April 23, 2020 — Discord amongst the world’s major fishing powers is continuing to hold up a World Trade Organization agreement on fishing subsidies.
A WTO ministerial meeting set for June in Kazakhstan was seen as the deadline for a deal, but that has now been postponed after a WTO staff member tested positive for COVID-19, and also due to travel restrictions imposed as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
April 21, 2020 — Danielle Blacklock took over as director of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Aquaculture in mid-March, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to come to a head in the United States. Over the past decade, Blacklock has served in multiple positions at NOAA, most recently as a senior policy advisor for aquaculture. In that role, Blacklock completed a six-month assignment at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, focused on aquaculture sustainability globally. She also served as the acting deputy in the office for several months.
Blacklock is charged with overseeing the aquaculture component of NOAA’s sustainable seafood portfolio and providing the strategic vision for developing a stronger aquaculture industry in the United States. Nearly a month into her appointment, SeafoodSource connected with Blacklock to discuss her goals as director, the office’s response to COVID-19 complications and what the future of U.S. aquaculture looks like.
April 14, 2020 — A group of more than 60 U.S. senators and representatives have signed a letter calling for China and other countries to shut down so-called “wet markets” where live wild animals are sold for human consumption.
Wet markets are found in many cities in China, and often feature seafood and other animals being sold alive to customers. A wet market in Wuhan is believed to have been the source of the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 100,000 people globally since December 2019.
April 10, 2020 — Baseline international standards for human rights, labor conditions, and social responsibility in the seafood industry will have to wait.
Countries pushed back against draft guidance on social responsibility in fish value chains developed by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) when it was first officially presented in November in Vigo, Spain. As a result, FAO is spending the next year-plus creating a scoping paper that will more explicitly spell out what should be included in the guidance.
March 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative & The Sustainable Trade Initiative :
On March 30 2020, at a SeafoodSource webinar, the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI) and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, launched Seafood MAP – a new market and investment program, supported by leading seafood companies, to accelerate sustainable seafood worldwide.
Seafood MAP – Measuring and Accelerating Performance of global seafood supply – responds to an urgent need to drive more responsible practices across the sector. It provides global guidance and incentives to seafood producers that are not yet certified to become more sustainable and profitable. This will create investment opportunities for financiers to support the supply of sustainable seafood to fast growing consumer markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In 2020, Seafood MAP will develop a responsible roadmap and framework, based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and FAO Guidelines. The first pilots are due to go live in mid-2020 in regions worldwide, following the latest assessments in light of the global pandemic.
March 13, 2020 — A new report released in March by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) has found improvements in working conditions in Thailand’s fishing and seafood processing sectors. However, there remain problems with forced labor in the industry, the organization noted.
Despite the finding, a group of human rights-focused NGOs are calling on the U.S. government to downgrade Thailand in its annual report on human trafficking, according to Reuters.
March 10, 2020 — A report issued Tuesday by the U.N.’s International Labor Organization credits Thailand with improving working conditions in the fishing and seafood processing industry, but says that serious abuses including forced labor remain.
The report is a follow-up to one published in 2018, and compares the workers situations from earlier surveys to one conducted last year.
Thailand’s seafood sector accounts for billions of dollars in export earnings annually and employ more than 350,000 workers.
However, the industry began facing the threat of trade sanctions from Western nations after media exposure in 2014 of poor working conditions and especially the exploitation of ‘fishing slaves’ — forced labor.
In response, Thailand’s government began instituting reform measures, most effectively by strengthening its legal, policy and regulatory framework, the report says.
But the measures have failed to substantially cut the use of forced labor, it says. Extrapolating from the 2019 survey of workers, it estimates that 14% of those engaged in fishing and 7% of those in seafood processing were subject to some form of forced labor.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New York Times
March 3, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council adds its condolences and gratitude to the family of Satya N. Nandan and to the Republic of Fiji on the passing last week of that country’s first diplomat to the United Nations.
Nandan’s long list of accomplishments includes not only playing an integral role in finalizing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, chairing the UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Stocks (1993-95) and serving for nearly a quarter century as the Secretary-General of the International Seabed Authority but also serving as chairman of the Multilateral High-Level Conference (MHLC) on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific. As the local organizer of four of the seven MHLC sessions hosted by the United States, the Council worked intimately with Nandan. His wisdom, experience and diplomatic demeanor led to the successful signing of the Honolulu Convention on September 5, 2000, and the creation of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.
“Nandan’s legacy is protection of the ocean and ocean communities worldwide, from the substrate to the highly migratory species, especially tuna, one of our planet’s greatest resources,” noted Kitty M. Simonds, Council executive director.
More about Nandan’s work with the MHLC can be found at http://www.wpcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Monograph-2_2010_WCPFC_web-final.pdf.
February 26, 2020 — Aligning countries’ seafood import control schemes would reduce cost burdens for seafood companies while helping prevent illegally caught fish from reaching global markets.
A coalition of NGOs is arguing that major seafood importing countries and Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) need to ensure that their import regulations require the collection of 17 key data points that reveal the who, what, when, where, and how of seafood in the supply chain. Currently, a lack of data prevents cross-checking against authorization records – making it impossible to confirm the legality of imported seafood.
February 25, 2020 — As ocean warming causes fish stocks to migrate toward cooler waters to maintain their preferred thermal environment, many of the nations that rely on commercial fish species as an integral part of their economy could suffer.
A new study published in Nature Sustainability from the University of Delaware, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Hokkaido University, shows that nations in the tropics—especially Northwest African nations—are especially vulnerable to this potential species loss due to climate change. Not only are tropical countries at risk for the loss of fish stocks, the study found there are not currently any adequate policy interventions to help mitigate affected countries’ potential losses.
Kimberly Oremus, assistant professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, explained that when the researchers looked at international agreements, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, they found no specific text for what happens when fish leave a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a zone established to give a country national jurisdiction over a fishery resource.
That means countries could be vulnerable to economic losses, and those potential losses could make the fish populations themselves vulnerable as well.
“We realized there was an incentive for countries when they lose a fish or anticipate that loss to go ahead and overfish before it leaves because otherwise, they don’t get the monetary benefits of the resource,” said Oremus.