Saving Seafood

US pledges USD 17 million to fight IUU fishing in the Pacific Islands

September 3, 2026 — The United States has pledged USD 17 million (EUR 14.7 million) to fight counter illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in and around the Pacific Islands.

“The United States is a Pacific nation and has long stood with our Pacific friends and neighbors to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the U.S. Department of State said in a release. Our commitment to the security and prosperity of the Pacific Islands is steadfast, enduring, and a key pillar of our America First Foreign Policy.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

 

‘We’re facing a double whammy’: America’s hottest tinned fish snack is shrinking by nearly half thanks to climate change and war in Iran

August 31, 2026 — Tinned fish is having a real global moment. The pandemic-era pantry habit has since turned into restaurants nationwide serving tinned fish straight out of the can. Domestically, sales climbed from $2.3 billion in 2018 to more than $2.7 billion in 2024, and the U.S.’s obsession with sardines specifically is only accelerating: Americans bought $3.52 billion worth of shelf-stable seafood over the past year, and sardines have overtaken salmon as the second-most-popular canned fish behind tuna, as Grubhub reported orders of tinned fish tripled in 2025. The global tinned fish market was worth roughly $10.24 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $17.97 billion by 2034. Canned sardines are a meaningful part of that worldwide push.

But the supply behind that growing appetite is shrinking fast. Morocco, the world’s top sardine supplier, saw its fish landings fall nearly 46% between 2022 and 2024, and the reasons are feeding into each other. Because sardines are unusually sensitive to temperature, warming water as a result of climate change is pushing the fish into new territories farther away from fishermen.

The war in Iran, coupled with the effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz (through which one-fifth of the world’s global oil supply normally passes), is driving up fuel costs. Fishermen now need to go farther to catch the fish, just as it’s costing them that much more to travel longer distances, and they’re bringing back almost half the quantity as before.

Rashid Sumaila, a professor and Canada Research Chair in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, has spent his career studying fisheries and how they navigate geopolitical forces. He said the combination is something he hadn’t seen affect the fishing industry in quite this way before.

“Sardines are very sensitive to climate change, and we know it here on the Pacific Coast,” Sumaila told Fortune. “When it’s warm, sardines move from Mexico through the U.S., and Canadians see more sardines. They follow the temperature.”

He said Morocco’s sardines are shifting, too, and he saw the same thing while on a trip to Portugal this summer, when he left his hotel at 2 a.m. for an early flight and the temperature was still 34°C (91°F).

“Some of that 45% drop is partly climate change, and partly overfishing, and other things happening to the ocean,” he said. “There’s just so much. You have pollution, plastic. Stresses upon stresses.”

The Iran war adds a second layer. While Iran’s own waters are not a major sardine source, Sumaila said the war still reaches Moroccan boats through the price of fuel.

“The Iran war doesn’t quite impact this directly,” he said, “but indirectly it does, because prices are going up. The price of fishing, the vessels, the energy. It’s crazy.”

Since the conflict began, Brent crude surged 10% to 13% after the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to shipping this spring, an event the International Energy Agency called the largest oil-supply disruption in the market’s history. Sumaila said he heard the same complaint from fishermen thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf.

“Thai fishers are feeling it,” he said. “You can imagine Moroccan fishers, or fishers in Africa or the Pacific Islands, feeling it too.”

Read the full article at Fortune

Proposed NOAA cuts could hit Pacific weather forecasts, fisheries and coral programs

June 8, 2026 — The Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would slash more than $1 billion from the agency and eliminate dozens of programs, raising concerns across the Pacific islands where communities rely heavily on weather forecasting, fisheries management and coastal conservation.

NOAA’s fiscal year 2027 budget request seeks $4.54 billion, a decrease of about $1.09 billion from the 2026 enacted level. The proposal includes more than $1.3 billion in program terminations and another $523 million in reductions, partially offset by investments in weather radar modernization, satellite systems and selected fisheries initiatives.

For Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the proposed cuts touch areas closely tied to daily life, from typhoon forecasting and marine observations to coral reef protection and coastal resilience.

