April 30, 2021 — Global Fishing Watch (GFW) has signed an agreement with Brazil to publish its vessel-tracking data.
Brazil is the sixth Latin American nation to sign a data-sharing agreement with GFW, a partnership between Google and the advocacy groups Oceana and SkyTruth, joining Peru, Panama, Chile, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.
March 23, 2021 — The U.S. should consider leading a multilateral coalition with South American nations to push back against China’s illegal fishing and trade practices, a U.S. intelligence agency has recommended in a document obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: China’s illegal fishing industry is the largest in the world. Beijing has made distant-water fishing a geopolitical priority, viewing private Chinese fishing fleets as a way to extend state power far beyond its coasts.
What’s happening: Huge fleets of hundreds of Chinese vessels have had boats fish illegally in the territorial waters of South American countries, including off the Galapagos Islands.
November 5, 2020 — Four South American countries have joined forces in a bid to combat illegal fishing by huge Chinese fleets off their coasts.
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have threatened measures “to prevent, discourage and jointly confront” illegal fishing near their exclusive economic zones in the Pacific.
The joint statement made no specific mention of China but environmental groups Greenpeace and Oceana have repeatedly warned of the growing presence of Chinese fishing fleets in the area.
The South American quartet said they would boost “cooperation and real-time exchange of information” to highlight the illegal fishing.
Ecuador in July complained to China over a 300-vessel fleet off Galapagos, saying around half of them had turned off their tracking systems so they could not be located.
November 2, 2020 — China’s economic predation is back, this time in some of the most ecologically sensitive waters in the world—in the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, in Peru, and soon, the waters off Chile. In just one month, according to a report by Oceana, a marine conservation group, an armada of nearly 300 vessels spent an eye-popping 73,000 hours fishing off Galápagos. Far from a Chinese voyage of the HMS Beagle, the fleet is a brazen violation of norms around environmental protection and sustainable fishing (and sometimes sovereignty) and an attempt to plunder resources to meet growing Chinese demand. Chinese fishing could potentially wipe out vulnerable local communities that depend on the sea as a source of sustenance and livelihood. In turn, Latin American countries, along with the United States, must increase the menu of options available to monitor and deter this behavior.
It should surprise nobody that China’s distant-water fleet is now ambling about off the Pacific coast of South America. China’s fishing fleets form a nearly ubiquitous presence in the South China Sea and are also frequently found off the west coast of Africa. Visits to South American waters have likewise increased in recent years. The area is rich in fish populations because it benefits from the famous Humboldt Current, which carries nutrient-rich water from Chile all the way to the shores of southern Ecuador. Even as China’s waters suffer from depleted stockpiles, the Chinese public’s growing appetite for seafood has forced the Chinese Communist Party to search for solutions to secure its supply. Today, consumption there represents one-third of the world total. In turn, the country has had to look for fish stocks further afield—with devastating environmental consequences.
May 11, 2020 — The launch of the first season for anchovy fishing in Peru’s north-center region has been set for 13 May, with Peru’s Ministry of Production (PRODUCE) setting a capture limit of 2.4 million metric tons (MT).
The fishery, which targets both Engraulis ringens and Anchoa nasus for use in indirect human consumption – primarily, fishmeal and fish oil used in aquaculture production – is the largest by volume in the world.
November 6, 2019 — IFFO RS announced on 5 November that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Sociedad Nacional de Pesquería (SNP) that will complement both organizations.
The memorandum was signed during the IFFO Annual Conference, held in Shanghai, China. The new agreement will have the two organizations “working more closely together,” according to a release by IFFO RS.
September 13, 2019 — Women from Spain, India, and Peru have won the top three prizes in the International Association for Women in the Seafood Industry’s (WSI) annual short film competition, run for the third time this year.
The competition brief asked women to document their observations and experiences in the industry, and offered a cash prize of EUR 1,000 (USD 1,108) for the winner and EUR 500 (USD 554) for two runners up.
May 3, 2019 — A collective of 23 Peruvian businesses will be exhibiting at this year’s upcoming Seafood Expo Global event, taking place from 7 to 9 May in Brussels, Belgium.
