Saving Seafood

New Organization To Provide Labour Certification for Fishing Vessels

January 5, 2021 — The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:

Developed by a diverse group of experts in fish harvesting with consultation from labour non-profit organisations, the FISH Standard for Crew is developing a voluntary, independent and accredited third-party certification program for labour practices on vessels in wild-capture fisheries. The name “FISH” represents the scope of the standard: Fairness, Integrity, Safety and Health.

The FISH Standard is designed to ensure that fish sold in markets, grocery stores and restaurants around the world is harvested by crews who are recruited and hired ethically, treated with respect on the vessel, paid properly, and have fair processes to address grievances. The FISH Standard certification will be open to wild-capture harvesters of all sizes.

FISH has an eleven-person Board of Directors, Chaired by Fridrik Fridriksson, Chief Human Resources Officer at Brim. FISH also has a nine-person Standards Oversight Committee (SOC) that developed and updates the audit standards. The FISH Standard draws on the experiences of individuals who helped develop international agreements on labour practices. Members of the FISH Board and SOC represent nearly every corner of the globe, bringing diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences in fisheries and labour to the table.

“While most seafood companies work ethically and in line with various labour standards and protocols, both legal and voluntary, to ensure proper treatment of crews, there have been challenges and bad actors in the industry,” said Fridriksson. “Media reports have shined a spotlight on these issues and highlighted the fact that everyone harvesting seafood deserves fair and equitable treatment. The FISH Standard provides a credible, worldwide standard to ensure proper treatment of crews, like you see with third-party certifiers of food safety.”

The FISH Standard supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8, which promotes sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

“Governments, industry participants and civil society all have critical roles to play in ensuring that people are treated fairly and have safe and decent working conditions,” said FISH Board member, Matt Tinning, Director of Sustainability and Public Affairs for the At-sea Processors Association. “In tandem with other initiatives, we believe the development of a uniform labour standard that seafood buyers can trust is an important step, and has the potential to become a key component of global seafood assurance.”

The FISH Standard provides a needed independent, third-party global certification that makes fair labour a key component in any sourcing discussion. Look for more information on the 60-day public consultation period for the FISH Standard opening soon.

Norwegian Seafood Council, EAT team up for UN food summit

December 28, 2020 — The Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) and non-profit EAT have entered into a partnership to promote the increased consumption of sustainable seafood ahead of a United Nations summit on future food systems.

Oslo, Norway-based EAT describes itself as a science-based global platform for food system transformation. It was created through funding from the Stordalen Foundation, the Stockholm Resilience Center, and the Wellcome Trust.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FRANCISCO ALDON: A decade on, and the marine ingredients industry standard continues to evolve

December 15, 2020 — Francisco Aldon is the CEO of MarinTrust, which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Now over 10 years old, the MarinTrust standard (formerly IFFO RS) is no longer the new kid on the block. Entering Version 3.0, the standard continues to improve to reflect both the growing demands of the industry and customers, ensuring integrity and traceability of marine ingredients from start (fisheries) to finish (feed plants, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and pet food sectors).  Having joined the standard at its birth, I know it has changed a lot and owes a great deal to all the stakeholders who have contributed to shaping it. The story goes on and the standard will continue to be a reflection of how the society is evolving.

The 2000s was a period of great excitement: free trade was becoming a tangible reality throughout the world. Globalization was on everyone’s lips and aquaculture was booming. There was a growing feeling that some guidance was needed, as people’s welfare and the future of natural resources were at stake. The FAO’s Code of Conduct for responsible fisheries, published in 1995, sent a decisive signal. MarinTrust was born from a need to reassure the aquaculture value chain about the origin and integrity of raw materials going into the production of fishmeal and fish oil. The industry’s trade body, IFFO, the Marine Ingredients Organisation, took the lead in facilitating an industry and NGO Technical Committee with the aim to develop an independent third-party standard. The first plant got its certification in February 2010, and by the end of the year, around 30 plants were certified. At that time, the certification covered the assessment of the fisheries management, the supply and processing of only whole fish and the recognition of third-party certification programs such as GMP+, FEMAS, and IFIS. We moved further up the value chain with the launch of the Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard in 2011, enabling the full traceability of certified marine ingredients from source to end user. This same year, we included by-products (heads, guts, and frames) as a new raw material source to produce certified marine ingredients, encouraging the responsible sourcing and utilization of this valuable ingredient, which otherwise would end up as waste.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

OECD criticizes subsidies, calls for better global fisheries management

December 11, 2020 — The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has published its annual report on global fisheries, outlining how governments are addressing the key challenges faced by their fishing sectors and suggesting priorities for action at the national and international level.

