Saving Seafood

Five jailed, fined €1.5m, for eel smuggling in Spain

June 17, 2019 — The Spanish National Court has prosecuted five people for breaching EU legislation — and endangered animal treaty CITES — by trying to smuggle European eel between 2011 and 2012.

The network attempted to remove 724 kilograms of live eels, with a value equating to €580,000, from Spain to Asia but were stopped in the first major operation carried out by SEPRONA, Spain’s nature protection service of the Civil Guard.

The network falsely documented the eels for transit to Asia as other species not subject to regulations, including the American eel, the California red worm, and the flathead grey mullet, according to a release from the Sustainable Eel Group.

The export and import of European eel out of and into the EU has been suspended since 2010. However, the scale of the illegal trade remains vast: according to Europol, 300 to 350 million European eels are illegally trafficked every year from Europe to Asia, accounting for almost one-quarter of the total number of glass (juvenile) eels entering European waters every year.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

FishWise partners with major hotelier to boost responsible seafood consumption among tourists

April 23, 2019 — Sustainable seafood consultancy and non-profit FishWise has partnered with Palma, Spain-based hotel and resort chain Iberostar Group to bring education and training on responsible seafood consumption to Iberostar’s 32,000 employees, the organizations announced on 22 April.

The partnership is intended to enable Iberostar employees to speak confidently on concepts that are integral to the company’s Wave of Change movement. Launched in 2017, the Wave of Change initiative aims to establish a new, scalable business model for ocean stewardship in tourism through the active support of coastal health, plastics reduction, and seafood consumption.

“Providing responsible seafood options to our guests goes hand-in-hand with Iberostar’s tradition of gastronomic excellence,” said Megan Morikawa, the director of sustainability for Iberostar, which operates over 120 four- and five-star hotels in 18 countries. “We realize, however, that seafood is uniquely complex, and that the potential impact of Wave of Change hinges on empowering our employees to fully understand why we are taking these actions. We are excited to partner with FishWise to untangle this complexity and equip our team with the knowledge needed for success.”

FishWise plans to leverage its 15 years of helping businesses to develop and implement comprehensive seafood sustainability programs in its work with Iberostar. The partnership will be underpinned by a strong foundation of employee training that is expected to increase seafood sustainability awareness throughout the company and further embed Wave of Change as a key part of the identity and culture of the multinational hotelier, FishWise and Iberostar said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MASSACHUSETTS: Spaniards visit Gloucester to talk fishing

March 21, 2019 — Antonio Basanta Fernandez and Mercedes Rodriguez Moreda had completed their tasks at the Seafood Expo North America in Boston and were scheduled to first fly to New York and Ottawa for meetings before returning home to the Spanish region of Galicia.

But before they boarded the flight to New York on Tuesday night, the two executives of the Department of the Sea within the regional government of Galicia had an important stop:

They wanted to come to Gloucester and talk fishing.

“We know that Gloucester is one of the most important ports in northeast America,” Basanta Fernandez said Tuesday during an afternoon meeting at Gloucester City Hall with Fisheries Commission Chairman Mark Ring and commission director Al Cottone. “We think we share a lot of interests and there are a lot of similarities between our regions.”

Read the full story at The Gloucester Daily Times

Aquaculture sector thriving in the European Union

January 15, 2019 — The performance of the aquaculture sector in the European Union is improving across the board, with all sectors displaying strong economic growth, according to the latest report from the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF).

The 2018 Economic Report of the EU Aquaculture Sector is a comprehensive overview of the latest production figures, value, structure, and competitive performance of the sector at both country and E.U. level between 2008 and 2016.

Analysis shows that sales volumes amounted to 1.4 million metric tons (MT), valued at EUR 4.9 billion (USD 5.6 billion) in 2016, which was an increase of six percent in volume and eight percent in value compared to 2014. Profits doubled during this time, reaching EUR 800 million (USD 917.2 million) total in earnings before interest and tax.

Of the 28 countries making up the E.U., the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain accounted for around 75 percent of aquaculture production.

Speaking at the 50th anniversary of the European Fisheries Partnership in Brussels, prior to the report being released, E.U. Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella stressed the need for sustainable fish farming to flourish and confirmed the European Union’s commitment to large-scale expansion of aquaculture by member-states.

“It is an industry that creates economic growth, employment and economic stability, especially in rural areas and along coastal areas,” Vella said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

28,000-Strong Survey Reveals Europeans’ Fish and Seafood Preferences

January 8, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Most Europeans prefer buying fish and seafood frozen but consumers in Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Spain prefer fresh, according to a 28,000-strong European Commission survey.

