Saving Seafood

Thai Navy shows off technology to fight fishing abuses

December 9, 2016 — SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand — Thailand’s navy on Friday showed off new technology to monitor fishing boats in a renewed effort to crack down on illegal fishing, forced labor and corruption in the seafood industry.

New equipment the navy has been testing includes a GPS tracking system to monitor fishing vessels, a central database and a scanner for officials to check documents.

The system, demonstrated to reporters, won’t fully be in place until April, but outside groups are already skeptical it will achieve what it’s set out to do unless more human enforcement is put into place.

Thailand has been under pressure from the European Union after revelations that it relied heavily on forced labor, and is facing a potential total EU ban on seafood imports unless it reforms its fishing industry.

‘‘We’re doing this to increase the effectiveness of inspection, because putting humans in the loop has caused some errors in the past,’’ said Cdr. Piyanan Kaewmanee, head of a Thai navy group that oversees illegal fishing, who pointed to corrupt officials as a major issue. ‘‘We can ensure that our workers are accounted for, and aren’t lost at sea or transferred from ship to ship.’’

New on Friday was a handheld scanner that can read crew identification and other papers to make sure workers are documented and the fishing gear is licensed. During the inspection demonstration, workers crouched and huddled together, holding up green identification cards, as Thai navy sailors boarded their ship, looked through documents, and patted down workers.

The scanners will be integrated into a vessel monitoring system which will keep track of the location of all Thai fishing vessels using GPS technology and a central database.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

Obama finalizes stricter monitoring of seafood imports

December 9th, 2016 — The administration U.S. President Barack Obama has announced the implementation of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program to qualified enthusiasm from environmental groups.

The fruits of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing and Seafood Fraud, authorized by Obama in June 2014, the program will require “at-risk” seafood that is imported into the United States to be tracked to its source and properly labeled.

Studies by ocean conservation watchdog Oceana found that around one-third of market and restaurant seafood products were mislabeled, while the organization estimates that up to one-third of the wild-caught seafood being imported into the United States is the result of IUU fishing.

Oceana’s senior campaign director Beth Lowell released a statement today saying the program should help protect U.S. fisherman from being undermined by illegally caught imports.

“For the first time ever, some imported seafood will now be held to the same standards as domestically caught fish, helping to level the playing field for American fishermen and reducing the risk facing U.S. consumers,” Lowell’s statement said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source 

French retailers, companies guided on avoiding illegal fishing

December 5th, 2016 — NGOs Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), SeaWeb Europe and WWF-France have issued a joint advisory note in collaboration with retailer Carrefour to inform French industry, retailers and brands of the risks associated with illegal fishing.

Following the positive acceptance of a similar guide issued to the U.K. supply chain last year, the French adaptation offers expert advice on source risk assessment and mitigation, and encourages action to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishery products entering French supply chains.

Presented in Paris, France, the new advisory sets out key recommendations, including:

  • Strengthened transparency and traceability of supply chains
  • Support for the effective ratification of the FAO Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) and ILO Conventions relevant for fisheries
  • The introduction of IMO numbers or alternative unique verification identifiers linked to a global record of fishing vessels
  • Promote harmonization of import verification procedures across all EU member states, including an electronic catch certification system

According to EJF Executive Director, Steve Trent, there is a growing appetite for information on where seafood is coming from.

“Knowing where, and under what conditions, seafood is caught is vital for building legal and sustainable fisheries, and companies have a right to demand suppliers provide information on where products come from,” he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Tech solutions to tackle overfishing, labor abuse at sea

November 28th, 2016 — Fishing boats used high-tech systems to find vast schools of fish for decades, depleting stocks of some species and leading to the complete collapse of others. Now more than a dozen apps, devices and monitoring systems aimed at tracking unscrupulous vessels and the seafood they catch are being rolled out — high-tech solutions some say could also help prevent labor abuse at sea.

Illegal fishing, which includes catching undersized fish, exceeding quotas and casting nets in protected areas, leads to an estimated $23 billion in annual losses, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, overfishing close to shore has pushed boats farther out, where there are few laws and even less enforcement to protect workers from abuse. Slavery has been documented in the fishing sectors of more than 50 countries, according to U.S. State Department reports.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said using technology at sea could eventually mean “there is not one square mile of ocean where we cannot prosecute and hold people accountable…”

However, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, cautions that catching human traffickers goes beyond finding boats.

Read the full story at WRAL

The latest weapon in the fight against illegal fishing? Artificial intelligence

November 21, 2016 — Facial recognition software is most commonly known as a tool to help police identify a suspected criminal by using machine learning algorithms to analyze his or her face against a database of thousands or millions of other faces. The larger the database, with a greater variety of facial features, the smarter and more successful the software becomes – effectively learning from its mistakes to improve its accuracy.

