Saving Seafood

Data noose tightening on “handful” of nations responsible for overfishing

January 24, 2019 — Tony Long is the CEO of Global Fishing Watch, a freely accessible and near real-time digital map of the global ocean aimed at exposing illegal fishing. With Japan, Peru, and Indonesia all recently agreeing to share data with Global Fishing Watch as part of an effort to combat illegal fishing, Long is now pushing for more countries to contribute data. Additionally, Long’s office is working with governments and NGOs to make the Global Fishing Watch map more complete and allow the tracking of vessels guilty of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. 

SeafoodSource: How important are the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations on eliminating fishing and fuel subsidies in the fight against IUU fishing?

Long: Cutting or eliminating fuel subsidies are an important fisheries management measure because … fuel subsidies are part of the overcapacity equation – especially for distance fleets and also high-seas fishing. People following the negotiations closely tell me that there are disagreements within the WTO as to whether this is the case. It is vital that this matter can be resolved during the negotiations.

SeafoodSource: You point to a “handful of wealthy countries” as being culpable in IUU fishing. Is this a corporate or a government problem?

Long: It’s both, but ultimately, governments are the ones that allow IUU fishing practices in their fleets to continue. There are many factors beyond harmful subsidies, including weak penalties, poor enforcement and licensing flags of convenience that allow IUU fishing to occur. That said, individual corporations also have huge responsibility. In particular, they can help drive out practices such as bonded labor and slavery at sea, they can demand cleared provenance to their catch by demanding complete and proper tracking of vessels, catch documentation and open licensing as part of their contract with the supply chain. The recent green card given to Thailand is a good example of government, corporations, and NGOs working together to improve a dire situation.

SeafoodSource: According to an article in Science Advances, “On the high seas, 97 percent of all such fishing effort detectable by AIS is conducted by vessels flagged to higher-income nations. Dominance of this high-seas industrial fishing effort at the level of flag nation was highly uneven. The vast majority (86 percent) of this effort can be attributed to only five higher-income countries/entities, in rank order high to low: China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Spain.” Have rich countries also been willing to work with you and to share information?

Long: We have a [memorandum of understanding] signed with Japan to improve research and understanding of IUU fishing in the North Pacific and share data. We have staff in Korea and Taiwan to take forward the benefits of transparency. [And] we are in the very early stages of working with a coalition of European Union-based NGOs to look at the E.U. fleet and coastal states where [those vessels] fish. We are engaging with NGOs and foundations interested in China in order to identify a strategy on working with China.

Read the full Seafood Source

Japanese seafood giants invest in land-based aquaculture

January 8, 2019 — Two of Japan’s largest seafood companies, Maruha Nichiro and Nippon Suisan Kaisha, or Nissui, soon expect to begin commercial shipments of fish farmed in land-based facilities in Japan, reports Nikkei.

At a land-based salmon farm in the town of Yuza, in the northwestern prefecture of Yamagata, Maruha Nichiro farms a variety of salmon known locally as sakuramasu. Maruha, which developed the system with valve maker Kitz, expects to ship its first batch of sakuramasu soon.

Maruha president Shigeru Ito said he aims to market the fish as a Japanese product in a country that relies on imports for 90% of its salmon consumption.

Meanwhile, Nissui plans to begin inland farming of mackerel next year, according to Nikkei, aiming to become the first company in Japan to sell farmed mackerel commercially. The key goal of the project is to cut costs by teaming up with a business in another industry that has a water treatment technology.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Japan’s ‘King of Tuna’ Pays Record $3 Million for Bluefin at New Tokyo Fish Market

January 7, 2018 — The first tuna auction of the year at Tokyo’s new fish market set a high bar on Saturday after a restaurant chain paid a record price — more than $3 million — for a giant bluefin tuna.

The city’s famed Tsukiji fish market was relocated to the new space, in the Toyosu neighborhood, late last year to make way for the 2020 Olympics. The market was well known for its pre-dawn tuna auctions, a tradition that is continuing at the new location.

On Saturday, dozens of buyers walked along row after row of giant tuna, examining the fish before making their bids. The $5.3 billion enclosed, air-conditioned facility at Toyosu is a far cry from the grime and grit of Tsukiji, which served as the city’s main fish market for 83 years.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Japan Reportedly Will Leave International Whaling Group To Resume Commercial Hunts

December 20, 2018 — Japan will withdraw from an international organization established to limit whale hunts in an apparent attempt to resume commercial whaling, according to Japanese media outlets.

Public broadcaster NHK reports that government officials informed ruling party lawmakers on Thursday. The Asahi Shimbun, citing unnamed sources, said a formal announcement was likely “within days.”

Japanese whaling expeditions in Antarctic and Pacific waters kill hundreds of whales annually, ostensibly for research.

As NPR’s Colin Dwyer explained last year:

“Under the rules of the International Whaling Commission, of which Japan is a member, there has been an international ban on commercial whaling since 1986 — though there is an exception for whaling conducted with ecological research in mind. It is this exception that allows Japan’s whaling fleet to embark on its yearly hunt in the icy waters of Antarctica.

“Yet many critics view this use of the exception as a fig leaf, exploited by Japan’s Fisheries Agency to cover for the practice of reportedly selling whale meat commercially.”

In 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan wasn’t conducting enough research to justify the hunts, and ordered Japan to revoke Antarctic whaling permits. After a year’s pause, Japan began what it said was a scaled-back whaling program.

Read the full story at NPR

Japanese boat owners charged with helping smuggle shark fins

December 17, 2018 — U.S. prosecutors in Hawaii are accusing the owners and officers of a Japanese fishing boat of helping Indonesian fishermen smuggle nearly 1,000 shark fins, worth about $58,000 on the black market.

It’s against U.S. law to remove the fins of sharks at sea. Prosecutors say the fishermen harvested fins from sharks that were still alive, then discarded their carcasses into the ocean. Fins are a pricey delicacy often used in soups

The boat’s owner, Japanese business Hamada Suisan Co. Ltd., and JF Zengyoren, a Japanese fishing cooperative that the vessel belongs to, were charged with aiding and abetting the trafficking and smuggling of 962 shark fins, the U.S. attorney’s office in Hawaii said. The boat’s captain, fishing master and first engineer were also charged.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Fishing crew charged with shark fin trafficking

December 12, 2018 — The owner and officers of a Japanese-flagged fishing vessel were charged in federal court Tuesday with aiding and abetting the trafficking and smuggling of nearly 1,000 shark fins into and out of Hawaii last month.

During a year-long tuna-fishing expedition, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat —the M.V. Kyoshin Maru No. 20 — allegedly harvested fins from about 300 sharks, at least some species of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

One of those species, the oceanic white tip shark, has declined in population by about 80-95 percent across the Pacific Ocean since the mid-1990s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, the crew cut the shark fins off, “in some instances while the sharks were stunned but still alive, and discarded the finless carcasses into the ocean,” all under the supervision of the captain and at the direction of the ship’s officers.

The illegally-harvested fins were discovered in the luggage of 10 Indonesian nationals, who had been employed as fishermen on the boat. The Indonesian fishermen had been dropped off from the fishing boat at a port in Honolulu and were intending to catch a flight to Jakarta.

Read the full story at The Garden Island

Sailors for the Sea takes new approach to seafood sustainability in Japan

December 5, 2018 — Ryan Bigelow, the senior program manager for Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, sees Japan as a country ripe for seafood sustainability ratings like those his program provides.

Japan’s population consumes a vast amount of seafood – collectively, the country has one of the largest seafood consumption footprints in the world (third behind China and the European Union) – and because of that, an improvement in the overall sustainability of the seafood sold and eaten in Japan can have a major impact.

Seafood Watch’s Buyers Guide, which gives seafood either a “best choice,” a “good alternative”, or “avoid” recommendation to seafood commonly found in supermarkets, is well-known in the United States. (Its ratings are color-coded green, yellow, and red, similar to the colors found in traffic signals.)

The guide is tailored to each U.S. state in order to give recommendations relevant to the seafood available there. They can be downloaded in PDF form on a single page and easily folded into a wallet or pocketbook.

But Bigelow openly acknowledges that Japanese consumers are not familiar with Seafood Watch’s guides.

“We don’t promote our program there,” he told SeafoodSource.

Still, for the fourth consecutive year, Bigelow attended the Tokyo Sustainable Seafood Symposium, which took place at Iino Hall and Conference Center on 1 November. Initiated in 2015, the annual event brings together Japanese professionals involved in the seafood industry to discuss issues surrounding smarter management of global fisheries resources. The all-day program featured a wide range of speakers and panelists.

“We attend the symposium to share our experiences advocating for more sustainable seafood in North America, both our successes and our failures,” Bigelow said. “Hopefully, that knowledge allows the sustainable seafood movement in Japan to grow more quickly and avoid some of the issues we encountered over the last 20 years.”

According to Bigelow, the closest parallel to the Seafood Watch Buyers Guide in Japan is the Sailors for the Sea Blue Seafood Guide.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Only way is up for pollock prices in 2019

November 20, 2018 — The prices for all forms of pollock look set to continue to increase next year, sources in the US, Russia, China and Europe told Undercurrent News.

