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Tuna companies, NGOs call on FAO to better protect the welfare of fishers

September 12, 2022 — Seven members of the seafood industry and seven NGOs are calling upon the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to better protect the fisher’s welfare on wild-caught vessels by improving data collection and analysis of labor-related accidents.

Three major tuna processors, the Bolton Group, Bumble Bee, and Tri-Marine, along with seafood industry groups of Fedespesca, SEA Alliance, and the Hong Kong Sustainable Seafood Coalition have signed the call to action, which includes asking for a mechanism to gather better data and reduce fisher morality. The NGOs involved in the campaign are Earthworm, ADM Capital Foundation, ClientEarth, the Fishing Industry Association Papua New Guinea (FIA PNG), Friend of the Sea, FishWise, the Global Seafood Alliance, and the Teng Hoi Conservation Organization.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Tuna companies, NGOs call on FAO to better protect the welfare of fishers

September 9, 2022 — Seven members of the seafood industry and seven NGOs are calling upon the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to better protect the fisher’s welfare on wild-caught vessels by improving data collection and analysis of labor-related accidents.

Three major tuna processors, the Bolton Group, Bumble Bee, and Tri-Marine, along with seafood industry groups of Fedespesca, SEA Alliance, and the Hong Kong Sustainable Seafood Coalition have signed the call to action, which includes asking for a mechanism to gather better data and reduce fisher morality. The NGOs involved in the campaign are Earthworm, ADM Capital Foundation, ClientEarth, the Fishing Industry Association Papua New Guinea (FIA PNG), Friend of the Sea, FishWise, the Global Seafood Alliance, and the Teng Hoi Conservation Organization.

Read the full article SeafoodSource

ISSF reports 86.4 percent of tuna catches coming from healthy stocks

September 1, 2022 — The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) released its annual “Status of the Stocks” report in July 2022, finding global tuna catches are increasingly coming from healthy stocks.

Since its last “Status of the Stocks” report in March 2022, the percentage of total commercial tuna catch worldwide harvested from stocks at “healthy” levels of abundance has increased from 80.5 percent to 86.4 percent. ISSF reports this increase is mainly due to the recent change in rating for the Eastern Pacific Ocean skipjack stock.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ISSF urges IATTC to add protections for bigeye and yellowfin tuna stocks

July 26, 2022 — The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) is urging the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) to protect bigeye and yelowfin stocks by ensuring all its commission members are fully implementing conservation measures.

ISSF published a position statement ahead of the IATTC’s upcoming annual meeting acknowledging the IATTC’s tuna-conservation efforts while also pushing for it to follow through on its enacted measures with member-states.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Seafood industry forming methods to influence RFMO decisions

June 20, 2022 — There are 12 RFMOs besides the five tuna RFMOs, covering the majority of the world’s oceans and other highly migratory species. They are:

  • AIDCP: Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Programme
  • NEAFC: North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission
  • NAFO: Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
  • NASCO: North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation
  • SEAFO: South-East Atlantic Fisheries Organisation
  • SIOFA: Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement
  • SPRFMO: South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization
  • CCAMLR: Convention on Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
  • GFCM: General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean
  • CCBSP: Convention on the Conservation and Management of Pollock Resources in the Central Bering Sea
  • WECAFC: Western Central Atlantic Fisheries Commission
  • CECAF: Fisheries Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic

Tom Pickerell, the executive director of the Global Tuna Alliance, said seafood supply chain companies have little engagement with these lesser-known RFMOs, despite the important role they play in fisheries management. But he said that is starting to change.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Lack of effective RFMO management of tuna fisheries threatening US commercial entities

June 17, 2022 — There are 17 regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) in total, but most attention tends to fall on the five major tuna RFMOs that are responsible for about 91 percent of the world’s oceans. These five tuna-focused RFMOs are international organizations formed by countries with fishing interests in a geographical area or highly migratory stock. These RFMOs create fishing limits on stocks in the high seas in order to manage long-term healthy populations and can monitor technical measures used by fisheries. The tuna RFMOs regulate rules and quotas for the participating member-countries to follow in order to sustain healthy tuna stocks in the geographical areas they cover.

Two of the five tuna RFMOs – the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) – manage tuna fisheries in the Pacific Ocean, covering from the coasts of North America and South America all the way to the coasts of Russia, China, Southeast Asia, and Australia.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

American Sword and Tuna Harvesters Respond to Hudson Canyon Marine Sanctuary Consideration

June 9, 2022 — The following was released by the American Sword and Tuna Harvesters:

The American Sword and Tuna Harvesters are concerned about the negative consequences to American citizen’s access to safe and sustainable seafood by a marine sanctuary designation of the Hudson Canyon. This decision was announced yesterday without warning or consultation with participants in the many well-regulated fisheries, operating under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, that depend on this area to survive.

Simply put, a commercial fishing ban in the Hudson Canyon, has the potential to cause the collapse of the East Coast commercial fishery.

This is another disappointing action from an Administration that claims to be committed to science, working families, and communities. But it is unfortunately not out of character. Our June 2021 attempts to arrange a meeting with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to discuss the harm to our fishers from reimposition of a commercial fishing ban in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument were rebuffed. Although acknowledged by staff via email, a terse, tardy, and condescending reply, did not come until January 2022, six months later, and three months after the ban was reimposed.

Yesterday’s announcement is, as the expression goes, déjà vu all over again: A cadre of tax-deduction funded environmental organizations working in secret with a friendly Administration orchestrates the unveiling of a far-reaching potentially negative action affecting America’s commercial fishing industry under the false banner of “much-needed” ocean protections. The details are distributed in advance under embargo to a wide swath of journalists. Then, when the proposal is simultaneously unveiled by its proponents and the White House, pre-written stories appear in numerous media outlets; filled with self-congratulatory quotes, without the inconvenience of input from our hard-working fishing families and communities.

This announcement comes on the second day of Capitol Hill Oceans Week, an annual gathering of environmental and conservation groups organized by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. In past years, our efforts to reach out to Foundation officials, both directly and through mutual contacts, to include commercial fishing voices in this event have been rebuffed. As can be seen in this year’s event agenda, with the exception of Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), there was once again not a single speaker representing domestic commercial fisheries. It would seem that the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s commitment “to a culture of diversity, inclusion, equity, justice, and belonging” does not extend to the inclusion of commercial fishing.

Tonight, in Washington, DC — in an action that can only be described as audacious, hypocritical, and exploitative — the Foundation will host a fundraiser featuring a screening of the film The Perfect Storm, which tells the story of the tragic loss of the Gloucester, Massachusetts fishing vessel Andrea Gail. This creates the false illusion that the Foundation is interested in the plight of domestic commercial fishing families.

We appreciate the Biden-Harris Administration’s stated commitment to equity, environmental justice, and workers’ rights, but at a time when the need for self-sufficiency and supply chain security should be at the forefront of our domestic agenda, the Administration should not support actions that are likely to incentivize the increased importation of often-illegal, underreported, and unregulated (IUU) seafood to the detriment of law-abiding American commercial fishers.
 
About American Sword and Tuna Harvesters
American Sword and Tuna Harvesters are experienced fishers, fish buyers, vessel owners and support businesses who represent a significant harvesting segment of the U.S. pelagic longline Industry. We strive for equitable, logical and science-based fishery management to maximize the harvest of the United States’ allocation internationally-determined highly migratory fish species, to supply the American public with a healthy and renewable food source.

IOTC blacklists tuna fleet with record of IUU fishing

May 27, 2022 — The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) has blacklisted a fleet of tuna-fishing vessels after an Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) investigation revealed it has a previous record of engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The decision by the IOTC, made at its 26th session meeting in the Seychelles, was based on the investigation by the EJF that culminated in the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna banning the vessels in December 2021. Later, the vessels – the Israr 1, 2 and 3 – were dropped by insurers in March 2022.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

IOTC decisions on yellowfin, skipjack tuna criticized as falling short of sustainability goals

May 24, 2022 — The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), which held its annual meeting from 16 to 20 May, 2022, is once again being criticized by ocean-focused non-governmental organizations, which are claiming it failed to take sufficient action to conserve tuna stocks.

Environmental organizations have been pressuring the IOTC to take action on issues threatening the sustainability of skipjack and yellowfin tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean for years, arguing both species are being fished at rates above the commission’s own scientific advice. The IOTC agreed to reduce the total allowable catch (TAC) for yellowfin in 2021 after months of pressure from NGOs, but that resolution was also criticized after multiple contracting countries objected to the adoption of the new TAC.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

IOTC passes resolution tightening at-sea tuna transshipment rules

May 23, 2022 — The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) has passed a resolution aiming to improve the rules and oversight procedures on transshipment of tuna in the Indian Ocean.

The resolution, the text of which was slightly amended at the request of the Indonesian and Japanese delegations, was passed at the IOTC’s 26th session and associated meetings, held in Victoria, Seychelles, from 16 to 20 May. According to the commission, it is one step forward in combating illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing in the region.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

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