Saving Seafood

UN, EU body’s efforts to protect Mediterranean criticized

October 31, 2018 — The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) has adopted 11 recommendations in a bid to address the critical situation of stocks in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, it has said.

The regional fisheries management organization, created under both the EU and the United Nations, took the decisions at its 42nd session, held at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Italy.

“After a year of continuous efforts, all countries involved have reached, for the first time, a consensus on all new proposals presented,” it said. “These binding decisions relate in particular to multi-annual management plans for trawl fisheries in the Levant, the Ionian Sea and the Strait of Sicily, conservation measures for sharks and rays, a multiannual management plan for European eel in the Mediterranean, and further emergency measures for small pelagic stocks in the Adriatic Sea.”

Moreover, important decisions towards improving monitoring control and surveillance have been adopted, such as international joint inspection and surveillance schemes outside the waters under national jurisdiction in the Strait of Sicily and the Adriatic Sea, the marking of fishing gear, and access to information and data related to monitoring, control and surveillance, it said.

In light of the growing focus on non-indigenous species, that are transforming Mediterranean and Black Sea ecosystems, the body also agreed on the creation of a monitoring network for these species — a first for the region — as well as on regional research programs for blue crab in the Mediterranean and for rapa whelk in the Black Sea.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Over 150 scientists warn of Mediterranean ‘overfishing crisis’

September 24, 2018 — More than 150 international scientists have signed NGO Oceana’s “Mediterranean Statement” urging the EU and its member states to end what it calls an environmental crisis in the Mediterranean, it said.

It cited a recent report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calling it the world’s most overfished sea.

“This environmental crisis is not just a warning – it’s the harsh reality of the Mediterranean Sea. Europe has for decades turned a blind eye to this situation, and this passive stance has brought us today to almost the point of no return,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana in Europe.

“The EU must curb overfishing to avoid the worst-case scenario — the collapse of fish stocks — by adopting a science-based management plan in the western Mediterranean,” he said.

Overfishing in the Mediterranean affects around 90% of evaluated fish stocks, with average exploitation rates exceeding more than double the recommended sustainable levels, said Oceana, citing the EU’s own Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

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

UN warns the Mediterranean Sea is worlds’ most over-fished

July 10, 2018 — A health-check report on world fisheries and aquaculture by the United Nations (UN) has revealed that one-third of global marine fish stocks are now fished at unsustainable levels and have reached “over-fished” status.

NGO Oceana flags particular attention to the state of the Mediterranean — which according to the report published today, is the world’s most over-fished sea — as well as the Black Sea.

The 2018 State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN confirmed a global trend toward unsustainable fishing.

33% of global fish stocks are now overfished, a figure that is increasing year after year, Oceana claimed the report said.

“The new report from the FAO is discouraging: it shows that the world still has a long way to go toward responsible management of our oceans. The number of over-fished marine fisheries has risen over the last years. And, despite increasingly sophisticated and aggressive fishing techniques, global catch has continued to decline,” said Andrew Sharpless, Oceana CEO.

Read the full story at Undercurrent 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

Where’s the kelp? Warm ocean takes toll on undersea forests

August 22, 2017 — APPLEDORE ISLAND, Maine — When diving in the Gulf of Maine a few years back, Jennifer Dijkstra expected to be swimming through a flowing kelp forest that had long served as a nursery and food for juvenile fish and lobster.

But Dijkstra, a University of New Hampshire marine biologist, saw only a patchy seafloor before her. The sugar kelp had declined dramatically and been replaced by invasive, shrub-like seaweed that looked like a giant shag rug.

“I remember going to some dive sites and honestly being shocked at how few kelp blades we saw,” she said.

The Gulf of Maine, stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, is the latest in a growing list of global hotspots losing their kelp, including hundreds of miles in the Mediterranean Sea, off southern Japan and Australia, and parts of the California coast.

Among the world’s most diverse marine ecosystems, kelp forests are found on all continental coastlines except for Antarctica and provide critical food and shelter to myriad fish and other creatures. Kelp also is critical to coastal economies, providing billions of dollars in tourism and fishing.