The budget documents call for terminating the Coral Reef Conservation Program, ending Integrated Ocean Acidification efforts, eliminating regional Integrated Ocean Observing System programs and terminating Coastal Zone Management Grants. The proposal would also eliminate NOAA’s National Coastal Resilience Fund and reduce funding for ocean observations and monitoring.

Read the full article at the Marianas Variety

Hawai’i Longliners Partner with Researchers to Chart Marlin Migration in the Pacific

August 10, 2022 — The following was released by the Pacific Islands Fisheries Group and the Large Pelagics Research Center:

The most comprehensive effort to date to characterize striped marlin (Kajikia audax) movements in the Central North Pacific has revealed unexpectedly broad movements among tracked specimens, with some traveling to the east coast of Australia or halfway to California from their dispersal points around Hawai‘i.

The original research, funded by a NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy Program grant, was conducted by scientists associated with the Hawai‘i-based Pacific Islands Fisheries Group (PIFG) and the Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC) in Massachusetts. It was recently published across two papers in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

The papers’ findings could inform future fisheries management measures affecting striped marlin, at a time when K. audax – a top incidental catch of the longline fishery – is considered overfished in the Western and Central North Pacific.

“There is a major lack of information on the movement and ecology of striped marlin in the Central North Pacific,” said co-author and LPRC Director Molly E. Lutcavage.

“The last dedicated study of striped marlin in the Central North Pacific was almost two decades ago, and involved only a handful of marlin captured by recreational, or sport, fishers.”

Lead author Chi Hin Lam, Clayward Tam and Lutcavage partnered with commercial vessels belonging to the Hawaii Longline Association to deploy 31, $4,000 popup archival satellite tags (PSATs) on striped marlin between 2016 and 2019. Tam’s cooperative, science-based relationships with skilled longline captains made the partnerships successful.

“This is another example of the Hawaii longline vessels playing a significant role in cooperative research with leading scientists,” said Eric Kingma, Executive Director of the Hawai’i Longline Association (HLA). “We have a long history of scientific collaboration and our fleet has served as a research platform for decades. HLA congratulates the authors on their important findings and looks forward to working with PIFG and other scientists on future fisheries management and marine conservation research.”

The PSATs recorded vast horizontal movements throughout the Pacific Ocean, challenging previously-held notions that striped marlin are highly localized in their regional, coastal aggregations.

The tagged marlin, which were tracked for up to one year, routinely crossed multiple fisheries management boundaries and ocean features like seamounts and fracture zones.

One tagged marlin, PG01, made a trans-Pacific journey not previously observed for its species. Having been tagged in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, PG01 eventually made its way thousands of miles to the central east coast of Australia.

“We didn’t expect a tag showing up off Australia,” Lam said. “I would say that was 50% luck and 100% hard work. Consulting with our captains and tagging partners docked at Pier 38 in Honolulu and providing first-hand training for scientific tagging paid off.”

The tags also showed the striped marlin spent 38 and 81% of their day and night, respectively, in the top five meters of the water column.

The papers’ horizontal and vertical movement data is important for fisheries managers and stock assessment scientists, who require timely, high-quality biological and habitat data to inform population modeling and stock status.

Such data also helps identify best practices to support sustainable harvest, which could include mandated live release and time-area restrictions.

“Longline fisheries targeting tuna and swordfish benefit from any scientific information that helps to reduce unintended interaction with non-targeted catch like marlin, while pursuing economic returns on targeted catch of tuna and swordfish,” Lutcavage said.

In addition to monitoring tagged fish, researchers collected fin clips from Hawai‘i-landed striped marlin. Genetic analyses of 55 striped marlin were assigned to two genetic groups: Australia, New Zealand and Hawai‘i (19 individuals) and Hawai‘i alone (36 individuals), suggesting the Hawai‘i-based longline fleet interacted with individuals from multiple populations.

Lam, Tam and Lutcavage believe more PSAT efforts and genetics analyses are called for, to fill in the scientific gaps underscored by their latest striped marlin research. Improved technology and knowledge of the species’ biology, physiology and life history will better inform management measures for the sustainable harvest of bigeye tuna and swordfish, and a reduction of incidental catch of non-target species like the striped marlin.

