Saving Seafood

China subsidies testing value of new WTO deal

October 4, 2022 — Members of the World Trade Organization will shortly elect a new chair to handle the next phase of talks to end harmful fishery subsidies with an informal meeting of delegates taking place 10 October, where participants will map out a course for negotiations.

Santiago Wills, Colombia’s ambassador to the WTO, chaired the negotiations on the landmark agreement struck in June 2022, which prohibited subsidy support for illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and limited fishing of overfished stocks. In a statement in late September, Wills urged WTO members to deposit their instruments of acceptance of the agreement as soon as possible so to allow it to enter into force. Hesaid work would continue on “advancing the negotiations” in preparation for the upcoming conference of trade ministers in December 2023.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Impact of WTO agreement on fishing subsidies derided as “trivial”

September 6, 2o22 — Oceana Senior Analyst Daniel Skerritt has warned the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, agreed to in June 2022, will only remove a “trivial” amount of harmful fishery subsidies unless further expanded, as promised when the deal was approved.

While acknowledging that the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is a “significant achievement, at least politically,” Skerritt said it currently falls short of addressing Target 14.6 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to “prohibit … subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing and eliminate subsidies that contribute to IUU fishing.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New program in Tuvalu tightening net on IUU fishing in Pacific

August 19, 2022 — The World Bank is funding a new program by the Pacific Island of Tuvalu, aiming to maximize the country’s earnings from tuna access deals by engaging a New Zealand satellite firm to monitor its waters.

The Tuvalu government’s fishery department engaged New Zealand firm Starboard Maritime Intelligence to complete 60 satellite scans of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under the World Bank-funded Pacific Islands Regional Oceanscape Program (PROP). The satellite monitoring aims to “chart the extent of fishing activity by non-authorized or non-reporting vessels.”

Read the full article at SeaFoodSoruce

The US Is a Dumping Ground for Illegal Seafood. Some Lawmakers Want to Clean Up the Market

June 13, 2022 — In the end, the eels were worth an estimated $160 million. Over four years, they trickled through U.S. seaports in 138 shipping containers that eight people were later accused of importing illegally.

In March, a grand jury indicted the CEO of American Eel Depot, a New Jersey company, along with three members of the staff and four business affiliates in association with the alleged crimes. U.S. attorneys charged that the eels—packaged and labeled as unagi—were illegally harvested as juveniles in Europe and Asia, then shipped around the world to disguise their origins. They were raised to adulthood in a Chinese fish farm and sent to the United States as purportedly legal fare.

Those 138 shipping containers represent just a tiny portion of the illegal seafood that is sold in America annually. According to a report by the U.S. International Trade Commission, illegal seafood accounted for $2.4 billion in sales in 2019, or nearly 11 percent of $22 billion in seafood imports that year. Should the allegations against American Eel Depot prove true, nabbing them is a coup for federal investigators, a rare win in an oft-elusive struggle to slow the speed of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) seafood coming through U.S. ports in huge volumes. It has been a problem for years, but legislation currently in Congress aims to advance efforts to curtail it.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

 

IOTC passes resolution tightening at-sea tuna transshipment rules

May 23, 2022 — The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) has passed a resolution aiming to improve the rules and oversight procedures on transshipment of tuna in the Indian Ocean.

The resolution, the text of which was slightly amended at the request of the Indonesian and Japanese delegations, was passed at the IOTC’s 26th session and associated meetings, held in Victoria, Seychelles, from 16 to 20 May. According to the commission, it is one step forward in combating illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing in the region.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

New Stanford Study Provides Targeting Guide for IUU Fishing Vessels

April 11, 2022 — IUU (Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported) fishing is a challenging problem for the maritime sector. Its implications for the health of marine ecosystems and for human rights have catalyzed calls for a speedy solution, and it is a focus of several recent corporate and government policy commitments. Unfortunately, the ability of these actors to intervene is compromised by a shortage of information that could be used to target labor abuse and IUU fishing risk.

Previous research has helped to underscore the broad relationship between labor abuse at sea and IUU fishing, but the scales and extent are not well understood. This was the focus of a Stanford University-led study released on Tuesday. Essentially, the study identifies the regions and ports at highest risk for labor abuse and illegal fishing.

