Saving Seafood

How media mistakes threaten global shark survival

June 19, 2020 — The following was released by Arizona State University:

Sharks are among the most threatened animals in the world, and more people than ever now want to help. But a deep analysis of news coverage of shark conservation issues over 10 years reveals an alarming pattern of inaccurate reporting. This misinformation results in broad misunderstandings of the true issues among both media consumers and policymakers.

David Shiffman, a marine conservation biologist at Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, led a team that analyzed nearly 2,000 media articles dating back to 2008. The analysis reveals that worldwide media coverage of shark conservation topics is biased and inaccurate, omitting or misrepresenting key facts and not reporting on expert-backed solutions that have scientific data demonstrating their effectiveness.

“Sharks face many threats, and there are many available policy solutions to address those threats. However, you wouldn’t know that from reading newspaper coverage of this important and complex issue,” Shiffman said.

Examples of media misinformation include an overemphasis of threats, such as the shark fin trade verses the shark meat trade, which is a major and growing threat that’s less well understood. This skew in coverage has led in part to shark fin trade bans despite no evidence that these trade bans actually help sharks. The research notes that shark finning has been illegal in the United States since the 1990s, an important point that is often confused in media coverage of these issues.

Read the full release here

Hawaiʻi Scientists Bring Cutting-edge Analyses to the Stock Assessment of the Uku Snapper

June 19, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The ukupalu snapper, more commonly known as “uku,” is a popular fish among commercial and recreational fishermen in Hawaiʻi. They live at depths of 60 to 650 feet, and fishermen typically catch them using deep handlines with baited hooks. Fisheries harvest around 240,000 pounds of uku every year. Commercial fisheries catch around 109,000 pounds and recreational fisheries catch an estimated 131,000 pounds. Fishermen commonly consume them at home or sell them to restaurants where their clear, firm flesh and delicate taste make them a popular dish. Uku can be baked, steamed, or simply served fresh as sashimi.

Scientists first assessed the Hawaiʻi uku population along with 27 other reef fish in 2017. They used a relatively simple assessment model based on the average length of uku in the catch in recent years. This assessment determined that overfishing was not occurring for uku, but this simple model resulted in much uncertainty. It could not determine if the stock was overfished.

“Overfishing” means people are catching too many fish. This is different from “overfished,” which means there are not enough fish in the sea. If overfishing occurs for too long, a stock will eventually become overfished.

Read the full release here

Disputes with NGOs over science overshadow EU achievements on reducing overfishing

June 12, 2020 — The world is unlikely to meet a United Nations sustainable development goal on ending overfishing, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization’s recent report on the state of the world fisheries.

But the U.N.’s blunt admission that the world’s failing to meet SDG Target 14.4 – to end overfishing of marine fisheries by 2020 – has not prevented the European Union from declaring a victory of sorts in ending overfishing in its own territories.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sustainable Seafood Could Feed A Billion People A Day, Says Oceana

June 10, 2020 — It might come as a surprise to hear that Oceana, the world’s largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation, would be advocating for seafood consumption, especially given that overfishing is a major driver in the decline of ocean wildlife populations. But while overfishing has caused a decline in 34.2% of the world’s fish stocks, potentially leading to the depletion of a quarter of all fish by the end of the century, sustainable fisheries, on the other hand, are beneficial for fish populations, the environment and people.

The premise of sustainable fisheries lies in the belief that fishing practices that adapt to the reproductive rate of fish and maintain the health and productivity of wild fish stocks are not only critical to the sustainable growth of fish species, but also to the health of the surrounding marine ecosystem, coastal communities and the planet.

“Seafood eaters who choose sustainably managed wild seafood can feel good about their choice,” says Jacqueline Savitz, Chief Policy Officer at Oceana. “A healthy, fully restored ocean could feed a billion people a seafood meal every day, forever.”

Read the full story at Forbes

UN: The world is producing and consuming more seafood, but overfishing remains rife

June 9, 2020 — Global seafood production reached a level of 179 million metric tons (MT) in 2018, with all but 23 million MT going to human consumption. Consequently, average consumption has crept up to 20.5 kilograms per capita, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated in the 2020 edition of its biennial publication, “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture,” released on 8 June.

In the SOFIA report, the U.N. body states that with a yearly growth rate of 3.1 percent, fish consumption has been outpacing both the world population expansion rate of 1.6 percent since 1961 and the 1.1 percent meat consumption rise.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The Fate of the WTO and Global Trade Hangs on Fish

May 6, 2020 — The World Trade Organization (WTO) is struggling to maintain its relevance. Protectionism has been rising for more than a decade as a growing number of countries have openly flouted WTO rules. Many are having second thoughts about the wisdom of allowing China into the organization, where it retains special developing-economy rights that help shield its domestic economy from foreign competition. Recent trade agreements have been bilateral or regional, undermining the WTO’s purpose of maintaining a global trading order. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, impediments to trade are only expected to grow.