The EU is one of the world’s largest markets for fish and seafood.

While per capita spending on fishery and aquaculture products is one-third of that of Japan, the world leader, it is more than three times as much as in the United States.

A recently published study commissioned by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, therefore aimed to shed light on what Europeans look for in fish and seafood, where they buy it and which information they would like to see on-pack.

The survey questioned almost 28,000 individuals from each member state in face-to-face interviews that were conducted at home in their native language.

“It aims at improving understanding of the EU internal market for fishery and aquaculture products to allow operators to be more competitive and to support new strategies that can stimulate growth, strengthen economic activities in the internal market and lead to job creation,” the report said.

Overall, seven in ten respondents (70%) eat fishery or aquaculture products at home ‘at least once a month’.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest consumers of fish and seafood products are from countries with a tradition of fishing and eating fish. Spain led the way, with 92% of respondents saying they eat fish at least once a month, followed by Portugal and Sweden (both 87%), Estonia (85%), Finland (84%) and Denmark and Greece with 83%.

As with the previous 2016 survey , Hungary stood out for having the lowest proportion, with just over one quarter (28%) of individuals eating fish at home at least once a month. However, price may be a deterring factor for consumers in the land-locked country: 90% of Hungarians said they would buy or eat more fishery and aquaculture products if the prices were not so high.

Supermarkets are the preferred purchase point

Over three-quarters of these respondents (77%) buy fishery or aquaculture products at the grocery store, supermarket or hypermarket. However, a majority of Italians (64%), Greeks (65%) and Maltese respondents (74%) were more likely to buy fish or seafood directly from a fishmonger, a fishmonger’s stall in a market hall, or at a specialist store.

Almost no country seemed to favour online shopping for fish products with one exception: Denmark, with 6%.

The most popular format was frozen. A total of 68% of all respondents who buy fish and seafood purchase frozen products either from time to time or often, with Portugal, Austria and Sweden the top countries for frozen fish purchases. Greece, Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, came out top for fresh fish and seafood products.

Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Croatia preferred to buy whole products.

Respondents were more likely to express a preference for wild products (35%) over farmed products (9%), but nearly as many said that they did not have a preference (32%).

“The most commonly mentioned reasons to buy or eat fishery and aquaculture products are because they are healthy (74%) and because they taste good (59%),” the report said.

Label information

“More than half mention the product’s appearance (59%) and the cost of the product (52%) as important aspects when buying fishery and aquaculture products. The third most frequently mentioned aspect is the origin of the product, with more than four in ten respondents (41%) considering this important. More than a fifth (23%) of respondents consider the brand or quality labels (e.g. PGI, PDO) and how easy and quick it is to prepare as important. Finally, the environmental, social or ethical impact is least mentioned as important (17%).

After date of catch and production, the second piece of information consumers would most like to see on-pack was environmental information, which nearly four in ten (39%) thought should be on labels.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

EU Commission proposes 2019 TACs for Atlantic, North Sea

November 9, 2018 — The European Commission has proposed new 2019 quotas for 89 separate stocks in the east Atlantic and North Sea.

The new quotas will see total allowable catch (TAC) increased or maintained for 62 stocks, while 22 stocks have seen a decrease in TAC — five of which have a proposed TAC of zero, indicating that the reduced stocks should no longer be targeted at all.

Some of the biggest quota gains belonged to North Atlantic haddock, which had a proposed TAC of 10,469 metric tons, up 103% from 2018; horse mackerel off the west coast of Spain, with a proposed quota of 94,017t, up 69%; and Norwegian lobster west of Sweden, up 65% to a new TAC of 19,424t.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Spanish seafood industry urged to work toward greater sustainability

August 17, 2018 — Spain’s seafood industry is being helped to work towards a more sustainable and responsible supply chain by environmental law group ClientEarth, following the success of the Sustainable Seafood Coalition (SSC) in the United Kingdom, which it initiated.

The SSC aimed to promote and support responsible and sustainable fish and seafood consumption, inform the public debate on seafood, and influence change in policy relevant to seafood sustainability not just in the U.K., but also in the European Union internationally.

The SSC has become a practical and collaborative way of demonstrating good sourcing practice, according to ClientEarth. The U.K. initiative has resulted in 75 percent of seafood in British supermarkets being labeled and sourced responsibly through voluntary codes of conduct on responsible sourcing and labeling developed by SSC members.

