Saving Seafood

Thai Union commits to sustainable tuna, targets 75 percent by 2020

December 14, 2016 — Thai Union Group PCL has announced its intention to ensure 100 percent of its branded tuna is sustainably sourced, with a commitment of achieving a minimum of 75 percent by 2020.

The pledge will apply to all of the seafood company’s tuna brands sold around the world, including Chicken of the Sea and Genova in the North American market, John West in Northern Europe and the Middle East, Mareblu in Italy, Petit Navire in France and SEALECT in Thailand.

Each of these brands will publically report on a regular basis on their progress against the 2020 commitment, the company said.

As part of its new tuna strategy, Thai Union will invest USD 90 million (EUR 84.8 million) in initiatives aimed at increasing the supply of sustainable tuna, including establishing 11 new fishery improvement projects (FIPs) around the world.

“Tuna is the most readily available source of protein for millions of people around the world, and at least one billion depend on seafood for nourishment or employment. As a leader in the seafood industry, Thai Union has a responsibility to protect tuna stocks for the good of the world,” said Thiraphong Chansiri, CEO of Thai Union Group. “Our substantial investment will transform tuna sourcing for the entire industry and demonstrates our strong commitment to the sustainability of our oceans.”

Thai Union defines sustainably sourced tuna as tuna from fisheries that are either already certified according to the standards of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or are involved in a FIP that is working towards achieving standards required for MSC certification.

“Currently only 11 tuna fisheries globally are MSC-certified, supplying just 14 percent of globally landed tuna. Our commitment and strategy will have a positive impact on the entire industry by significantly increasing the supply of sustainable tuna available to the seafood processors, retailers and, ultimately, consumers,” said Darian McBain, global director for sustainable development at Thai Union.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Thai Navy shows off technology to fight fishing abuses

December 9, 2016 — SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand — Thailand’s navy on Friday showed off new technology to monitor fishing boats in a renewed effort to crack down on illegal fishing, forced labor and corruption in the seafood industry.

New equipment the navy has been testing includes a GPS tracking system to monitor fishing vessels, a central database and a scanner for officials to check documents.

The system, demonstrated to reporters, won’t fully be in place until April, but outside groups are already skeptical it will achieve what it’s set out to do unless more human enforcement is put into place.

Thailand has been under pressure from the European Union after revelations that it relied heavily on forced labor, and is facing a potential total EU ban on seafood imports unless it reforms its fishing industry.

‘‘We’re doing this to increase the effectiveness of inspection, because putting humans in the loop has caused some errors in the past,’’ said Cdr. Piyanan Kaewmanee, head of a Thai navy group that oversees illegal fishing, who pointed to corrupt officials as a major issue. ‘‘We can ensure that our workers are accounted for, and aren’t lost at sea or transferred from ship to ship.’’

New on Friday was a handheld scanner that can read crew identification and other papers to make sure workers are documented and the fishing gear is licensed. During the inspection demonstration, workers crouched and huddled together, holding up green identification cards, as Thai navy sailors boarded their ship, looked through documents, and patted down workers.

The scanners will be integrated into a vessel monitoring system which will keep track of the location of all Thai fishing vessels using GPS technology and a central database.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Boston Globe

Can North Carolina’s Local Seafood Movement Help Save its Fishermen?

November 16, 2016 — North Carolina’s commercial fishermen—who work primarily in independent, small-scale operations—landed 66 million pounds of fish last year, but rather than ending up on North Carolina plates, the majority was whisked out of state to markets where it could fetch a higher price.

“I think more New Yorkers eat North Carolina seafood than North Carolinians,” says Ann Simpson, who grew up in a small town on the coast and currently directs North Carolina Catch, a partnership of smaller organizations working to strengthen the state’s local seafood economy.

To fill the void created by the export of its catch, North Carolina—like most states—ships in seafood from abroad. Today, around 90 percent of the seafood Americans eat has been imported from places like China, Thailand, Canada, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Ecuador, and the average fish travels more than 5,400 miles between the landing dock and point of sale.

“People come to the coast looking for fresh seafood, and for the most part, they’re getting seafood from halfway around the world, which they’re eating in a local setting,” says Noelle Boucquey, assistant professor of environmental studies at Eckerd College, who studied North Carolina’s fisheries while at Duke University. Patronize a vendor at the Outer Banks Seafood Festival in Nags Head, and you’ll face the same conundrum.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Why the death of coral reefs could be devastating for millions of humans

November 10th, 2016 — Coral reefs around the globe already are facing unprecedented damage because of warmer and more acidic oceans. It’s hardly a problem affecting just the marine life that depends on them or deep-sea divers who visit them.

If carbon dioxide emissions continue to fuel the planet’s rising temperature, the widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 could have devastating consequences for tens of millions of people, according to new research published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS.

 To better understand where those losses would hit hardest, an international group of researchers mapped places where people most need reefs for their livelihoods, particularly for fishing and tourism, as well as for shoreline protection. The researchers combined those maps with others showing where coral reefs are most under stress from warming seas and ocean acidification.

Countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines would bear the brunt of the damage, the scientists found. So would coastal communities in western Mexico and parts of Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. The problem would affect countries as massive as China and as small as the tiny island nation of Nauru in the South Pacific.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

New AP story finds labor issues persist in Thai seafood industry

September 29, 2016 — A new Associated Press story explores progress made in the past year in reforming abusive labor practices in the shrimp processing sector in Thailand.

The article, “Promises unmet as Thailand tries to reform shrimp industry,” published 22 September, investigates the the difficulties faced by the industry in attempting to implement reforms. The article follows up on a March 2015 AP investigation titled “Seafood from Slaves,” which detailed the use of human trafficking, forced labor and violence against workers in the Thai seafood industry.

“The Associated Press…found that while some Thai companies that export shrimp to the U.S. have given formerly entrapped workers better jobs in-house, others still use middlemen who employ laborers in remote, guarded warehouses,” the AP reported in its new article. “That’s despite industry vows to end outside shrimp processing by the end of last year after human trafficking was exposed in the sheds.”

The owners of these sheds still disregard environmental, labor or safety laws, with 75 percent of the 109 sheds inspected so far this year receiving citations for violations and 24 were ordered to close, the AP reported.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Find that fish: Chicken of the Sea launches traceability initiative

September 14, 2016 — Chicken of the Sea’s owner, Thai Union, has been at the center of controversy lately, particularly following reports of ongoing slavery and trafficking in the Thai fishing industry. Investigations from The New York Times, Associated Press and Guardian linked many of these human rights abuses to Thai Union and Chicken of the Sea, according to a Greenpeace report.

Chicken of the Sea’s traceability efforts are a start on its path to increased transparency and sustainability throughout its supply chain. But knowing where a fish was caught or how it was processed doesn’t necessarily solve human rights abuses occurring on the other side of the world.

Increasing numbers of consumers consider a company’s labor practices in their brand purchase decisions. Consumers today demand transparency, ranging from ingredients to fair labor practices. Manufacturers that embrace consumers’ hunger for transparency can achieve better whole chain visibility and traceability.

That effort offers more information about ingredients, suppliers, processing and other company practices that the brand can then share with consumers. Transparency can also help foster brand loyalty among the vast majority of consumers and convince others to pay more for completely transparent products, according to a recent study from Label Insight.

Read the full story from Food Dive

JOHN SACKTON: If it is Unethical in Thailand, It is Unethical in Hawaii Also

September 8, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Charlie Nagle said it best:  We “do not and will never knowingly source from vessels that mistreat their crew.” The Nagle family has been in the fish business on the Boston Fish Pier for 130 years.

The AP report on the imprisonment of foreign fishermen on Hawaiian vessels is a wake-up call.  No seafood buyer will tolerate abusive conditions for fishermen, whether the result of a legal loophole or not.

The US has been highly critical of Thailand, where abusive labor practices and human trafficking in the seafood industry earned worldwide condemnation and resulted in changes in laws and in close audits of the supply chain.

In New Zealand, documentation of abusive labor practices on offshore vessels led to changes in the law and requirements that crews on these boats be free from unfair labor contracts, be paid according to New Zealand laws, and through New Zealand bank accounts out of reach of the labor brokers who hired them.

Can we expect anything less in Hawaii?

The fishermen in question are hired overseas, brought to Hawaii by boat never having set foot in the US, and then kept onboard for months without any possibility of coming ashore while their vessels dock in Hawaii and California.  They are paid as little as $0.70 per hour.

The AP report says that “under the law, U.S. citizens must make up 75 percent of the crew on most American commercial fishing boats. But influential lawmakers, including the late Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, pushed for a loophole to support one of the state’s biggest industries. It exempted Hawaiian commercial fishing boat owners from federal rules enforced almost everywhere else.

Thus the workers in Hawaii, who catch $110 million worth of seafood annually, are paid as little as 70 cents an hour. They are detained on boats by captains who are required by law to hold their passports. That potentially goes against federal human trafficking laws saying bosses who hold workers’ identification documents can face up to five years in prison.”

The Hawaiian tuna and mahi fleet has no excuse.  They can either find fishermen and pay them a US wage, or stop selling to most US markets.

It is simply not acceptable for buyers to express huge concern about fishery labor abuses in Thailand, and ignore those that legally take place in Hawaii.

The fact that these workers can’t come ashore due to lack of visas doesn’t excuse the practice of holding these men on vessels who have no opportunity to leave, nor any opportunity to change their work situation or demand higher pay.  All the condemnation of labor agents and traffickers that supply labor to Thai fishing boats applies to these vessels in Hawaii also.

Undoubtedly the AP story will lead to a change in laws.  But the seafood industry, including the Hawaii longline fleet, cannot wait until then.  They must reform this practice immediately, or shut down.  There is no middle ground.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

How to Make Sure Your Fish Wasn’t Caught by Slaves

September 8, 2016 — For years, news outlets have been reporting on the systemic use of slavery in commercial fishing in places such as New Zealand and Thailand. With much of the industry’s byproduct ending up in the United States and Europe—according to a report in The Guardian, “The U.S., U.K., and E.U. are prime buyers of this seafood—with Americans buying half of all Thailand’s seafood exports and the U.K. alone consuming nearly 7 percent of all Thailand’s prawn exports.”—there’s a strong possibility that at some point, slave-caught fish has been served on a dinner plate near you. But thanks to blockchain, a technology best known as the basis for Bitcoin, soon there will be a new digital weapon to fight slave labor.

“We want to help support fish that is caught sustainably and verify these claims down the chain to help drive the market for slavery-free fish,” Provenance founder Jessi Baker told the Guardian. Provenance is an organization dedicated to socially responsible consumerism—it recently began piloting a blockchain program with the Co-Op Food group in the United Kingdom. “This pilot shows that complex, global supply chains can be made transparent by using blockchain technology.”

Currently, the only way to track the progress of seafood through the region’s supply chain is with paper records and tagged animals. According to the Guardian, the world’s biggest tuna exporter, the Thai Union, is all for utilizing blockchain technology. “Traceability—which allows us to prove that our fish is caught legally and sustainably and that safe labor conditions are met throughout the supply chain—is vital if we are to interest consumers in the source of their tuna,” the union’s director of sustainability Dr. Darian McBain told the paper.

Read the full story at Food & Wine

Dozens of countries just agreed to shut pirate fishermen out of their ports. Here’s why.

June 9, 2016 — Indonesia has a ruthless strategy for dealing with pirates: blow up their boats.

Over the past two years, the Indonesian Navy has seized more than 100 vessels flagged from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines — all accused of fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. Whenever this happens, authorities detain the crew, load the empty boat with explosives, and let it burn as a warning to others:

Except it doesn’t work. Or at least it’s not nearly enough. There are always more boats, more desperate fishermen looking for work. And the oceans are vast; it’s impossible to board every last pirate ship out there. Last year, New Zealand’s navy spent two weeks chasing illegal fishing vessels at sea before running out of fuel and giving up.

Worldwide, illegal fishing vessels now catch some 26 million tons of fish a year, worth $23.5 billion, or one-fifth of the entire world’s annual wild catch. It’s one of the biggest problems in marine policy. Experts say these catches undermine fishing limits that nations put in place to prevent fish stocks from getting depleted too rapidly and collapsing. Illegal fishing also undercuts the legal fishermen trying to earn a living. And many of these ships end up killing protected species, like sharks.

Read the full story at Vox

United Nations Treaty to Fight Illegal Fishing Will Take Effect

May 17, 2016 — The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), an international treaty intended to help stop illegal fishing, will enter into force now that it has been ratified by more than the 25 governments needed.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced May 16 that six countries—Dominica, Guinea-Bissau, Sudan, Thailand, Tonga, and Vanuatu— had ratified the binding agreement, bringing the total to 30. They join other governments large and small around the world, including the United States and the European Union, and demonstrate the broad range of support for the PSMA.

This is a critical step in the global fight to end illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU)  fishing and  should lead to more governments signing  on to the treaty.  That would strengthen the PSMA and extend its reach to new regions.  We know that more countries are in the process of ratifying the pact, and we expect the numbers to grow.

Read the full story at the Pew Charitable Trusts