This sorry state of affairs in the global trading order is mirrored in the lack of progress in the only major global trade negotiations still actively underway—WTO talks intended to impose discipline on fisheries subsidies, which have led to depleted fish stocks in the world’s oceans. These talks have been going on for nearly two decades, have missed yet another deadline, and seem to be in limbo.

The obstacle standing in the way of a meaningful agreement is not just the reluctance of countries to give up subsidies. It also does not help that a deal requires unanimous approval of every clause and stipulation by all 164 WTO member countries—including landlocked ones without a marine fishing fleet, such as Hungary, Mongolia, and Mali. At the root of the fisheries problem, however, lies the WTO’s own preferred negotiating approach: As long as the WTO continues to approach trade using two different sets of rules—one for developed countries, the other for developing ones—the fisheries talks are all but certain to continue to produce only irreconcilable conflict.

Fish do not respect territorial boundaries. Overfishing, which continues to deplete fish stocks worldwide despite decades of attempts to make fishing sustainable, is by definition a global problem requiring a global solution. An estimated 37 percent of all the seafood produced in the world is traded internationally—which makes the WTO the logical forum to take the lead in finding a solution.

Read the full story at Foreign Policy

Can You Eat Fish and Still Care About the Planet? We Talked to an Expert to Find Out.

February 20, 2020 — As someone who works on environmental policy issues for a living, I’m often asked by my friends and family what they can do that’s “better” for the planet. Drive an electric vehicle? Buy a reusable coffee mug? Bike to work? Eat veggie burgers? Recycle?

Most of the time, I don’t have a satisfactory answer; the answers I have aren’t always that straightforward, helpful, or even desired. If you care about climate change, eating more plants is great, but we also need a comprehensive and aggressive federal climate policy. If you care about plastic pollution, reusable mugs can cut down on single-use plastic, but they need to be used for a long time (several years) to make up for the energy used to make them.

One area that I have no reservations about, however, is seafood. It’s delicious; it’s a great source of micronutrients and omega-3s; and if you know how to shop for it, it can indeed be an environmentally responsible choice for dinner.

Make no mistake: The ocean is in dire need of protection. Overfishing, climate change, and pollution are major threats to the ocean and its ability to sustain human life.

The good news is that there are organizations working to turn those threats around — and you can help by voting with your dollars and choosing sustainable seafood at the grocery store. For example, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international nonprofit organization that has developed a science-based standard for environmentally sustainable fishing. If a wild-capture fishery meets those standards, its seafood products can be packaged with the MSC blue fish label.

Read the full story at Kitchn

Maine shuts down key scallop fishing areas for the season

February 19, 2020 — Maine fishing regulators are shutting down some of the most important scallop fishing areas in the state for the season.

Cobscook, Whiting and Dennys bays are all shut down, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said.

Cobscook Bay is home to the most fertile scallop fishing grounds in Maine, which is home to a winter scallop harvesting industry.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

When Environmentalists and the Fishing Industry Team Up, Ocean Habitats Win

February 4, 2020 — When it comes to threatened Pacific species, groundfish rarely get the glory. They are not as charismatic as orcas, nor is their life history as inspiring as salmon’s. As seas warm and the threats of climate change take effect, what these bottom-dwellers—and the cultures that depend on them—do have going for them is an incredible and unexpected comeback story.

Historically, the Pacific groundfish fishery was run as a derby—essentially a race for fish. By the 1970s, massive quantities of fish and bycatch were being hauled in via trawl nets all along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. But by the late 1990s, research began to reveal signs of overfishing among groundfish, which includes dozens of species that live near the ocean bottom, such as rockfish, roundfish, and flatfish. Since many of these species are long-lived, they are slow to grow and reproduce, meaning they’re also slow to recover from overharvesting. As the century turned, managers scrambled to close certain areas to fishing and reduce catch limits to prevent collapse.

“The first decade of the millennium, we were in sort of a frantic panic mode trying to gather more scientific information,” says Gretchen Hanshew, a fisheries management specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At the same time, NOAA worked to rein in some exploitative fishing practices to make sure they weren’t creating future problems.

Still, in 2001, a coalition of environmental groups sued the federal government to step up the management of overfished species and won. The result was a sweeping closure of fishing areas considered essential fish habitat, many as a precautionary measure. Managers essentially froze the map on trawl fishing until they could get a better handle on what was happening where.

Read the full story at Yes Magazine

Fishing for fun takes a massive bite out of marine life

February 3, 2020 — The volume of fish caught recreationally more than tripled in the 60 years to 2014, and a recent uptick in recreational shark hunting is damaging fragile populations.

The United Nations agency that documents fishing statistics almost exclusively monitors commercial fisheries. To quantify the impact of pleasure fishing, Dirk Zeller at the University of Western Australia in Crawley and his colleagues reconstructed the amount of fish caught annually in 125 countries. The researchers analysed reports from events such as fishing jamborees and gathered data on factors such as the number of licensed recreational fishers per state to scale up to a global estimate.

Read the full story at Nature