Saving Seafood

International Seafood Sustainability Foundation Announces New Conservation Measure to Bolster Fish Aggregating Device (FAD) Management across Global Tuna Fisheries

November 12, 2019 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) today announced the adoption of a new conservation measure requiring that fishing vessels have publicly available fish aggregation device (FAD) management policies to comply with ISSF supply-chain recommendations for marine ecosystem health. These policies must be in line with science-based best practices outlined in ISSF’s report, “Recommended Best Practices for FAD Management in Tropical Tuna Purse Seine Fisheries.”

“Since ISSF’s founding 10 years ago, we’ve prioritized better management of FADs and the reduction of bycatch and other marine ecosystem impacts across all oceans,” explains ISSF President Susan Jackson. “This new conservation measure gives leading seafood companies a clear framework, based on years of scientific research, in sourcing tuna from vessels that are following best practices in designing, deploying, and recovering FADs – and also in reporting FAD data to Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs).”

ISSF Conservation Measure 3.7 Transactions with Vessels or Companies with Vessel-based FAD Management Policies, approved by the ISSF Board of Directors to take effect in 2021, states that ISSF participating companies shall conduct transactions only with those purse seine vessels whose owners develop and make public FAD management policies that include the activities purse seine and supply vessels are undertaking (if any) on the following elements:

  • Comply with flag state and RFMO reporting requirements for fisheries statistics by set type
  • Voluntarily report additional FAD buoy data for use by RFMO science bodies
  • Support science-based limits on the overall number of FADs used per vessel and/or FAD sets made
  • Use only non-entangling FADs to reduce ghost fishing
  • Mitigate other environmental impacts due to FAD loss including through the use of biodegradable FADs and FAD recovery policies
  • For silky sharks (the main bycatch issue in FAD sets), implement further mitigation efforts

Helping global tuna fisheries become capable of achieving Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification without conditions has long been an ISSF objective, and improved FAD management is an important component of meeting the MSC standard. Conservation Measure 3.7 is ISSF’s second measure focused on FADs specifically, and its tenth measure focused on bycatch mitigation in tuna fisheries.

For full details on Conservation Measure 3.7, read the complete text here: https://iss-foundation.org/what-we-do/verification/conservation-measures-commitments/bycatch-mitigation-3-7-transactions-with-vessels-or-companies-with-vessel-based-fad-management-policies/

Supply Chain Conservation Measure Expanded to include FisheryProgress.org and MSC-certified Fisheries

ISSF conservation measures directly affect how 26 global seafood companies that are ISSF participating companies environmentally manage their respective tuna supply chains.

To support ISSF participating companies in sourcing sustainable tuna from processors and vessels and achieving greater supply-chain transparency, the ISSF Board has amended Conservation Measure 2.4 Supply Chain Transparency, Audit, Reporting and Purchase Requirements.

In addition to purchasing tuna from Supplier Source categories — peer ISSF participating companies, ISSF Data Check companies, direct from vessels — ISSF participating companies now can source tuna from an expanded array of sources represented by these Fishery Source categories:

By January 31, 2020, and annually thereafter, to comply with measure 2.4, participating companies must publicly report the percentage of tuna sourced from the Supplier Source and/or Fishery Source categories.

The complete measure is available here: https://iss-foundation.org/what-we-do/verification/conservation-measures-commitments/traceability-data-collection-2-4-supply-chain-transparency-audit-reporting-and-purchase-requirements/.

ISSF provides application forms for companies interested in becoming a participating company or Data Check company, including Terms and Conditions for Data Check Companies.

SFP releases 2019 reduction fisheries report

October 28, 2019 — The following was released by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership:

A review of the management of the leading European and Latin American fisheries used for fishmeal and fish oil has concluded that 88 percent of the volume comes from fisheries that are at least “reasonably well-managed.”

The report, which analyzes 26 reduction fishery stocks worldwide, also identified an increase of 2 percent in the volume of fish from fisheries that are considered “poorly managed.”

“All of the fisheries already have relatively good management schemes in place; continued efforts in addressing the remaining management issues, and also in complying with the scientifically advised measures, would likely contribute to a faster recovery of the respective stocks to healthy levels,” the report’s authors wrote.