Now, this type of artificial intelligence is starting to be used in fighting a specific but pervasive type of crime – illegal fishing. Rather than picking out faces, the software tracks the movement of fishing boats to root out illegal behavior. And soon, using a twist on facial recognition, it may be able to recognize when a boat’s haul includes endangered and protected fish.

The latest effort to use artificial intelligence to fight illegal fishing is coming from Virginia-based The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which launched a contest on Kaggle – a crowdsourcing site based in San Francisco that uses competitions to advance data science –earlier this week. TNC hopes the winning team will write software to identify specific species of fish. The program will run on cameras, called electronic monitors, which are installed on fishing boats and used for documenting the catch. The software will put a marker at each point in the video when a protected fish is hauled in. Inspectors, who currently spend up to six hours manually reviewing a single 10-hour fishing day, will then be able to go directly to those moments and check a fishing crew’s subsequent actions to determine whether they handled the bycatch legally – by making best efforts to return it to the sea unharmed.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Update to ISSF Participating Company Compliance Report Shows Improvement Across All Measures

November 21, 2016 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:

WASHINGTON — The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has released its Update to ISSF Conservation Measures & Commitments Compliance Report, which shows a conformance rate of 95.6 percent by 25 ISSF participating companies as of October 31, 2016, across all 20 measures then in effect. ISSF Participating Companies account for about 75% of the global canned tuna market.

The November 2016 Update is based on audits conducted June 2016–October 2016 on measures where some companies had “minor” or “major” nonconformance. Improvements noted since the June 2016 ISSF Conservation Measures & Commitment Compliance Report was published include:

  • 14 companies were found to be fully compliant with all 20 measures.
  • 19 companies were fully compliant in 17 or more conservation measures.
  • “Minor” non-conformance with measures dropped from 11.6% to 4.4%.
  • All 6 “major” non-conformances have been corrected, resulting in the first 0% “major” non-conformance rate since the report has been published.

The ISSF Conservation Measures & Commitments Compliance Report is published annually to track ISSF participating companies’ progress in conforming with ISSF conservation measures like these:

In addition to these summary reports, third-party independent auditor MRAG Americas issues individual company reports that document in detail each company’s compliance with conservation measures. This year, for the first time since ISSF started tracking and reporting company compliance in 2013—and in response to requests for deeper information—ISSF now publishes the individual company compliance reports on its website.

“That many of the tuna industry’s key players are conforming to science-based conservation measures, opening their books to independent auditors, and reporting their findings publicly, would be accomplishment enough,” said ISSF Board Member Dr. Bill Fox, Vice President, Fisheries, WWF-US. “But efforts to improve participating company conformance within the audit year—increasing the conformance rate by seven points in just five months—raises the bar for the industry and the market as a whole. And it represents continuous improvement in action.”

ISSF continually expands and refines its science-based conservation measures, which now number more than 25. New measures passed by the ISSF Board of Directors in October 2016—some taking effect in 2016, and others in 2017 or later—cover non-entangling FADs, product traceability, and fishing capacity management.

More Information about ISSF Conservation Measures & Compliance

For long-term tuna sustainability, a growing number of tuna companies worldwide are choosing to participate with ISSF, follow responsible fishing practices, and implement science-based conservation measures. From bycatch mitigation to product traceability, ISSF participating companies have committed to conforming to a set of conservation measures and other commitments designed to drive positive change—and to do so transparently through third-party audits.

“We recognize that transparency underpins all of the initiatives we tackle, and all of the collaborative efforts we undertake,” said ISSF President Susan Jackson. “Transparency reinforces the understanding that we are not only committed to making a difference, but to clearly demonstrate ongoing improvement in meeting that commitment.”

As part of its commitment to transparency and accountability, ISSF engages third-party auditor MRAG Americas to audit ISSF Participating Companies—assessing their compliance with ISSF’s Conservation Measures and Commitments. MRAG Americas conducts independent auditing based on a rigorous audit protocol.

Satellite, cellular technology starting to catch up to IUU scofflaws

November 10, 2016 — Technological advancements in satellite and cellular technology are being brought to bear in the international fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, enabling greater levels of surveillance and policing in the vast – and previously mostly lawless – open ocean.

An article in Business Insider details the story of how the tiny island nation of Kiribati successfully used satellite imaging provided by Global Fishing Watch, a partnership between Google, Oceana and SkyTruth, to catch a commercial fishing vessel fishing illegally in a no-catch zone. Central Pacific Fishing Company, the owner of the vessel, Marshalls 203, was fined USD 2 million (EUR 1.8 million) as a result of the investigation.

Another group that is pushing the envelope when it comes to using tracking technology onboard fishing vessels is Pelagic Data Systems. The company, based in San Francisco, California, has developed a cellular vessel tracking system specifically designed for small-scale fisheries and small-boats, which compose as much as 95 percent of the world’s fishing fleet.

