Saving Seafood

JOHN SACKTON: The Winding Glass: Can we stop IUU fishing by thinking outside the box?

November 21, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Campaigns against IUU fishing by both the industry and environmentalists continually run up against a problem:  government enforcement.

Enforcement is not as much of an issue for rich countries with well-developed fisheries management systems, and strong enforcement histories.

In these cases, when IUU fishing happens, it can be successfully exposed, prosecuted and ended.

For example, in 2012, three Scottish fish factories and 27 skippers pleaded guilty and were fined more than £1 million for illegally harvesting mackerel in excess of EU quotas.

Carlos Rafael, the largest owner of scallop vessels in New Bedford, went to jail in 2017 over falsifying sales records to hide illegal landings.

Similar enforcement has happened in Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, France and elsewhere.

But too often governments are not able to effectively enforce against IUU, either because of lack of will, lack of resources, or simply poor ability to manage fisheries.

Our story today about the Vaquita porpoise in Mexico is a case in point.  Although Mexico is part of an international agreement to close fishing in the Northern Gulf of California, vessels were detected fishing in the closed zone this month.

The response of the UN CITES commission is to monitor the situation and take another look in 2020, a year from now.

There is another way we might approach IUU fishing, using supply chains to bypass governments that are ineffective or too weak to prevent the mixing of legal and illegal catch.

That is a blockchain system.  Last week at the International Coldwater Prawn Forum in St. John’s, Dan McQuade, Marketing Director for Raw Seafoods, a scallop company operating out of Fall River, MA, presented the blockchain system his company developed in partnership with IBM.

It was one of the clearest examples of a blockchain that I had seen.

Block I represents each scallop bag processed onboard a boat.  It is tagged with a printed label giving information on time and date, where caught, boat name, and other parameters as needed, even hold temperature.

Block 2 represents the receiving of this at the scallop packing plant.  Scallops are graded, repacked for distribution either at foodservice or retail.   Block 2 incorporates the link to Block 1, but details processing date, grade, size, license no., etc.

Block 3 represents the distributor, in this illustration, Santa Monica Seafoods.  This tag includes the date received, location, size, and date shipped to their customer.

Block 4 represents the restaurant, which includes date received, size, sell-by date if any, and various consumer marketing materials.

By scanning a QR code, the restaurant customer (or any participant in the supply chain) can bring up all the connected information at each step in the process.  The blockchain is in effect a guarantee that the original raw, untreated scallop, was never mixed with treated or adulterated scallops during its passage through the supply chain.

The technology of the blockchain involves public and private key cryptography, which makes it impossible to alter any of the blocks in the chain, once they are registered.

Raw Seafoods is promoting this as a marketing strategy with IBM to increase customer trust and satisfaction with their all-natural scallops.

But imagine a similar system applied to an area with significant IUU fishing, such as the upper Gulf of California.

In this case, fishing co-ops would be the originators of the first block, detailing product, date caught, and location.  Processors and receivers would be the second block, detailing date received, product, pack, ship date.  Importers to the US would be the 3rd block, again showing date received, customs data if needed, size, count, pack etc.  The buyer, whether a retail or foodservice user of shrimp would be the 4th block, registering the product into their system.

The cost of this would include computers, printers, bar code readers, the cloud computing services, and programming necessary to make it work.  But once in place, it is scalable at a remarkably low cost.  The transaction cost for the entire supply chain could likely be reduced to one or two cents per lb.

Obviously, the system relies on each party putting accurate information into their block.  However, because the record is permanent and instantly traceable, it lends itself to low-cost audits as needed.  For example, if the fishing co-op itself were suspected of laundering illegal catch, data controls like GPS location and date could be added, to make this more difficult.

When IUU fish or shrimp is comingled with legal product, it becomes infinitely harder to track.

The benefit to fighting IUU fishing is that the blockchain tag could become a buying or importing requirement into the US.  This would not eliminate IUU fishing going to underground or other markets, but it would allow non-government entities to provide the resources to control their own supply chain requirements.

Implementation of a system like this in an area with high IUU fishing would not depend on government enforcement action but instead would use the blockchain technology to validate the product from its point of harvest right through to its point of consumption.

This would allow buyers to actually avoid purchasing fish or shrimp that had co-mingled IUU product.