Other key findings from the report include:

  • Three percent of the total catch volume of the reduction fisheries in the analysis comes from stocks classified as “very good condition.” As in the four previous editions of this report, this corresponds to a single fishery: Antarctic krill – Atlantic Southern Ocean. This stock is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and has had MSC-certified fisheries since 2010.
  • Eighty-eight percent of the total catch volume in the analysis comes from stocks that are considered to be “reasonably well-managed (or better),” (i.e., that score 6 or above on all five criteria outlined by SFP’s FishSource database), a three-percent decrease compared to last year. The stock with the largest contribution to this category continues to be the Anchoveta – Peruvian northern-central stock, which represents approximately 32 percent of the total catch, compared to 33 percent in the previous overview.
  • Twelve percent (1.1 million tonnes) of total reduction fisheries catch comes from fisheries classified as “poorly managed,” a rise of 2 percent compared to last year. The volume coming from poorly managed fisheries is still, however, considerably lower than that observed prior to 2017.

There is a critical need to develop and expand improvement efforts in Southeast Asian fisheries, which are not included in the report’s analysis. These fisheries likely represent close to half of the global catch for this sector, yet are poorly understood and plagued by persistent environmental and social issues.

“Fish meal and fish oil are important feed ingredients that provide key nutrients to farmed shrimp and fish,” said Dave Robb, sustainability director, animal nutrition and health, at Cargill. “But it’s important they are sourced responsibly. Fishery improvement projects (FIPs) provide an important opportunity to drive sustainable development in areas like Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa, helping to improve fisheries management and activities for the long-term benefit of all participants. Cargill is already engaged in some FIPs and encourages other actors in this sector to also engage in such schemes, to help secure a sustainable future for fishmeal and oil. Collaboration is key: together, we can help achieve environmentally and socially sustainable fisheries.”

The ecological impacts of reduction fisheries on the wider marine ecosystem are not fully understood. A guest article by Birdlife International in the report highlights the vulnerability of seabirds to restrictions in the availability of forage fish that result from fishing.

Commenting on the results, Dave Martin, deputy programs director at SFP, said, “Despite a minor drop in performance this year, the fishmeal and fish oil industry in Europe and Latin America has built a good track record of responsible sourcing, although there is inevitably still room for improvement. Given this, it is urgent that global industry turn its attention squarely to Southeast Asia.”

The full report is available for download by clicking here

Certifying collective releases new tool looking at seafood’s environmental, social performance

October 24, 2019 — The Certifications and Ratings Collaboration, a collective of leading global seafood certification and ratings programs, recently released its Sustainable Seafood Data Tool this month. An online resource, the new tool offers a first-of-its-kind interactive overview of the environmental and social performance of worldwide seafood production, the collaboration said in a press release.

The analysis offered in the Sustainable Seafood Data Tool gives an overarching view of all global production and also drills down to give snapshots of wild and farmed seafood production. Each of the tool’s overviews provides details of the proportion of seafood production that has been certified or rated as meeting a high level of environmental performance; whether the area in question is improving through fishery or aquaculture improvement projects; if it needs improvement; or if its status is unknown.

The data within the resource can be filtered, the collaboration said, a capability that allows users to display similar overviews for particular regions or countries. Additionally, tool also allows for the combination of geographic filters with filters for wild capture, farmed, or both.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ISSF: 15% of world’s tuna catches come from over-fished stocks

October 24, 2019 — About 15% of total commercial tuna catches worldwide come from overfished stocks, according to a new report by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) on the status of tuna stocks.

With stocks described as overfished and overfishing taking place, Atlantic Ocean bigeye and Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stocks face a particular challenge, according to the report.

ISSF, formed in 2009 as a global, non-profit partnership among the tuna industry, scientists and World Wide Fund for Nature, assessed status of seven species of major commercial oceanic tuna. This included 23 stocks in total (6 albacore, 4 bigeye, 4 bluefin, 5 skipjack and 4 yellowfin stocks).

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Report urges lenders to price sustainability risks into seafood industry capital costs

October 21, 2019 — A new report from the nonprofit Planet Tracker is urging banks and investors to price the hidden risk of unsustainable operations by Japanese seafood companies into their lending decisions.