The OECD Review of Fisheries 2020, published 10 December, is based on an in-depth analysis of the latest data reported by OECD countries and partner economies. A major finding of the review is that some current fisheries policies are continuing to contribute towards the overexploitation of stocks. As a result, progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has slipped. The goal’s objective of restoring all fish stocks “at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics” by the end of 2020, has not been reached at a global level, largely due to lack of progress on policy reforms.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Russia ratifies Port State Measures Agreement

December 10, 2020 — Russia President Vladimir Putin signed into law the ratification of the  Port State Measures Agreement on 8 December, 2020, thus making Russia a party to the law-binding document intended to help combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) catch. A few amendments to the national legislation will follow to bring Russia’s laws in line with the agreement.

Originally adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2009, the PSMA stipulates authorities at ports of entry for seafood can conduct dockside inspections, block entry to vessels known to be involved in IUU, and share information with other parties to the PSMA regarding vessels known or believed to contain IUU product.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

A Once-Promising Global Deal to Prevent Overfishing Runs Aground

December 9, 2020 — In the halcyon days of 2015, leaders gathered at the United Nations pledged “bold and transformative steps” to put the planet on a more sustainable path, tasking the World Trade Organization with ending excessive and illegal fishing.

Five years and a global pandemic later, that dream has been deferred yet again.

The Geneva-based trade body, facing a deadline at the end of 2020, looks to come up empty-handed in its quest to preserve the world’s dwindling fish stocks.

A global fisheries deal fell victim to issues ranging from the logistical problems of negotiating amid travel restrictions to a growing distrust among WTO members. It’s a frustrating result not just for protectors of marine life but for defenders of the WTO, denying the organization a win just when its deal-making abilities came under fire.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Global sustainable fishing initiative agreed by 14 countries

December 4, 2020 — Governments responsible for 40% of the world’s coastlines have pledged to end overfishing, restore dwindling fish populations and stop the flow of plastic pollution into the seas in the next 10 years.

The leaders of the 14 countries set out a series of commitments on Wednesday that mark the world’s biggest ocean sustainability initiative, in the absence of a fully fledged UN treaty on marine life.

The countries – Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Palau and Portugal – will end harmful subsidies that contribute to overfishing, a key demand of campaigners. They will also aim to eliminate illegal fishing through better enforcement and management, and to minimise bycatch and discards, as well as implementing national fisheries plans based on scientific advice.

Each of the countries, members of the High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy, has also pledged to ensure that all the areas of ocean within its own national jurisdiction – known as exclusive economic zones – are managed sustainably by 2025. That amounts to an area of ocean roughly the size of Africa.

Read the full story at The Guardian

World’s biggest ocean sustainability initiative signed by 14 countries

December 2, 2020 — A new initiative designed to lessen humanity’s negative impacts on the world’s oceans has been signed by 14 countries.

Several of the countries belonging to the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, a consortium of ocean-dependent countries founded in 2018 to initiate action to improve global marine sustainability efforts, announced the Transformations for a Sustainable Ocean Economy: A Vision for Protection, Production and Prosperity initiative on Tuesday, 1 December.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

China’s Monster Fishing Fleet

December 1, 2020 — On Aug. 5, 2017, China complied with a United Nations decision and formally imposed sanctions on North Korea, including a ban on seafood exports. Seafood, particularly squid, is one of North Korea’s few significant foreign-exchange earners, and the sanctions were expected to increase the pressure on the regime.

But just a few weeks after the ban came into effect, hundreds of squid-fishing vessels left Chinese waters and rounded the southern tip of South Korea. They entered North Korea’s 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), nearly doubling the number of Chinese fishing vessels operating there from 557 to 907, according a recent Global Fishing Watch report that tracked data from four different satellite systems. Even as China publicly claimed that is was complying with sanctions, many of the Chinese vessels continued to make trips to North Korea and back, including several round trips each year during both 2018 and 2019, said Jaeyoon Park, one of the report’s lead authors.

The Chinese fleet, made up of squid jiggers and pair trawlers, scooped up a staggering amount of squid—equal to almost as much as the entire squid catch in Japanese and South Korean waters combined over the same period, the report estimated. The Chinese decimated the squid population off North Korea to such a degree that Japanese and South Korean fishers saw their own take of the usually plentiful, migratory species plummet.

Read the full story at Foreign Policy

FAO: Farmed fish price increases to outpace those for wild species

November 30, 2020 — Increased demand for seafood and slowing growth of fisheries and aquaculture production will see prices increase by almost a quarter over the next 10 years, projects the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Its report “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020,” (or SOFIA 2020), expects total fish production to rise from its current level of 179 million metric tons (MT) to around 204 million MT in 2030. While this will represent an increase of some 15 percent, by comparison, for the period 2007-2018 that rate of growth was a much more dynamic 27 percent.

Read the full story at Seafood Source