Enforcement to require only legal product, like with toothfish, for example, can be quite successful at reducing and eliminating IUU fishing.  With toothfish, it took years of concerted action by both the legal toothfish industry, governments in the fishing nations, a UN port state agreement and backlisting of IUU vessels, and US laws regulating imports of toothfish.  There simply is not the money or will in the international community to replicate this wherever IUU fishing is taking place.

Investment in a blockchain designed to reduce or eliminate IUU fishing from a regional hot spot could be a far less costly technological solution that does not depend on the enforcement budget of the governments involved.

However, it would depend on the commitment of the legal fishing parties at all levels of the supply chain.  Unless the harvesters at the first level buy into the system, it will not work.  But here, the provision of incentives would be far less costly than a broken enforcement system.

As these chains begin to be implemented for marketing purposes, it may be worthwhile to explore what a real IUU focused blockchain would look like as an alternative to the painstaking diplomatic process of governments convincing each other that they have to spend the resources and act.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

In Mexico, gains from fishery management reforms could surpass losses from climate change

October 25, 2019 — Abalone along the Pacific coast in northern Mexico have declined dramatically in the last decade because of lower oxygen levels prompted by climate change. But despite that, the Pacific Federation of Fishing Cooperatives (Fedecoop) has been able to prevent overfishing by limiting the total catch, according to Laura Rodriguez, the associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Latin and South American Oceans Program.

It’s the type of proactive governance that Mexico and Latin America need more of as climate change grows more severe, warping ocean conditions from temperature to acidity, salinity to oxygen levels, all while altering the life histories, distribution, and productivity of marine species, according to Rodriguez.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA Fisheries report identifies IUU in Ecuador, Mexico, South Korea

October 8, 2019 — NOAA Fisheries has released its 2019 report to the U.S. Congress, identifying the organization’s efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing internationally while also rebuking three countries for lack of sufficient enforcement against IUU.

The biennial report on improving international fisheries management – made to Congress as part of the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act – identified Ecuador, Mexico, and the Republic of Korea has three countries that failed to sufficiently comply with agreed-upon regulations related to IUU. The report also credited Ecuador, Mexico, and the Russian Federation for earlier work to react to IUU allegations made in NOAA’s 2017 report to congress.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Mexico, Ecuador, Korea in the spotlight of IUU activities

September 24, 2019 — In 2017’s report, NOAA identified Mexico, Ecuador and Russia for reported IUU fishing activities but have since taken corrective actions to remedy those activities.

In 2019’s report, Mexico, Ecuador and the Republic of Korea were identified for reported IUU activities.

In the report:

  • Republic of Korea: Failed to apply sufficient sanctions to deter its vessels from engaging in fishing activities that violate conservation and management measures adopted by an international fishery management organization.
  • Mexico: The country was again identified for the same matter in 2015 and 2017. It continued unauthorized activities of its fishing vessels in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story at Safety4Sea

California crab fishermen are testing “ropeless” gear to save whales—and themselves

September 4, 2019 — After decades of whaling decimated their population, humpback whale populations off the West Coast are finally recovering. Hundreds of them now make their way up and down the coast each year, migrating from tropical breeding grounds in Mexico and Central America to feeding areas further north. For the most part, humpback whales—known for their melodic songs, athletic leaps through the air, and altruistic behavior towards other marine mammals—make this journey unhindered, as they did for centuries of their evolutionary history.

But in recent years, a new threat has emerged along the West Coast: From November through mid-July, tens of thousands of deadly ropes hang in the water column, connecting buoys at the surface with crab traps on the seafloor, designed to harvest Metacarcinus magister, aka Dungeness crab.

A curious humpback might become entangled while playing around with fishing gear or rolling around in it, as the mammals are known to do with kelp. Probably more often, they may become entangled while feeding, which they do by making underwater, open-mouthed lunges to collect krill or small fish. Fishing line can get caught up in the cetaceans’ baleen teeth and restrict their ability to feed. Ropes can gradually saw through tissue, causing lacerations and ultimately death by infection. Whales that don’t manage to break free on their own or get cut free by professional disentanglers immediately may drown or die slowly through exhaustion or starvation.

