Peru Archives - Saving Seafood

High seas have become ‘safe haven’ for labor abuse, illegal fishing: study

April 6, 2022 — Coastal regions off West Africa, the mid-Atlantic near Portugal and waters off Peru are the riskiest spots for illegal fishing and labor abuse, with most occurring aboard vessels registered to China and other countries with poor anti-corruption oversight, a new study has found.

The study, published in Nature Communications, found that nearly half of more than 750 ports assessed worldwide are linked to either labor abuse or illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The high seas have become “a safe haven” for illegal fishing, with millions of tons of such fish caught every year, authors wrote, incorporating an online survey of experts that revealed the pervasive nature of these practices.

Researchers found that vessels that engage is such activity also often have labor abuses on board, including practices such as forced labor, debt bondage and poor conditions.

Read the full story at The Hill

MarinTrust allowing remote audits, as Exalmar gains chain of custody certification

February 18, 2022 — Lima, Peru-based fishmeal and fish oil producer Exalmar has become the first company to achieve the MarinTrust chain of custody standard under its version 2.0 standards for further processing and trading activities.

“We are eager to meet the demands of international markets. Our commitment is from the capture of the raw material from responsible sources, processing and certified storage, for its safe and traceable commercialisation. This means assuring our customers the full traceability of all our fishmeal and fish oil,” Exalmar Commercial Manager Judith Vivar said.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Warmer, oxygen-poor waters threaten world’s ‘most heavily exploited’ fish

January 7, 2022 — In 2008, a team of researchers boarded an expedition vessel and set sail for the anchovy-rich waters off the coast of Peru. They were searching for a place to extract a sediment sample that would unearth secrets about the ocean from 130,000 years ago, a time when the planet was experiencing its last interglacial period. About 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Lima, the researchers found an ideal spot; they bore into the seabed and drew out a 20-meter (66-foot) core sample.

Over the next 13 years, researcher Renato Salvatteci and a team of colleagues worked to date the core and measure fish debris. They were trying to figure out what fish were living along the Humboldt Current system off the coast of Peru during that interglacial period, when the ocean contained little oxygen and was about 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) warmer than the average temperature experienced in the current Holocene epoch — conditions that almost match what scientists project for 2100 as climate change rapidly transforms our modern world.

Today, the Humboldt Current contributes to more than 15% of the global annual fish catch, mainly due to its abundance of Peruvian anchoveta (Engraulis ringens), a species in the anchovy family. It’s also what global conservation authority the IUCN calls “the most heavily exploited single-species fishery in world history.”

Every centimeter of the sediment held an astonishing amount of information — about 90 years’ worth, said Salvatteci, a fisheries engineer at Kiel University in Germany. What they found embedded in the ancient sediment wasn’t anchoveta, but the vertebrae of “considerably smaller” fish, such as mesopelagic and goby-like fish, that were able to cope with the low oxygen levels in the water. They published their findings in Science on Jan. 6.

Read the full story at Mongabay

Brazil to share vessel-tracking data with Global Fishing Watch

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

U.S. urged to join South America in fighting China fishing

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.

A senior U.S. administration official confirmed to Axios that several agencies across the government are “taking a look at this in light of the president’s priorities,” which include “deepening cooperation with allies and partners on the challenges we face to our economy and national security.”

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.

The activity has depleted stocks and disrupted food chains, in a practice referred to as illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing.
South American nations say these fleets are a challenge to their economic and environmental security, but their navies often lack the resources to effectively monitor and patrol their own waters.
Last year, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru stated they would join forces to defend their territorial waters from incursions by Chinese vessels.

Read the full story at Axios

‘Prevent, discourage, confront’: South American states tackle Chinese fishing boats

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.

Read the full story at The Guardian

China’s Hunger for Seafood Is Now Latin America’s Problem

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.

Read the full story at Foreign Policy

Amid scandal and coronavirus, Peru sets 13 May launch date for anchovy season

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

IFFO RS signs agreement with Peru’s Sociedad Nacional de Pesqueria

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Short film competition highlights women in seafood

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source