Planet Tracker is a project of Investor Watch, a nonprofit company with the goal of encouraging “impact investing,” or aligning capital markets with social and ecological sustainability. Mark Campanale, a co-founder of Investor Watch, formerly worked for asset management companies and was involved in the creation of several responsible investment funds. He also provided input to the current report.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Russian Pacific cod MSC approval has catchers eyeing more EU, US sales

October 18, 2019 — A portion of the Russian longline Pacific cod and halibut fishery has been certified as sustainable to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard, meaning the country’s catchers are set to further target the European and US markets.

The approval took place on Oct. 9 and this means all cod and halibut from the certified management areas caught after Aug. 1 this year can be sold as MSC certified, Sergey Sennikov, director of sustainability for Norebo Holding, Russia’s largest fishing company, during the 2019 Groundfish Forum in Berlin, Germany.

“We can target Europe and the US as well, as Pacific cod is well known in the US. It’s about having more access to the market,” he said. This places Russian Pacific cod more closely in competition with product from the US. The US fishery has been MSC certified for many years, but catch allocations have been coming down.

According to the public certification report on the Russian fishery, the portion of the total allowable catch (TAC) for Pacific cod covered by the MSC approval is 31.8%. The report only gives a TAC for 2016-2017, which was 140,000 metric tons, meaning 25,200t of this would be eligible for sale as MSC-approved.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

European seafood sector fights back against claims of IUU-tainted fishmeal

October 16, 2019 — NGOs and retailers are seeking to distance themselves this week from a new report prepared by the Dutch-based Changing Markets Foundation, which claims to have found links between them and unsustainable fishing operations in Africa and Asian countries that supply feed ingredients for aquaculture.

Changing Markets undertook a comprehensive mapping exercise of fishmeal and fish oil supply chains from sea to plate, which is set out in the report “Fishing for Catastrophe.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

“Restorative aquaculture” potential greatest in North Sea, East China Sea, and Southern California

October 15, 2019 — Combined commercial shellfish and seaweed aquaculture have significant potential to provide sustainable food and jobs while restoring marine ecosystems in Europe’s North Sea, the East China Sea, and Southern California.

A new study published in PLOS ONE finds that every inhabited continent has marine regions well-suited for the kind of shellfish and seaweed aquaculture that benefits both ecosystems and people by filtering polluted waters, providing habitat for commercially valuable species, and generating steady food and jobs. For shellfish, the potential was greatest in Europe, Oceania, and North America, while for seaweed, it was greatest in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and South America.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Does the dramatic increase in tuna catches mean extinction is around the corner? No.

October 11, 2019 — The following is an excerpt from a story originally published by Sustainable Fisheries UW:

Over the last week there have been multiple news stories saying that we are harvesting tunas at unprecedented and unstainable rates—some stories have implied that tunas are on track for extinction. This is simply not true. Most of the time, catches are not a reliable indicator of abundance.

The news articles were based on a recent paper that showed that global catches have increased more than 1,000% over the past 60 years. That statistic sounds large and scary, but it is the poor understanding of how fisheries develop that is scariest.

Fisheries develop, just like other products and industries

The increase in tuna catches reflects the classic behavior of any developing fishery. Throughout history, catches increase until they level out or until they start declining because of two potential reasons: 1. abundance of populations goes down and therefore with the same fishing effort catches go down, or 2. fisheries management is put in place to reduce fishing effort and therefore catch goes down. In the case of industrial tuna fisheries, it is not surprising that tuna’s catches increased since 1950, because this is when these fisheries started.

Global catches of large commercial tuna species from 1950 to 2017. SKJ = skipjack tuna, BFT = bluefin tuna, BET = bigeye tuna, ALB= albacore tuna. PBF= pacific bluefin tuna, SBF = southern bluefin tuna. Updated from: Pons et al. 2017. Effects of biological, economic and management factors on tuna and billfish stock status.

Moreover, recent catches are not increasing very fast. In 2017, total tuna catches were only 18% higher than in 2000. Most of this increase was generated by an increase in skipjack tuna catches, the most productive of all the major tuna species. Further, skipjack are fished at sustainable levels in all Oceans (see figure below). Are we driving skipjack tuna to extinction or even overfishing them? Definitely not.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW