Saving Seafood

CFI-CF launches global knowledge competition to combat overfishing

January 25, 2022 — The Coastal Fisheries Initiative’s Challenge Fund (CFI-CF) has launched the Global Knowledge Competition (GKC) to find innovative solutions addressing overfishing in coastal fisheries in four countries: Cabo Verde, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Peru.

The competition is asking for coalitions or individual organizations to create approaches that promote sustainable use and management of fish stocks through the coordination of fisheries, communities, and seafood industry stakeholders in the four countries. Winners of the competition will receive public recognition by the World Bank and other partners and will gain access to services to refine their solutions to aid future implementation. Both winners and runners-up will be able to share their solutions with the seafood industry and investors.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

World fish stocks are in worse state than expected, study says

November 22, 2021 — The world’s fish population is in a dire state, with about half of assessed stocks being overfished, according to a study backed by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest.

The rate of depletion is worse than previous estimates of just over a third, Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation said in a report Sunday. A tenth of fish stocks worldwide is now on the brink of collapse, reduced to 10% of their original size, the study shows.

The findings are based on 48% of the total global catch for which there’s sufficient data, according to the report. The other half lacks information to say if they are sustainable or not. More than 1,400 stocks were assessed from 142 countries.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

 

Report finds China becoming more secretive about its fishing subsidies

October 29, 2021 — A new study prepared for campaign group Oceana suggests 85 percent of China’s subsidies to its fleet are harming the sustainability of fish stocks.

The report, “China’s Fisheries Subsidies Propel Distant-Water Fleet,” found that while China has reduced its fuel subsidies to the distant-water fleet, it is becoming more secretive about releasing data on direct and indirect subsidies to fishing firms.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Conference Tackles Overfishing In The World’s Oceans

October 12, 2021 — Protecting the world’s oceans and its resources could be coming closer to reality as countries gather this week in China for the United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity.

Nations are expected to start keeping promises to protect 30% of the world’s oceans, including implementing or pledging support for the implementation of more Marine Protected Areas around the world.

The conference, to be held in Kunming, China starting Monday, follows a collective pledge from more than 100 countries to protect at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. Climate change was a major theme during the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, and the goal remains lofty though conservationists remain hopeful.

The global Marine Protected Area Atlas that covers some 18,000 MPAs shows just 2.7% of the ocean is fully or highly protected from fishing impacts. A previous goal of protecting 10% by 2020 was missed.

And though it was expected that some nations would up their MPA coverage, management was still an issue, according to University of Hawaii marine researcher Alan Friedlander.

Friedlander was among a group of marine experts who called for more effective management strategies — a blueprint for future MPA management — as there was a broad range of interpretations and “not all MPAs are created equal.”

Management was of equal importance to designation, he said.

“It’s a big difference between what’s strongly protected and what’s declared protected,” said Friedlander. “We really need to have strong protection if the goal is biodiversity.”

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

 

Number of overfished stocks in US on the decline

May 21, 2021 — The number of US fisheries deemed “overfished” declined in 2019, with 22 stocks subject to overfishing versus 2018’s status of 26 stocks — a sign some rebuilding efforts are showing results.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Report to Congress on the Status of US Fisheries, released Thursday, surveys fisheries in US territorial waters annually to determine the status of stocks deemed troubled under NOAA’s management guidelines.

In its report, NOAA designates fisheries under excessive pressure as either “overfished” or subject to “overfishing.”

Read the full story at IntraFish

Using Sound as a Tool to Help Count Snappers in Hawai‘i and Prevent Overfishing

April 30, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Snappers are economically important species for fisheries worldwide. To determine the health of snapper populations, we must monitor their abundance and record any changes in their biomass. NOAA scientists conducted a study to test new, more efficient and accurate methods to regularly monitor snapper in the Hawaii bottomfish fishing grounds. The results of this study were recently published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science.

Snappers are abundant in nearshore, 100–400-meter deep subtropical and tropical oceans with rocky, uneven bottoms that have steep slopes. They typically occupy areas near the ocean floor but are also found further in the water column and within crevices or under outcrops.

Modern research methods limit accurate and efficient abundance estimations for these species. Trawl sampling is not feasible as the highly uneven, rocky bottom would damage the net and the fragile habitat itself could be disturbed. More recent underwater video observations are limited by light and field-of-view distance. Placing video cameras in the water can also scare away or attract fish, skewing the results.

Read the full release here

Overfishing of Atlantic cod likely did not cause genetic changes: study

April 5, 2021 — Overfishing likely did not cause the Atlantic cod, an iconic species, to evolve genetically and mature earlier, according to a study led by Rutgers University and the University of Oslo—the first of its kind—with major implications for ocean conservation.

“Evolution has been used in part as an excuse for why cod and other species have not recovered from overfishing,” said first author Malin L. Pinsky, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “Our findings suggest instead that more attention to reducing fishing and addressing other , including , will be important for allowing recovery. We can’t use evolution as a scapegoat for avoiding the hard work that would allow cod to recover.”

The study, which focuses on Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) off Newfoundland in Canada and off Norway, appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, cod range from Greenland to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. In U.S. waters, cod is most common on Georges Bank and in the western Gulf of Maine, but both  are overfished. Cod can reach 51 inches long, weigh up to 77 pounds and live more than 20 years. Early explorers named Cape Cod in Massachusetts for the species because it was so abundant off New England, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

U.S. Fishery Managers Support Changes to Address Overfishing for Striped Marlin in the Pacific

March 30, 2021 — Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council members took a bold step last week in response to the internationally overfished North Pacific striped marlin stock. The Council supported a catch limit for U.S. vessels of roughly 1 million pounds, or 457 metric tons in 2022.

The new limit would apply to all U.S. vessels fishing north of the equator and west of 150° W. longitude. An in-season accountability measure would also be implemented to track catch relative to the limit. Retention and landing of striped marlin would be prohibited in longline fisheries when the catch limit is projected to be reached, the Council said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood News