Saving Seafood

Peru becomes second nation to put fishing vessels on public monitoring site

October 29th, 2018 — Peru has taken a “bold” step toward making its commercial fishing practices more transparent, putting at least 1,300 of its industrial fishing vessels on a publicly accessible website so that their locations can be monitored in real-time, Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and Oceana report in a jointly issued statement.

The change marks a 10-fold increase in the number of Peruvian vessels detectable by GFW’s Automatic Identification System (AIS), and represents a big boost in efforts to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the groups said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Majority of US Seafood Producers Call to Stop Undermining Magnuson with End Run for Marine Monuments

September 13, 2016 — WASHINGTON — SEAFOOD NEWS — The US has one of the most highly successful systems for managing living marine resources in the world.  Under the Magnuson Act, stakeholders come together to determine fisheries management policy, guided by the best available science.  The result has been a huge rebuilding of US fish stocks, and the protection of essential habitat.  Many tradeoffs have been made to create closed areas, and to preserve fishing rights where coastal conditions support them.

The keys to this success are first, the decision process is completely open and transparent.  Every argument and decision is made in open forums, and according to the best available science.  This limits the ability to use fisheries resources to score political points.

Both Canada and Europe’s fisheries suffered greatly as governments for years abused their authority by trading fishing privileges for other political favors; with the result that these stocks have been significantly overfished. Only in the last few years has this process begun to be reversed.

Use of the Antiquities Act to create marine monuments, although legal, makes an end run around both state and federal management systems, and in short trades monument designations, made without public review,  for political gain.

Today, in advance of the “Our Oceans” conference being held later this week at the State Department, the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) delivered a letter to the White House calling on the President to refrain from designating new marine monuments under the Antiquities Act. Copies of the letter were also delivered to the offices of Senators representing the states of the signers. (Letter)

The letter has over 900 fishing industry signers and is supported by 35 fishing organizations that together represent a significant majority of domestic seafood producers.  It urges the President to conserve marine resources through the federal fisheries management process established by the bipartisan Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act (MSA).

“The federal fisheries management process is among the most effective systems for managing living marine resources in the world,” the letter states. “The misuse of the Antiquities Act to create a marine monument is a repudiation of the past and ongoing efforts of almost everyone involved to continue to make Magnuson-Stevens management even more effective.”

The NCFC members join an ever-growing list of fishing organizations and individuals opposing new ocean monuments via use of the Antiquities Act. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Council Coordination Committee, and over two dozen individual fish and seafood industry trade organizations have previously written to the White House asking for the MSA continue to guide fisheries management.

Mayors from major East and West coast ports have previously expressed their concerns with monument designations in letters to the White House. NCFC members have also spoke out in opposition to designating a monument off the coast of New England, which would hurt the valuable red crab, swordfish, tuna, and offshore lobster fisheries.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

U.S. Closing a Loophole on Products Tied to Slaves

February 15, 2016 — WASHINGTON — President Obama will sign legislation this week that effectively bans American imports of fish caught by forced labor in Southeast Asia, part of a flurry of recent actions by the White House, federal agencies, international trade unions and foreign governments to address lawlessness at sea and to better protect offshore workers and the marine environment.

Last week, the president signed the Port State Measures Agreement, which empowers officials to prohibit foreign vessels suspected of illegal fishing from receiving port services and access. The United States became the 20th country to ratify the pact.

“Step by step, I do really think we’re making progress, and there is a growing awareness of how much we need to get more control over the world’s oceans and the range of crime that happens out there,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in an interview on Monday. He added that he hoped to build on the momentum in the fall during a global meeting, called Our Oceans, that he will host in Washington.

The amendment that the president has said he will sign this week would close a loophole in the Tariff Act of 1930, which bars products made by convict, forced or indentured labor. For 85 years, the law has exempted goods derived from slavery if American domestic production could not meet demand.

In July, The New York Times published an article about forced labor on Thai boats, many of which catch the fish destined for pet food. It chronicled the lives of several dozen indentured Cambodian migrants, most of them boys, working on the ships, all of whom are now free. Among them was a man named Lang Long, who was shackled by the neck during his three years of captivity at sea.

“I think most Americans were horrified to learn that the fish in the pet food they give to their cats and dogs was being caught by children forced to work on ships against their will,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, who, along with Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, sponsored the amendment, which has long been a goal of human rights advocates. The amendment focused on all types of forced and child labor, not just that used to produce seafood, and was passed by the Senate on Thursday with bipartisan support.

About 90 percent of seafood for human and pet consumption in the United States is imported, and the oceanic administration’s proposed rules are meant to protect threatened fish species and crack down on seafood entering American ports that has been caught illegally or is fraudulently labeled. The new rules would impose chain-of-custody reporting requirements for 13 species of at-risk fish, including cod, snapper, mahi mahi and several types of tuna.

The list includes types of fish that represent about 40 percent of the seafood that enters the United States, when measured by value. A spokesman for the oceanic agency said it hoped to include all imported seafood species, though no timetable has been set.

Read the full story at The New York Times

No Atlantic Monument, but New Marine Reserves Announced at Chile Conference

October 5, 2015 — President Barack Obama declared new marine sanctuaries in Lake Michigan and the tidal waters of Maryland on Monday, while Chile blocked off more than 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean near the world-famous Easter Island from commercial fishing and oil and gas exploration.

The announcements came as top officials, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, attended an international conference on marine protection in the Chilean port city of Valparaiso. Several nations also outlined plans for tracing seafood imports to combat overfishing and stemming increased pollution in the ocean.

The new protected waters in the United States are the first to be designated as such in 15 years, the White House said in a statement.

The 875-square mile area of Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan extends from Port Washington to Two Rivers, containing a collection of 39 known shipwrecks. Fifteen are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Mallows Bay-Potomac River in Maryland encompasses a 14-square mile area of the tidal Potomac River next to Charles County. Nearly 200 vessels, some dating to the Revolutionary War, are found in the largely undeveloped area that provides habitat for endangered species of wildlife and fish.

Read the full story at the New York Times