Prices for pin-bone out (PBO) blocks, double-frozen fillet blocks, and the headed and gutted (H&G) raw material the latter is based on, all look set for higher levels in 2019, having already firmed in 2018, the sources said.

During the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo, held Nov. 7-9 in a venue close to Qingdao, ex-warehouse prices of around $3,500 per-metric-ton were being discussed for PBO blocks for A season. Prices for B season of 2018 were done around $3,350/t. Also, double frozen fillet block prices of around $3,200/t are also being discussed for next year.

“We see the price of $3,500/t reached and confirmed and we will take it up from there,” Fedor Kirsanov, CEO of Russian Fishery Company (RFC), told Undercurrent at the show, of the situation with PBO. US suppliers and also a large European buyer confirmed this level.

The level in the A season of 2018 was around $3,000/t (see image below and use the Undercurrent prices portal for interactive data), a leap from the very low level of around $2,350/t hit in the B season of 2017, as the price bottomed out. The pace of the increase has shocked buyers, but producers have been quick to point out this is only a return to a historical norm.

“We felt the fall was pretty quick. Now, it’s going more back to normal. It’s also not like pollock has gone off the charts. It’s back to a level where everyone can make money. It’s going back to a level where producers can make investments,” Tom Enlow, CEO of UniSea — a pollock, cod and crab processing plant in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, which is owned by Japan’s Nippon Suisan Kaisha (Nissui) — told Undercurrent.

The speed of the price increase has been driven by new markets taking the fish, he said.

“When the prices were very low, the producers looked at new markets. There has been more focus on deepskin for Asia and also surimi. Demand for surimi has been very strong, due to the shortfall in warmwater surimi,” the Nissui executive said. “The shortage in warmwater is the reason Thailand is so hot at the moment for surimi. Also, Japan is stable, but they take almost half of the surimi the US produces.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Ongoing China-U.S. Trade War Likely to Bring Changes to Global Seafood Industry

November 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Chinese seafood exports to America have grown this year, despite the trade war. However, the trade war with the U.S. could have global impacts, writer Amy Zhong reports from China.

Chinese seafood exports to the U.S. were US $3.22 billion during 2017, while the exports have risen by 5.75 percent to reach US $2.161 billion within the first eight months of this year compared with the same period last year. But things are starting to shift. The U.S. used to be the largest market for Chinese tilapia, but not any more.

Against this backdrop, a seafood processing seminar was hosted in Dalian in October and participants gathered to talk about issues like global seafood trading and brand building.

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 created great opportunities for its aquatic processing industry but it has begun to shift attention to the domestic market with the recession of foreign markets, trade conflicts and increasingly great domestic demand. Thus, the Dalian seminar was of great importance in areas such as opportunities and threats the aquatic industry encounters in domestic and foreign markets.

The country used to rely on foreign buyers in its seafood sales from 1981 to 2005, Cui He, the president for China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance, was quoted as saying in a recent FishFirst article. Its export ballooned from 2005 to 2013, while its imports also grew between 2013 and 2017. The country’s seafood trading volume exceeded 10 million tons in 2017, which makes it a market larger than any other in the world, according to the story. That means an increasing number of aquatic suppliers have placed more importance on this market with great potential thanks to its steady export opportunities and rapid import increase. Countries like Norway, Canada and Australia have said in the past that China is the main target in their seafood promotions.

Japan, the U.S. and Europe are the three main buyers of China’s seafood, according to the country’s statistics, while other important buyers include South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Japan ranks first among all of China’s seafood buyers while the U.S. also is significant, buying a lot of China’s white shrimp and tilapia.

Although there seems to be no drastic change to the global seafood market at present, China has played a role of great importance in the processing industry. The trade war does take a toll on some export-oriented seafood companies in Dalian and Qingdao, but it also pushes them to upgrade their systems. In short, more seafood trading stimulates the development of China’s seafood processing sector.

China’s statistics have shown a reduction in China’s reliance on U.S. seafood buyers since 2014. The U.S. anti-dumping policies on shrimp and catfish have influenced China’s processors since the mid-2000s. Lately, the two countries have become competitors in sourcing such seafood as Ecuador’s white shrimp after 2014, with Ecuador selling more white shrimp to China recently. China also has purchased more basa from Vietnam than the U.S. as well.

Recently, the U.S. has removed cod, pink salmon and pollock from its import list that are subject to higher tariffs. Cod has been delivered to China for further processing before being re-exported to Europe, the article said. At the same time, tariffs are having less effect on China’s seafood purchases from the U.S. than its sales to the U.S. Tilapia sales have hurt the most: The U.S. was once the largest buyer, but due to the trade war, it is now looking to other countries for substitutes.

SeafoodNews reporter Amy Zhong also writes that Chinese trade journals say that the U.S.-China trade war could also change the global seafood industry. Seafood businesses worldwide are uncertain whether China can maintain its status as the seafood processing center, since some companies have been forced to relocate to other regions, like Africa. However, China has begun developing business in more countries included in its One Belt, One Road initiative, which in turn has encouraged China to upgrade its seafood industry.

Wang Zhanlu, the director for WTO Division of Agricultural Trade Promotion Center, was quoted as saying countries usually control the agricultural trade more strictly with higher tariffs, but China is comparatively open and is second only to the U.S. in terms of its agricultural imports. In 2017, seafood ranks first in the country’s agricultural exports and accounts for 27 percent of the country’s agricultural export total. Meanwhile, seafood imports account for about 17 percent of its imports.

Zhong writes that according to seafood trade expert Leng Chuanhui, Japan consumes about 8.4 million tons of seafood every year, while it produces around 4.7 million tons on its own. Most of Japan’s seafood are wild harvests, while some are raised in fresh- or saltwater aquaculture. The country buys about 3.7 million tons of seafood from other countries, while its main export markets are Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, while 14.2 percent of its seafood import is from China.

Professor Qin from Guangdong Ocean University was quoted as saying that oysters have also become more popular in China. Global production was only 5.32 million tons worldwide in 2017, while the trading volume was about 70,000 tons. But China’s production rose by 4.7 percent in 2017 compared with that of 2016 to reach 4.87 million tons. Its oyster market value grew by 25 percent to reach 25.4 billion yuan (~$3.7 billion USD) that year. Most of the Fujian, Guangdong and Shandong oysters are currently destined for barbecues, but likely will be more finely processed in the future.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

Industry launch large-scale squid project at China Fisheries Expo

November 7, 2018 — The following was released by Ocean Outcomes:

Four leading seafood buyers, Chinese seafood industry groups, retailers, fishermen, and sustainable seafood enterprises came together today at the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo to celebrate the much anticipated launch of the East China Sea and Yellow Sea Squid FIP.

The fisheries improvement project—or FIP for short—is a precompetitive project aimed to improve the management and fishing practices of Chinese trawl, purse seine, and gillnet vessels targeting Japanese flying squid. JFS are one of the most commercially lucrative species of squid, and in the Chinese side of East China Sea and Yellow Sea alone, annual production can approach 30,000 metric tons.

“Squids are one of the most loved seafoods, but compared with many species, squid sustainability efforts are lagging,” said Songlin Wang who is leading the project. “Given squid account for about 5% of global fishery landings, it’s encouraging to see that change.”

In the East China and Yellow Seas, China has important domestic fisheries which target migratory JFS stocks. These supply both a booming domestic market and are exported to the Europe Union, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, and South Korea, among many others, by global seafood companies such as those involved in the project.

However, JFS fishing practices and management need improvement in a number of ways to ensure a continued supply of squid products. For example, China lacks a JFS-specific harvest strategy outside of a summer fishing moratorium banning the use of motorized fishing vessels, and it’s difficult to verify the exact catch locations for some squid products from the region.

“Around a third to half of all squid passes through a Chinese seafood supply chain, whether caught, processed, traded, or consumed,” said Dr. He Cui, who heads CAPPMA, a Chinese national seafood industry group with thousands of members. “Given CAPPMA’s commitment to both domestic and global seafood sustainability, it’s in our interest to ensure a future where all squid stocks are healthy. This project will help us explore a path forward.”

The FIP will work to address areas of concern through implementation of a five year improvement work plan designed, in part, to establish science-based stock assessments and bycatch monitoring protocols, harvest rules fit to JFS 1-year lifecycles, and traceability systems to verify and track locations of harvest.

Since its inception, the FIP has grown beyond founding members Ocean Outcomes, Sea Farms, and PanaPesca to include support from a number of industry stakeholders, including, Quirch Foods, Seachill, China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance (CAPPMA), Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and local Chinese suppliers Genho, IG and the Zhejiang Industry Group.

The success and growth of the project were due, in part, to the collaborative forum of the Global Squid Supply Chain Roundtable, facilitated by Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, which heavily featured the East China Sea and Yellow Sea Squid FIP in recent meetings at the North America Seafood Expo in Boston, MA.

“We couldn’t have envisioned the enthusiasm and support for this work when this project began three years ago,” said Dick Jones, who has been working to improve seafood industry practices for decades. “Precompetitive industry collaboration is key to ensuring durable and positive change. This project demonstrates that message is catching on.”