How the Pacific Protects Its Fisheries

November 3, 2021 — The challenge of achieving sustainable ocean governance is growing in the 21st century, as the negative impacts of environmental destruction, over-exploitation, and climate change place a high degree of stress on marine ecosystems.

The framework convention for ocean governance, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), was negotiated in the 1970s and ‘80s. At the time, its provisions on environmental protection, common resource ownership, and the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) were novel and radical additions to global commons governance. The so-called “Constitution for the Oceans” established the basic rights and obligations of different groups in the international community, including coastal states, flag states, port states, and landlocked states. UNCLOS covers all major ocean activities, and divides ocean space into global commons and national zones of control. The negotiation and entry into force of UNCLOS represented a major accomplishment for the international community, and the larger project of global governance. The principles, norms, rights, and duties enshrined in UNCLOS serve as a guide for the collective management of common resources by states.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Federally Managed Fisheries in US Pacific Islands Face a Mixed Future

March 22, 2019 — HONOLULU — The following was released yesterday by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Executive Director Kitty Simonds (center) with WPRFMC members (from left) Vice Chair John Gourley (Northern Mariana Islands), Chair Archie Soliai (American Samoa), RAdm. Kevin Lunday (commander of the 14th US Coast Guard District) and Vice Chairs Dean Sensui (Hawai‘i), Christinne Lutu-Sanchez (American Samoa) and Michael Duenas (Guam).

Federal fishery managers concluded their meeting in Honolulu today after dealing since Tuesday with a mixed bag of good and bad news about the future of fisheries in Hawai‘i and the US Pacific islands.

On the good side, a 2018 stock assessment estimates the Hawai‘i Kona crabs maximum sustainable yield at 73,069 pounds. The fishery has reported catch below 3,000 pounds in 2015 and 2016, indicating the potential for a lot of growth. However, participants have left the fishery (which landed 70,000 pounds in the 1970s) since the State of Hawai‘i banned the retention of female Kona crabs. The Council recommended that the Hawai‘i Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) record female crab and minimum size discards separately on the fisherman trip reports to provide a more comprehensive record of commercial catch. It also requested that DAR remove the statute that prohibits take of female Kona crabs and consider revised regulations to extend or shift the closed season to protect berried females.

Other good news is that a recent economic report by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) found the Hawai‘i charter fishery generated close to $50 million in gross sales and supported nearly 900 jobs statewide in 2011. The Council encouraged NMFS to maintain a regular schedule of economic evaluations and monitoring of the fisheries in the Pacific islands.

On the bleaker side, the Council discussed the ongoing UN Intergovernmental Conference on Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), which is considering a framework to establish fishing closures on the high seas. The Council asked the Department of State, which has a non-voting representative on the Council, to exempt high seas fisheries targeting tuna and tuna-like species from any potential high seas closures established under the new BBNJ convention. About 70 percent of the fishing effort of the Hawai‘i based longline fishery is on the high seas.

Read the full release at the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council

 

Fish 2.0 evolves to fight industry fragmentation

April 25, 2017 — The business competition Fish 2.0, now in its third installment, is evolving into a nexus of communication that is helping fight fragmentation in the seafood industry, according to its founding director Monica Jain.

Held every two years after an inaugural 2013 edition, Fish 2.0 is an open call for entrepreneurs and business owners in the seafood industry to propose their projects and get feedback from investors and industry professionals, as well as possible financial backing.

The four-phase competition pares the proposals it receives down to a group of finalists that present at Stanford University to a room full of investors, consultants and other businesses owners.

Jain said her original motivation behind creating the competition was to stimulate private investment in sustainable seafood, and the competition has certainly done that— companies that presented at the 2015 Stanford finals have raised more than USD 30 million (EUR 27.6 million), and include starts-ups including LoveTheWild and Acadia Harvest Inc.

But the competition has also created an unforeseen meeting point in a dispersed industry.

“The thing that we’re seeing is that more and more businesses are interested in our competition not just to meet investors, but to meet each other. There’s a lot of benefit for them meeting each other because the seafood industry is fragmented,” Jain said.

