow over the next 10 years despite a slowdown in both farmed and wild caught fish, the U.N.’s food agency said.

In a new report on global fisheries, the Food and Agricultural Agency predicts world fish production will grow to 201 million metric tons by 2030 — an 18 percent rise over current levels.

This is despite the amount of wild caught fish leveling off and the number of farmed fish slowing down after decades of rapid growth.

“The fisheries sector is crucial in meeting FAO’s goal of a world without hunger and malnutrition, and its contribution to economic growth and the fight against poverty is growing,” FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said.

But the report said future growth depends on sustainable and stronger fishing management, and successfully fighting such problems as pollution, global warming and illegal fishing.

Read the full story at VOA News

One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

July 9, 2018 — One in three fish caught around the world never makes it to the plate, either being thrown back overboard or rotting before it can be eaten, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Its biannual report on the state of the world’s fisheries, released on Monday, also shows that total fish production has reached a record high thanks to more fish farming, particularly in China, with over half the fish eaten in the world now coming from aquaculture.

In contrast, the amount of wild caught fish has barely changed since the late 1980s and a third of commercial fish species are overfished, the FAO says. Fish farms will continue to expand and the FAO projects that almost 20% more fish will be eaten by 2030, helping sustain the growing global population. However, farmed fish can harm wild populations because often their feed, made from wild fish such as sardines and anchovies, is caught at sea and they can cause pollution.

Fish are a crucial source of nutrition for billions of people around the globe, but overfishing is rife in some regions, with two-thirds of species overexploited in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Southeast Pacific. Previous analyses that include estimates for illegal fishing indicate that wild fish stocks are declining faster than FAO data suggest and that half the world’s oceans are now industrially fished.

Read the full story at The Guardian

‘How are we going to get paid?’; fishing ban continues to suffocate local businesses

July 9, 2018 — Anne Jardin-Maynard is an accountant. She doesn’t own a commercial fishing vessel. The New Bedford native works within an office on Centre Street.

Yet for more than seven months, a groundfishing ban implemented by NOAA has prevented Jardin-Maynard from receiving a paycheck. That doesn’t mean the owner of Jardin & Dawson, a settlement house, which handles payroll and accounting for fishing boats, has stopped working.

“If the boats aren’t fishing, how are we going to get paid,” Jardin-Maynard said.

NOAA announced the groundfishing ban at the end of last November as a result of Carlos Rafael falsifying fishing quota. It was also meant to delay operations for Sector IX, the fishing division where Rafael’s boats were associated, so it could draft provisions to prevent repeat offenses.

Since that time, though, the sector has assigned new board members multiple times, provisions have been drafted, and quota has been gathered as potential repayment, but the ban remains.

“I think they need to move it along,” said Jardin-Maynard, who is a new board member of Sector IX as well. “This has been a long time coming. The person that was involved in it (is penalized). It’s not fair for the other people to be involved in this. He’s paying his price.”

Rafael is serving a 46-month prison term in part for falsifying fishing records. While he serves his time in federal prison in Fort Devens, about 80 fishermen have been out of work sending a ripple effect throughout shoreside businesses from ice houses to processors to settlement houses.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

HANK SOULE: Revitalizing waterfront is still up to sectors and Carlos Rafael

July 9, 2018 — Carlos Rafael misreported his groundfish catch, and in its piece “Time for NOAA to let Sector IX fish again,” the Times is misreporting the facts.

First, NOAA didn’t calculate, as the piece states, that Rafael misreported just 72,000 pounds of grey sole. He openly admitted to stealing over 10 times that amount, of several different fish stocks. Rather, NOAA has apparently calculated that all but some remaining grey sole has been repaid, with quota seized earlier to cover the debt.

Second, neither Sector IX nor Sector VII has submitted a plan to return to fishing. Sector IX purged itself of nearly every vessel and permit enrolled there, retaining the bare minimum required to maintain legal status. It submitted an operations plan — which explains how a sector and its boats will track and report their quotas — which states that Sector IX has no immediate intent to resume fishing.

Sector VII is even more explicit. It absorbed the many Rafael vessels and permits shunted from Sector IX under the condition that they “will be enrolling as a non-active member and will not be authorized to fish” until Carlos Rafael sells them. In fact, Sector VII explicitly requested NOAA’s help to DENY those vessels permission to harvest.

Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times