The group will showcase a variety of products under the Superfoods Peru brand name at the expo, including giant squid, scallops, shrimps, tuna, mahi mahi, canned fish, anchovy, hake, mackerel, anchovies, and octopus. Peruvian canned fish, anchovies, hake, mackerel, and octopus will also be on display at the collective’s 252-square-meter stand.
Peru’s Export and Tourism Promotion Board, PROMPERÚ, has arranged for the Peruvian delegation to attend the expo, it confirmed in a press release. “Taking in consideration the commercial agreements generated in previous editions,” for 2019, the delegation expects to exceed USD 120 million (EUR 107 million) in profits, to be realized over the upcoming 12 months, PROMPERÚ said.
January 24, 2019 — Tony Long is the CEO of Global Fishing Watch, a freely accessible and near real-time digital map of the global ocean aimed at exposing illegal fishing. With Japan, Peru, and Indonesia all recently agreeing to share data with Global Fishing Watch as part of an effort to combat illegal fishing, Long is now pushing for more countries to contribute data. Additionally, Long’s office is working with governments and NGOs to make the Global Fishing Watch map more complete and allow the tracking of vessels guilty of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
SeafoodSource: How important are the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations on eliminating fishing and fuel subsidies in the fight against IUU fishing?
Long: Cutting or eliminating fuel subsidies are an important fisheries management measure because … fuel subsidies are part of the overcapacity equation – especially for distance fleets and also high-seas fishing. People following the negotiations closely tell me that there are disagreements within the WTO as to whether this is the case. It is vital that this matter can be resolved during the negotiations.
SeafoodSource: You point to a “handful of wealthy countries” as being culpable in IUU fishing. Is this a corporate or a government problem?
Long: It’s both, but ultimately, governments are the ones that allow IUU fishing practices in their fleets to continue. There are many factors beyond harmful subsidies, including weak penalties, poor enforcement and licensing flags of convenience that allow IUU fishing to occur. That said, individual corporations also have huge responsibility. In particular, they can help drive out practices such as bonded labor and slavery at sea, they can demand cleared provenance to their catch by demanding complete and proper tracking of vessels, catch documentation and open licensing as part of their contract with the supply chain. The recent green card given to Thailand is a good example of government, corporations, and NGOs working together to improve a dire situation.
SeafoodSource: According to an article in Science Advances, “On the high seas, 97 percent of all such fishing effort detectable by AIS is conducted by vessels flagged to higher-income nations. Dominance of this high-seas industrial fishing effort at the level of flag nation was highly uneven. The vast majority (86 percent) of this effort can be attributed to only five higher-income countries/entities, in rank order high to low: China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Spain.” Have rich countries also been willing to work with you and to share information?
Long: We have a [memorandum of understanding] signed with Japan to improve research and understanding of IUU fishing in the North Pacific and share data. We have staff in Korea and Taiwan to take forward the benefits of transparency. [And] we are in the very early stages of working with a coalition of European Union-based NGOs to look at the E.U. fleet and coastal states where [those vessels] fish. We are engaging with NGOs and foundations interested in China in order to identify a strategy on working with China.
January 11, 2019 — The fishmeal market is described as bearish as good production in Peru weighs on market prices while stocks mount in China, as demand there takes a bigger hit than expected from an African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak.
“It’s all bearish news,” James Frank, director of Peruvian fishmeal trading company MSICeres, told Undercurrent News Tuesday (Jan. 8). “The market is dropping in China as local fishmeal is competing with imported and port stocks are still high.”
“The [ASF] outbreak is taking a larger toll on Chinese hog herds than expected initially,” Jean-Francois Mittaine, an industry expert with 30 years experience, told Undercurrent. “I heard the situation has led to significantly lower usage of fishmeal.”
Stocks of fishmeal held in Chinese ports have hit a 10-year high for the time of year, at 186,000 metric tons, according to Chinese government figures. According to Undercurrent’s price portal, in Shanghai port, Peruvian superprime fishmeal offer prices, ex-warehouse, have fallen to CNY 10,700 per metric ton ($1,566/t), down CNY 1,200/t since mid-October.