The likely culprit for the loss of kelp, according to several scientific studies, is warming oceans from climate change, coupled with the arrival of invasive species. In Maine, the invaders are other seaweeds. In Australia, the Mediterranean and Japan, tropical fish are feasting on the kelp.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

EU opens consultation on 2018 CFP, overfishing

July 7, 2017 — The EU has announced a consultation period on the way in which levels of fishing effort and quotas are set according to the new common fisheries policy (CFP), and on the basis of scientific advice.

The contributions received, as well as the outcome of the seminar on the state of the stocks and the economics of fishing fleets that will take place in September, will feed into the European Commission’s proposals on fishing opportunities for 2018.

The consultation will run July 6 to Sept 15, 2017.

The EU claimed in its consultation documents that “significant progress in implementing the 2013 CFP reform” has been made:

  • Meeting the maximum sustainable yield objective. According to the latest assessment from the scientific, technical and economic committee for fisheries, based on 2015 data, 39 of 66 stocks assessed in the North-East Atlantic were exploited within FMSY (equating to 59%, up from 52 % in the previous year).
  • Rebuilding stocks. Average stock biomass in the North-East Atlantic increased by 35% between 2003 and 2015.
  • Improving overall economic performance. The EU fleet registered record net profits of €770 million in 2014, a 50% increase over the 2013 figure of €500m.
  • Better balancing fishing capacity and fishing opportunities. In recent years, the balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities across the entire EU fleet has improved.

“Despite this progress, further efforts are needed in particular to bring down the high levels of overfishing in the Mediterranean, to reduce the number of individual stocks exploited above FMSY in the North-East Atlantic and to implement the landing obligation.”

NGO ClientEarth took issue with what it said was an overly optimistic viewpoint.

“A report released today by the European Commission paints a misleadingly positive impression of progress towards sustainable fishing, by glossing over the fact that progress has slowed or reversed in recent years,” it said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Mediterranean countries looking elsewhere for seafood

May 26, 2017 — European Mediterranean countries now import almost twice as much seafood as they produce, according to a report just released by WWF.

Decades of rising demand, coupled with falling fish stocks due to increasing use of industrial techniques, poor catch monitoring, the spread of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing and numerous environmental factors have all contributed to less seafood productivity from the once-abundant Mediterranean Sea.

For local inhabitants and tourists who flock to the region, fresh local fish is as much a part of the Mediterranean experience as its golden beaches and sunny climate. Artisanal fishing communities, fish markets, seafood restaurants and maritime heritage are all central to the area’s unique economic, social and cultural identity.

The report, “WWF Seafood and the Mediterranean 2017,” finds that the idealized image no longer matches the reality of the situation in the Mediterranean, where more than 93 percent of assessed fish stocks are threatened by overfishing.

The largest catches in the region are made up of sardines and anchovies (42 percent), demersal species (21 percent), cephalopods (8 percent), crustaceans (7 percent), molluscs and bivalves (6 percent), and tuna and swordfish (5 percent).

European Mediterranean nations such as Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia now harvest three times as much of their catch from Atlantic waters as they do from the Mediterranean. For every kilo of seafood caught by these nations, another two kilos are imported, the majority from developing countries including Morocco, Turkey, Mauritania, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Libya. Product is also exported to these countries, particularly low-value processed and canned products, fishmeal and baitfish.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU fisheries chief outlines first multi-annual management plan for the Mediterranean

March 9, 2017 — European Union Commissioner for Environment, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Karmenu Vella, has presented a multi-annual plan for small pelagic fish stocks in the Adriatic Sea.

The proposal, which covers four different small pelagic stocks but is focused on anchovy and sardine – the most commercially valuable fishery – is the third multi-annual plan that the European Commission (EC) is putting forward since the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). It is also the first ever in the Mediterranean and if fully implemented has the potential to increase stocks by 20 percent.

This will bring tangible improvements in the working conditions for fishermen, with an expected increase in salary of approximately five percent and profits of around 10 percent.

According to the EC, the plan marks a milestone in its approach to fisheries management, and shows that long-term viability of fisheries can still be made possible in a sea basin in which 93 percent of the fish stocks are assessed as over-exploited.

Without this plan, anchovy and sardine stocks would most likely collapse between 2020 and 2030, said Vella.

Read the full story at Seafood Source