For the 2017 edition, Fish 2.0 held six workshops in different regions; Southeast Asia, Chile and Peru, the Pacific Islands, New England, the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, and the U.S. West Coast.

At the U.S. West Coast workshop early this month in Seattle, entrepreneurs from California to Alaska discussed innovations and business ideas that ranged from submarine robots for patrolling aquaculture farms to salmon-based baby food to innovative fish handling techniques.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

Bula! Pacific Tuna Commission Gets To Work On Fishing Policies

December 6th, 2016 — Honolulu International Airport is a ghost town. It’s 1 a.m. Sunday, hours past the routine blitz of interisland travelers and down to the handful of passengers heading to far-off lands plus a few others sleeping off the disappointment of a canceled flight.

I hand over my passport to the woman working at the Fiji Airways counter, throw my luggage on the conveyer belt and hope it arrives in Nadi, where I’m going to cover the weeklong meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

The commission — a treaty-based group composed of 26 members including Pacific Island nations, the United States, the big tuna players from Asia, the European Union and others — decides how to manage and conserve highly migratory fish stocks while reducing bycatch and ensuring the overall sustainability of one of the world’s biggest sources of protein.

Over the course of five full days, hundreds of scientists, government officials, nonprofit leaders and others will debate the myriad issues facing the health of tuna populations, the safety of fishing observers, the effects of climate change, the value of marine protected areas and the impact of new policies on local economies and international relations.

I was mulling this over on the plane while waiting to take off when the Boeing 737’s captain interrupted my thoughts with an update on what to expect on our way to Fiji.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat 

Obama charting course on Pacific fish farming

October 31st, 2016 — OBAMA CHARTING COURSE ON AQUACULTURE IN PACIFIC: The Obama administration is laying the groundwork for permitting fish farming in federal waters in the Pacific Islands for the first time, part of its plan to double aquaculture production in the U.S. by 2020. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — in partnership with the regional fishery council that manages fish stocks in Hawaii, the Marianas and other islands — intends to conduct an environmental impact study to evaluate where farms should be located. The deadline to comment is today.

While salmon and shellfish have been farmed in state waters for decades, NOAA wants to expand aquaculture further from shore, in order to meet growing demand for seafood as the amount of wild-caught fish has flatlined. The U.S. imports more than 90 percent of what is eaten here, half of which is farmed — a practice that’s resulted in a trade deficit of $11.2 billion. Aquaculture is practiced widely in countries like Norway and China, but has been slow to catch on in the U.S. because of concerns about ocean ecosystems and coastal economies. It took NOAA about 14 years to finalize a framework for the Gulf of Mexico, and when the rule was finally completed in January, the agency was sued by a dozen environmental advocacy and commercial fishing groups.

“Farmed species can escape and alter wild populations, and when you put a lot of fish together in one location, it can harbor disease and spread pollution,” said Marianne Cufone, executive director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition, which advocates for land-based aquaponics. The nonprofit is part of the suit filed against NOAA’s plan for the Gulf; Cufone said she expects a challenge to the Pacific program, if it’s finalized.

Read the full story at Politico 

American Samoa Cannery To Scale Back Operations Due To Fish Shortages

September 29, 2016 — PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — As a result of fish-supply shortages, StarKist Co. has confirmed that its StarKist Samoa operation in American Samoa will shut down for one week next month.

Samoa News learned Monday from some StarKist Samoa cannery workers of the shutdown starting Oct. 10 — right after the White Sunday holiday — but they weren’t sure as to the reason for it. The workers were a little pleased with the one week shutdown because it follows a holiday on Monday and they could spend a longer period of time with families in Samoa for White Sunday.

However, other workers say the weeklong shutdown will impact their paychecks. Additionally, any shut down of the cannery for a longer period of time will also have a financial impact on private aiga buses, which provide charter bus transportation for StarKist workers.

Responding to Samoa News’ request for comments on the shutdown, StarKist Co., spokesperson Michelle Faist provided a company statement, which confirmed the shutdown during the week of October 10 and the shutdown is due to “fish-supply shortages”.

This is the second time in the past twelve months the StarKist Samoa plant has temporarily shut down manufacturing due to fish-supply issues facing the facility, according to the statement.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report