Saving Seafood

ICCAT adopts swordfish management plan, but Japan and China block efforts to strengthen shark finning ban

November 19, 2024 — The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has adopted a management procedure for Atlantic swordfish, but another proposal to strengthen the commission’s ban on shark finning was derailed by Japan and China.

ICCAT held its annual meeting from 11 to 18 November and had already completed a management strategy evaluation for North Atlantic swordfish. NGOs like The Pew Charitable Trusts pushed for the ICCAT – a regional fishery management organization (RFMO) – to adopt the strategy to move away from annual quota negotiations toward an automated system that makes management decisions less political and more science-based.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Can Japan sustain the rebound of its ‘phantom fish’?

October 7, 2024 — Around the room are different pieces of equipment used in Yoichi over a century ago. Black and white photos of the fish meal fertilizer process line the walls. He points to a poster showing the herring catch in Hokkaido from 1870 to the 1950s.

“So in the high peak, there were close to 1 million tons of herring being caught, like 970,000 tons,” he says. “But you know, herring catch declined over the years and in the mid-1950s the herring fishery collapsed.”

In recent years, the fishermen have tried to manage the fishery themselves, to avoid another collapse in the future. Hatcheries aided in the recovery, but some co-ops and processors are taking the charge to conserve the herring population seriously, with strict fishing management. Ikuo Wada, who leads the Ishikari Fishing Co-Op in Hokkaido, says the shorter fishing period and wider nets made a big difference. And they’ve even secured a sustainability certification from the Japanese government.

But Kouta Fukuhara, a dried herring processor I spoke with in Yoichi, is skeptical.

“The current structure of Japanese fishing is not sustainable. Let me compare with Alaska. Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulates all kinds of commercial fishing — when it starts, how much fish to be caught… In Japan, we don’t have a such a legal structure,” Fukuhara says. “And the fishermen catch a lot of herring, bring it back and take the fish to the market. And the market is saturated with herring. Too much herring in the market, and the price goes down and they don’t make much money.”

Read the full article at KCAW

ALASKA: While local herring are more affordable and accessible in Japan, some still look to Alaska for eggs

October 3, 2024 — It’s another fiercely cold March morning, and a dozen or so local fish processors are pacing back and forth in an icy, cavernous warehouse in Otaru. It’s Saturday, usually a day off for the folks who work at the Otaru Fishing Co-Op, but since it’s herring season they’re hosting an auction this morning. Every minute counts with herring, so they have to move these fish quickly.

The buyers circle each pallet stacked high with styrofoam boxes. One man lingers over a fish box, a cigarette dangling between his lips, trying to discern the quality. When the buyers are done looking, they go to a heated room next door with sofas and vending machines and wait.

Read the full article at KCAW

Climate change heavily affecting fish stocks in Japan, resulting in historically low catch totals

September 18, 2024 — Japanese catch totals of important seafood species have fallen dramatically, and climate change is the suspected cause, according to new reports, with catches of Japanese flying squid and Pacific saury suffering in recent years compared to historical averages.

The Tokyo-based National Pacific Saury Stick Net Fishery Cooperative released countrywide catch data on saury through the end of 2023, showing a 36 percent increase from the record-low catch recorded in 2022. Nationwide landings went from 7,092 metric tons (MT) to 9,525 MT. However, this is still well behind the 350,000 MT landed in 2008 and the 225,000 MT caught in 2012.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Wriggling gold: Fishermen who catch baby eels for $2,000 a pound hope for many years of fishing

March 14, 2024 — They’re wriggly, they’re gross and they’re worth more than $2,000 a pound. And soon, fishermen might be able to catch thousands of pounds of them for years to come.

Baby eels, also called elvers, are likely the most valuable fish in the United States on a per-pound basis – worth orders of magnitude more money at the docks than lobsters, scallops or salmon. That’s because they’re vitally important to the worldwide supply chain for Japanese food.

The tiny fish, which weigh only a few grams, are harvested by fishermen using nets in rivers and streams. The only state in the country with a significant elver catch is Maine, where fishermen have voiced concerns in recent months about the possibility of a cut to the fishery’s strict quota system.

Read the full article at ABC News

Red Sea turmoil continues to impact marine traffic; US container ship attacked

January 17, 2024 — Tokyo, Japan-based maritime shipping operator Nippon Yusen (NYK) has suspended sailing through the Red Sea and is considering route changes in the near future.

The announcement, made on 16 January, according to Reuters, follows Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd’s decisions to reroute earlier this month. In December 2023, a Maersk vessel was attacked in the Red Sea by the Yemen-based Houthi militia, who claim to be carrying out these attacks in response to Israel’s retaliation against Hamas following the latter group’s offensive into Israel on 7 October.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The US is buying up the Japanese seafood exports that China banned—but for how long?

October 31, 2023 — The US military is helping Tokyo curb the economic fallout from China’s ban on seafood products from Japan.

Right after Japan started releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant in late August, China halted seafood exports from the country. It cited food safety fears from damage to the environment and marine life—a concern dismissed by regulators after thorough investigation. (Never mind that Chinese vessels kept fishing in the same waters.)

The US military stationed in Japan has started bulk-buying Japanese seafood to feed soldiers in messes and aboard vessels, and to sell in shops and restaurants on bases, Rahm Emanuel, US ambassador to the country, told Reuters in an interview yesterday (Oct. 30). It’s the first time the US armed forces have bought Japanese fish.

A “long-term contract” has been established between the US military and fisheries and co-ops in Japan, Emanuel said. Washington’s strategy to “wear out China’s economic coercion is [to] come to the aid and assistance of the targeted country or industry,” he added, harking back to his September speech in which he called economic coercion “the most persistent and pernicious tool” in China’s economic toolbox.

This may be a clever diplomatic move, but it’s unclear how sustainable it is. The total release of all the wastewater from Fukushima could take up to 40 years. Would China really keep a ban in place for four decades? And would the US keep coming to Japan’s aid for all that time?

Read the full article at Quartz

 

Proximar nets JPY 8.8 billion loan for RAS salmon farm in Japan

February 13, 2023 — Bergen, Norway-based Proximar Seafood has secured JPY 8.8 billion (USD 66 million, EUR 61 million) in financing via a loan offer from a syndicate that includes two Japanese banks for the land-based salmon farm it’s building near Tokyo, Japan.

The offer consisted of a highly confident letter along with a term sheet – which the company said should be “considered a strong statement of comfort from the banks” on providing the financing the company needs for its salmon recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility, currently under construction in in Shizuoka Prefecture. The names of the banks were not released by Proximar. Proximar signed a contract with RAS specialist AquaMaof in early 2020 for a design and build of a facility with a 5,300 MT annual production capacity of gutted salmon in its first phase.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Price of Japan’s top tuna highlights country’s recovery from Covid-19

January 13, 2023 — The top bluefin tuna sold during the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s Central Wholesale Market in Toyosu reached JPY 36,040,000 (USD 274,120, EUR 256,785), carrying on a tradition started at the market’s former location in Tsukiji and signaling some recovery from the pandemic.

The high price has nothing to do with the actual value of tuna, nor with its relative scarcity. As in years past, it’s a PR stunt and a reasonably inexpensive way for the purchaser to get worldwide name recognition.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource