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
May 16, 2018 — The following was released by the NGO Tuna Forum:
A diverse, global group of 118 commercial and non-profit organizations have joined together to call for immediate action by tuna RFMOs to address critical tuna sustainability priorities. In a letter dated 7 May 2018, the signatories call for accelerated action on the following global tuna fishery priorities:
Tuna fisheries represent not only a high-value protein source but also an important economic driver for countries and communities around the globe. As a highly migratory, global species, the health of tuna stocks is of global concern – as witnessed by the breadth of signatories to this appeal.
The letter and outreach effort are being coordinated by leading NGOs working on tuna sustainability globally through the NGO Tuna Forum. The letter has been shared with the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission in advance of its annual meeting later this month; it will also be sent to Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), and Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in advance of their 2018 general meetings.
While the signatories recognize that RFMOs have made progress to-date on some these priorities, accelerated action is required on all fronts to ensure the long-term sustainability of tuna fisheries.
Specific actions that IOTC, IATTC, ICCAT and WCPFC are being asked to address in 2018 include:
The organizations believe these measures are needed to positively impact the long-term sustainability of tuna stocks and the overall health of the marine ecosystem.
Read the full letter here.
April 26, 2018 — A panel of key industry members, NGOs, and Marine Stewardship Council officials met on 25 April to discuss what the future has in store for the MSC.
MSC CEO Rupert Howes was on hand to discuss the future of the program and the challenges it will need to face – and is already facing – after over 20 years of existence. Key to the discussion was the United Nation’s framework known as Sustainable Development Goals, and how MSC has had to adapt to a changing climate. Warming oceans have led to challenges for the environment, and in turn for fisheries that have seen drastic changes in the patterns of fish they harvest.
“Are our oceans in trouble? I think they are. You look at the impacts of acidification and climate change devastating coral reefs,” Howes said. “A number of MSC fisheries have lost their certificate as fish change their migration patterns.”
A theme throughout the discussion was the idea of striking a balance between pushing sustainability in response to new science and environmental challenges, without raising the bar so high that industry leaders decide the cost isn’t worth it.
Read the full story at the Seafood Source
March 17, 2016 — Seafood businesses are embracing an unusual way to reduce the risks posed by unsustainable practices and capacity challenges throughout the seafood supply chain: collaborating with their competitors, and even helping them make money.
That’s not a natural step for many businesses. But as industry leaders are proving, it’s sometimes the only way to address the complex sustainability issues embedded in the global seafood market. Building on their successful collaborations with NGOs (also once considered unthinkable by many in the seafood industry), seafood buyers, marketers and processors are using pre-competitive strategies as a way to ensure their long-term business health.
These strategies — collaborative market actions taken by competitive entities — are often the only way to address the system-level sustainability challenges in the seafood industry.
As in other industries (coffee and forest products, for example) in which pre-competitive strategies have improved social and environmental conditions, seafood businesses are responding to a market where competition for limited resources affects their business more than competition for customers does. If you don’t have the resource base to deliver products, you won’t have any consumers.
January 22, 2016 — Non governmental organizations Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), Oceana and WWF welcome a new European Commission (EC) requirement that all EU fishing vessels, and foreign vessels fishing in EU waters, need to have unique vessel numbers from construction to disposal.
The measure will affect up to 8,205 European vessels.
The decision is a key reform that helps close a decades-old loophole allowing fishing vessels around the world to evade scrutiny, fueling illegal fishing.
EJF’s Executive Director Steve Trent said, “This is a powerful signal by the EU that fisheries must become more transparent. Sometimes the simplest reforms can have profound impacts, and that is the case here.
“It is ridiculous that planes, cars and even European cows have unique numbers to enable lifetime tracking, but fishing vessels haven’t. This has allowed unscrupulous operators to fish illegally in one country and then swiftly change identity and nationality and do the same elsewhere.”
Until recently, a global scheme operated by the International Maritime Organisation(IMO) that assigned unique numbers to vessels for their entire lives specifically excluded fishing vessels.