The smaller, solar-powered units that Pelagic Data Systems has designed are much cheaper than an AIS system, and have been successfully implemented on a variety of vessel sizes and types. The units record a geolocation every few seconds, stores it on the vessel after compressing and encrypting it, and uploads data when it comes into contact with a cellular network, according to PDS chief scientific officer Melissa Garren, who presented as part of the SeafoodSource webinar “Small vessels, big data: Silicon Valley takes up the fight against IUU fishing” on Thursday, 20 October.

“The challenge is to put all vessels on the map using a combination of all different sorts of technology,” Garren said. “Whatever it takes to improve fisheries management, the livelihood of fishermen, and the environmental sustainability of our marine resources.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fishermen say they’ll appeal mandate to pay at-sea monitors

November 1, 2016 — BOSTON — New England commercial fishermen suing the federal government over the cost of at-sea monitoring say they plan to take their case to the federal Court of Appeals.

At-sea monitors are workers who collect data that help inform fishing regulations. The government shifted the cost of paying for monitors to fishermen earlier this year.

A federal district court judge ruled in July that it was legal to require fishermen to pay for the monitors, who can cost hundreds of dollars per day.

The fishermen behind the lawsuit have filed a notice of appeal that says they intend to take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.

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

Hawaii lawmakers hold public meeting on foreign fishermen

October 20, 2016 — HONOLULU — Hawaii lawmakers held a meeting to discuss conditions in the Hawaii longline fishing fleet and heard from an observer who described what it’s like to live on the boats.

“The worst conditions would be no toilet, no shower, no hot water,” said Ashley Watts, a former observer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who spent weeks at sea with various boats over seven years at the federal agency. “You have a cold water deck hose as a shower…the water tastes like iron.”

The meeting on Wednesday followed an Associated Press investigation that found some fishermen have been confined to vessels for years.

A federal loophole allows the foreign men to work but exempts them from most basic labor protections. Many foreign fishermen have to stay on the boats because they are not legally allowed to enter the United States.

“It’s hard to sleep, because every day we don’t do something is another night that some folks are suffering,” state Rep. Kaniela Ing said. “It’s very frustrating to just hear people just kind of punt or say maybe over time we can find a solution.”

Ing and other lawmakers pressed representatives from the fishing industry and government agencies about what can be done to increase oversight and improve conditions in the industry. Ing asked Jim Cook, board member of the Hawaii Longline Association, whether fishing boat captains could provide copies of contracts between fishermen and boat captains to the state, and Cook said he believed that would be possible.

The Hawaii Longline Association, which represents fishing boat owners, created a universal crew contract that will be required on any boat wanting to sell fish in the state’s seafood auction.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

New Fisheries Monitoring Technology to Take Center Stage at Seafood Source Webinar

WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — October 19, 2016 — This Thursday, October 20, advances in low-cost small-scale fisheries monitoring will be showcased on Seafood Source’s monthly webinar series. Viewers will learn how emerging technology is significantly smaller and cheaper than traditional vessel monitoring systems, and is helping to lead the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. These new tools are also ensuring that small-scale and artisanal fishermen remain competitive as standards for seafood transparency increase.

“Small Vessels, BIG Data: Silicon Valley Takes Up the Fight Against IUU Fishing” will feature Pelagic Data Systems’ (PDS) CEO Dave Solomon and Chief Scientific Officer Melissa Garren, along with Jack Whalen of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and will be hosted by Seafood Source editor Cliff White. It will be held from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. EST, and is free to view with registration at seafoodsource.com.

PDS is the developer of lightweight vessel tracking systems made specially for small vessels that are being used to fight IUU fishing, and the exploitation of global fish stocks. It has partnered with fishing and conservation groups to pilot its technology in Southeast Asia, as well as Latin America and West Africa. The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership is a non-profit that works to rebuild depleted fish stocks.

Technology such as the one developed by PDS provides monitoring for vessels that are otherwise unable to accommodate large and expensive traditional satellite-based monitoring systems. Such technology is growing in importance as regulations increasingly put a premium on transparency in the seafood supply chain. Just recently, the U.S. raised standards on imported seafood, making it more important than ever for fishermen to have cheap tracking tools to verify sustainable practices.

Using vessel-monitoring tools can also help small-scale and artisanal fishermen stay competitive as the demand for seafood transparency grows. Certifications for fairly traded and sustainably caught seafood can increase the price of catch, but require more comprehensive monitoring to achieve. New technologies allow fishermen to be proactive in demonstrating they are doing things the right way, without waiting for regulations to force their hand.

Today, 95 percent of the global fishing fleet consists of small-scale vessels, and most of these are invisible to data monitoring. This allows for IUU fishing, which hurts the vast majority of the fishing industry and steals profits from legitimate fishing businesses. Filling in the data gap for small-scale fisheries has the potential to benefit law-abiding fishermen while helping to rid the world of IUU fishing.

Register for the webinar here