Read the full story at The New Food Economy

Latin America Reckons With a Fish-Farming Boom

August 22, 2019 — When he failed to ignite a continental uprising against South America’s 19th-century colonial masters, Simon Bolivar was crestfallen. “He who serves the revolution plows the seas,” he despaired. Happily, Bolivar got it backward.

From the Yucatan Peninsula to the Strait of Magellan, aquaculture is revolutionizing food production. Plowing the oceans and inland waters, Latin America and the Caribbean expanded more than five-fold their output of captive finfish, crustaceans and mollusks and, from 1995 to 2016, nearly doubled the regional share of global aquaculture. Chilean fish farms now supply about 30% of the world’s salmon and earn the country more revenue than any other export except minerals. Ecuador is the world’s fifth largest supplier of marine crustaceans, Mexico ranks seventh, and Peru’s fisheries are poised to export their aquaculture technology. That makes Central and South America the fastest growing flank of the world’s fastest growing food industry, a global haul now worth $243 billion a year, and on track to double output by 2030.

For a region plagued by stop-and-go growth, aquaculture is a boon.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Mexico becomes top US trade partner one year into China conflict

August 8, 2019 — It’s been one year, so how’s that trade war with China working out for the nation’s seafood industry?

As with farmers, there’s not much winning and ongoing tweeted skirmishes have global fish markets skittish.

The quick take is the 25 percent retaliatory tariff imposed by China on U.S. imports last July caused a 36 percent drop in U.S. seafood sales, valued at $340 million, according to an in-depth analysis of Chinese customs data by Undercurrent News.

“Chinese imports of US seafood fell from $1.3 billion in the 12 months prior to tariffs (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018), to $969 million in the 12 months after (July 1, 2018-June 30, 2019), underlining the heavy impact of weaker demand for U.S. seafood subject to tariffs, while poor catch of U.S. wild-caught seafood was also to blame,” the News wrote.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Latest surveys show vaquita porpoise population at less than 19 individuals

August 6, 2019 — A new survey published in Royal Society Open Science has dire news for the survival of the vaquita porpoise – a small porpoise that lives in an area of the Mexican coast in the Gulf of California.

Using passive acoustic survey devices – which detect the vaquita due to the species’ use of echolocating “clicks” – the report determined that fewer than 19 individual vaquitas remained as of autumn 2018. The acoustic surveys, which started in 2011, have shown a 99 percent decline in the detection rate of the animals.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Population of Critically Endangered Vaquita Porpoises Now Less Than 19 Individuals

August 1, 2019 — There are now less than 19 individual vaquita porpoises left in the wild, according to an alarming new survey. Scientists say immediate measures are now required to save this enigmatic species from extinction.

If fishing nets continue to be used illegally off the coast of Mexico, vaquita porpoises (Phocoena sinus) will likely become extinct within a year, according to new research published today in Royal Society Open Science. This species, which lives exclusively in the upper Gulf of California, is listed by the IUCN as Critically Endangered. As the new research shows, and despite measures taken by the Mexican government in 2015 to crack down on the use of illegal nets, the population of vaquita porpoises continues to decline.

Vaquita porpoises are the world’s smallest cetacean. On average, females measure around 140 centimeters (55 inches) in length, while males are slightly shorter at 135 centimeters (53 inches) long. Vaquitas, which translates to “small cow” in Spanish, have a gray or white complexion, a tall dorsal fin, dark eye rings, and long flippers.

Read the full story at Gizmodo

Coast Guard wages battle against illegal fishing boats

May 29, 2019 —  In the sun-blasted, wind-riven waters between the South Padre Island jetties and the mouth of the Rio Grande, a different kind of border crossing crisis is playing out.

One side has spotter aircraft, radar and fully crewed patrol craft loaded with the latest technology. The other employs simple 20- to 30-foot boats with outboard motors, capitalizing on speed and a canny sense for beating a tactical retreat.

For Mexican lancha crews fishing illegally in the waters of the United States, low-tech often proves good enough.

In the past five years, U.S. Coast Guard interceptions (visual sighting at sea or by air) and interdictions (stop and seizure) are up. Last year, Coast Guard crews seized 60 vessels which were fishing illegally in U.S. waters.

This year, they’ve already boarded and taken 58.

Read the full story at The Brownsville Herald