Two main underlying risk factors emerged: A vessel’s flag state and the type of gear it carries onboard could be pointers to its illegal activities at sea. “We found fishing vessel flag to have the greatest impact on predicting port risk for both labor abuse and IUU fishing, followed by vessel gear type for labor abuse, and the interaction between flag and gear type for IUU fishing,” the authors concluded.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

 

FAO, NGOs push for guidelines on transshipment

January 31, 2022 — A campaign to develop, publicize, and enforce guidelines setting standards for the responsible management of transferring catch between vessels at sea is gaining momentum.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is leading an effort to close loopholes allowing for transshipment of catch on the high seas, a practice the United Nations organization said encourages illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Scientists pen letter to Congress urging SIMP expansion

December 16, 2021 — More than 100 scientists signed a letter sent to Congress on Monday, 13 December, urging lawmakers to ensure that all seafood products imported into the United States are caught using legal means.

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is often associated with human trafficking and other human rights abuses, and distant-water fishing forces vessel owners and operators to extend trips to “achieve a sizeable catch,” the university professors, research fellows, and scientists claimed in the two-page letter. In order to get that kind of catch, some operators will use forced labor and harvest fishing stocks beyond allowable limits, they alleged.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Sullivan-Whitehouse Provision in Defense Bill Aimed at Cracking Down on Pirate Fishing

December 16, 2021 — The following was released by the The Office of Dan Sullivan:

U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) today announced passage of their maritime security proposal as part of the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which has now cleared Congress and is expected to be signed into law by the President. The senators’ amendment requires the Secretary of the Navy to produce a report on maritime security measures related to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

“As the largest producer of seafood in the nation—roughly sixty percent of American seafood comes from our waters—Alaska is undoubtedly the super power of seafood for our country,” said Sen. Sullivan, honorary co-chair of the Senate Oceans Caucus. “I intend to do all I can to keep it that way, including ensuring that we have an all-of-government effort to crack down on illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. This provision will help protect America’s fishing fleet, as well as the seafood industry across the globe, against bad actors, particularly as China continues to use its fishing fleet to project power in the Indo-Pacific and, increasingly, around the world. I look forward to continue working with Senator Whitehouse on pirate fishing and on cleaning up our oceans. Our work together is a model for how two senators, from different sides of the aisle, can work together to get big things done for our nation.”

“We need to protect Rhode Island’s hardworking fishing industry by rooting out unfair competition from illegal pirate fishing,” said Sen. Whitehouse, a co-founder of the Senate Oceans Caucus. “I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Sullivan and colleagues on both sides of the aisle to curb illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.”

The amendment will require the U.S. Navy to share information about steps taken to support the dissemination of unclassified information and data to regional partners, best practices learned from public-private partnerships, and any new authorities or capabilities needed to support counter-IUU efforts in order to guide future legislative efforts.

The legislation builds on maritime security provisions Whitehouse secured in last year’s NDAA. Whitehouse championed measures in the previous defense bill that required the Department of Defense to update Congress on previously enacted measured to combat illegal fishing, directed the Navy to work with the Coast Guard to assess solutions for tracking vessels engaged in unlawful activity at sea, and requested that the Office of Naval Intelligence provide an update on foreign governments using distant-water fishing fleets to undermine American interests.

Each year, IUU fishing produces between 11 and 26 million tons of seafood, resulting in global economic losses valued between $10 billion and $23 billion.

The bipartisan Senate Oceans Caucus works to find common ground in protecting oceans and coasts. Thanks to the caucus’s leadership, Congress has taken steps to guard against IUU fishing, including ratifying a series of key IUU treaties with partner nations and passing implementing legislation to bring those treaties into effect.

 

More than 100 scientists call on Congress to end illegal fishing, human rights abuses in seafood supply chain

December 13, 2021 — More than 100 scientists on Monday called for federal action on illegal fishing, fraud and human rights abuses in the seafood industry.

In a letter to Congress, scientists called on representatives to end harmful practices along the seafood supply chain, including illegal, unreported and unregulated — or IUU — fishing and abuses like forced labor and human trafficking.

Human rights abuses and IUU fishing typically go hand in hand, scientists write, because unsustainable fishing practices push vessels further out to sea for longer periods of time, meaning some fishing companies rely on forced or underpaid labor to turn a profit.

“The interconnected issues of IUU fishing and human rights violations demand the United States take action to ensure that only safe, legally caught, responsibly sourced, and honestly labeled seafood is imported into our domestic market. The human rights abuses prevalent in the seafood sector make it clear that the United States needs to build in labor protections for those working at every stage in the seafood supply chain,” the letter’s authors write.

Read the full story at The Hill