ClientEarth’s new sustainable seafood project hopes to achieve similar results with the Spanish seafood industry.

“Our role is to facilitate a new industry coalition and help them develop best practice for seafood sustainability in Spain,” Katie Miller, ClientEarth’s sustainable seafood project lead, told SeafoodSource. “This group can pave the way for collaborative environmental leadership in Spain.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Boom in taste for octopus squeezes market

August 14, 2018 — Whether it’s spiced in the Spanish style or sliced as Japanese sashimi, octopus as a dish is becoming a victim of its own popularity.

Prices for the tentacled mollusc have about doubled in the past two years due to a global boom in appetite for these classic dishes. And supplies have tightened, with fisheries not yet able to farm octopus and relying on ocean currents to yield a good harvest.

This year has been hard, with lower catches in major producing countries like Morocco and Spain.

“The price will rise even more,” says Carmen Torres Lorenzo, who has been selling fish for three decades in the market of Bueu in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia, famed for its octopus dish. “I wish a lot of octopus would appear … and the price will come down, but that won’t happen.”

The price of a regular size, locally caught octopus has risen from about 7 euros to 14 euros per kilogram (from $8 to $16 for 2.2 pounds) in the last two years. The price is typically somewhat higher in other countries, like the U.S., that do not specialize in its fishing.

The Food and Agriculture Organization says prices are expected to continue to grow as demand has risen in all major markets, including Japan, the United States, China and Europe. Meanwhile, catches have been limited, even in the biggest producing countries, Morocco, Mauritania and Mexico.

Some scientists in Japan and Spain are working on techniques to farm octopus, but they are not ready yet for commercial purposes. Octopus eggs are laid on the ocean floor, where they are fertilized and transported by currents, a condition that is hard to reproduce in a controlled environment.

“There is a lot of demand for this product, and what we can offer is little, so the price skyrockets,” said says Jose Manuel Rosas, president of Bueu’s fishermen guild.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Gloucester Daily Times

Bladeless Wind Turbines Could Be the Future of Wind Energy

July 26, 2018 — A new kind of wind turbine captures energy without any blades. It’s half the price, more efficient, silent and doesn’t kill birds.

A Spanish company just took wind turbines to the next level by removing their hallmark feature – the blades.

Vortex claims their bladeless wind turbines significantly reduce the carbon footprint of wind energy as they require fewer raw materials, no oiling and far less land as they can be placed closer together.

Individually they produce about 3o percent less electricity than a traditional wind turbine, but that is more than compensated for by the fact you can safely fit twice as many turbines into the same space.

They also cost around half of what conventional turbines cost to produce.

Read the full story at Return to Now

 

Hundreds of seafood stakeholders heading to Spain to tackle top sustainability issues

June 11, 2018 — Barcelona, Spain will play host to more than 100 speakers and even more attendees from across the sustainable seafood movement for this year’s SeaWeb Seafood Summit, occurring from 18 to 21 June at the Hotel Arts.

Over the course of up to five days, summit speakers and registered attendees – including global representatives from the seafood industry, the conservation community, retail/foodservice, academia, government and the media – will convene to learn, network, and problem solve, said Diversified Communications, which produces the summit in partnership with SeaWeb.

“This year, we’ve expanded interactive formats across more sessions,” said Brenna Hensley, event director for Diversified Communications. “This forum vastly benefits from wide participation and input from diverse stakeholders.”

The educational sessions planned for the summit are formatted as “engagement-driven panels or workshops,” explained Diversified, and aim to unpack and troubleshoot challenging and emerging issues within the seafood sustainability oceanscape.

The event will feature several plenary and panel discussions, including the opening session set to take place on Tuesday, 19 June at 11:15 a.m.: “Is Spain Really as Important as the Global Seafood Sustainability Movement Believes?” During this kickoff plenary, “panelists will examine the key factors that explain and drive the success of the global seafood sustainability movement through the lens of global consumer appetite for mature (whitefish, small shrimps, salmon, cold water crabs) and non-mature (octopus and squid) markets,” Diversified said in a press release.

Such discussions will continue to heat up on Wednesday, 20 June, when the plenary “Building Socially Responsible Seafood Supply Chains Through Worker Voice,” is scheduled to take place. The session will involve a “dynamic, multi-stakeholder “ perspective on the concept of worker voice, covering why worker voice is important and how to incorporate it into seafood supply chains.

Read the full story at Seafood Source