Saving Seafood

Boom in taste for octopus squeezes market

August 14, 2018 — Whether it’s spiced in the Spanish style or sliced as Japanese sashimi, octopus as a dish is becoming a victim of its own popularity.

Prices for the tentacled mollusc have about doubled in the past two years due to a global boom in appetite for these classic dishes. And supplies have tightened, with fisheries not yet able to farm octopus and relying on ocean currents to yield a good harvest.

This year has been hard, with lower catches in major producing countries like Morocco and Spain.

“The price will rise even more,” says Carmen Torres Lorenzo, who has been selling fish for three decades in the market of Bueu in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia, famed for its octopus dish. “I wish a lot of octopus would appear … and the price will come down, but that won’t happen.”

The price of a regular size, locally caught octopus has risen from about 7 euros to 14 euros per kilogram (from $8 to $16 for 2.2 pounds) in the last two years. The price is typically somewhat higher in other countries, like the U.S., that do not specialize in its fishing.

The Food and Agriculture Organization says prices are expected to continue to grow as demand has risen in all major markets, including Japan, the United States, China and Europe. Meanwhile, catches have been limited, even in the biggest producing countries, Morocco, Mauritania and Mexico.

Some scientists in Japan and Spain are working on techniques to farm octopus, but they are not ready yet for commercial purposes. Octopus eggs are laid on the ocean floor, where they are fertilized and transported by currents, a condition that is hard to reproduce in a controlled environment.

“There is a lot of demand for this product, and what we can offer is little, so the price skyrockets,” said says Jose Manuel Rosas, president of Bueu’s fishermen guild.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Gloucester Daily Times

Rich and Poor Divide: Which Nations Benefit From Global Fishing?

August 6, 2018 —With food security and equity growing concerns in global fisheries – and one-third of commercial fish stocks being exploited at unsustainable levels, according to the United Nations – researchers have been tapping new data to get a better grasp of exactly who fishes where and how much they catch.

A paper published this week in the journal Science Advances found that rich nations are catching the lion’s share of the ocean’s fish, even in the waters of lower-income countries. The estimates feed into a bigger debate over how the wealth of the seas could be distributed fairly and sustainably.

In their research, the authors analyzed global fishing activity data to conclude that 97 percent of industrial fishing they were able to track in international waters – the high seas – is conducted by vessels flying the flag of high- and upper-middle-income nations. The vast majority was from five nations: China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Spain. And even within the territorial waters of developing countries, 78 percent of industrial fishing was done by wealthier nations, the scientists found. Overall, industrial fishing vessels, defined by the study as those at least 24m long (80ft), accounted for about three-fourths of global catch of wild fish from the sea, the authors estimated.

“We suspected before we started that we would see something like this, but quantifying it with numbers moves the conversation forward and allows people to start asking questions about where their countries’ fish is going,” said Douglas McCauley, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative. McCauley led the study with Caroline Jablonicky, a scientist at the Initiative and the university’s Marine Science Institute.

Read the full story at Oceans Deeply

KIMBERLY HAMILTON: Maine has an opportunity to be a global player in aquaculture

August 2, 2018 –Maine is resilient. As former economic sectors decline, we find new ways to market our natural resources, provide jobs for Maine families, and support local and regional economies.

Today, Maine is on the cusp of another economic resurgence — this time in aquaculture. Not one, but two significant projects are under development in midcoast Maine, both slated to raise Atlantic salmon in state-of-the art facilities. One of them, Whole Oceans in Bucksport, will redeploy paper mill infrastructure at the former Champion International mill site. The other, Nordic Aquafarms, will add to the growing industry in Belfast, once a chicken production capital of the world.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food producing sector, growing at 5 percent annually between 2003 and 2016, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2018 State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture report. By 2030, aquaculture will account for 60 percent of global fish food consumption, helping to preserve our fragile wild fish population. By these measures, it’s not surprising that aquaculture holds the power to transform economies.

If Maine plays its cards right, we can capture a significant portion of this transformative energy, competing with Scotland, Norway and Canada to meet the expanding global demand for nutritious fish protein. Importantly, Maine stands to gain more than 2,000 new jobs over the next 10 years as a result of growth in the aquaculture sector, according to FocusMaine’s own extensive research. The growth of related jobs would push this number even higher.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Major US food companies form sustainability alliance

July 18, 2018 — Unilever United States, Danone North America, Nestle USA, and Mars Incorporated have joined together to create the Sustainable Food Policy Alliance (SFPA), a new advocacy group that aims to benefit fishing communities and the environment.

The SFPA seeks to advance policies that are beneficial for the environment, while accounting for the specific business imperatives of its supply chains, including fishing communities, farmers, ranchers, and other producers.

The formation of the new organization was announced by Danone North America CEO Mariano Lozano; Mars Wrigley Confectionery Americas President Tracey Massey; Nestlé USA Chairman and CEO Steve Presley; and Amanda Sourry, president of Unilever North America.

“As an Alliance, we commit first and foremost to leading by example. Each member company has independently proven a willingness to advocate for the long-term interests of the people who farm and supply our raw materials, and people who make and consume our products,” they said.

The manufacturers said they have already been aggressive in sourcing sustainable seafood and are at the forefront of human rights issues, including forced labor in the seafood industry.

Nestlé, which purchased around 134,000 tons of seafood in 2017, formed an Action Plan in 2015 to tackle Thai forced labor practices, which it called “unacceptable.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Rights to Fish & Data Rights: How blockchain technologies could help

July 16, 2018 — The right to fish could be considered one of the most basic human rights. It is probably a notion that goes back to when we first began fishing, and certainly as a more formal concept when Hugo Grotius published Mare Liberum (The Free Sea), in 1609. However, shared resource systems can lead to what is known as the Tragedy of the Commons. First coined in an essay by British economist William Forster Lloyd in 1833, it refers to the failure of a system where all individuals have equal and open access to a resource. With 90% of global seafood stocks at maximum exploitation or on the verge of collapse, the over-fishing of fish stocks are perhaps the most commonly used example to explain Lloyd’s concept.

In an attempt to avert such tragedies, governments look to regulation, privatisation, and the move toward internalising externalities (e.g. user or polluter pay). In the fisheries sector, governments have stuck mostly to regulation in their attempts to better manage fisheries, and this is mainly achieved by managing inputs (e.g. number of boat licences, permits, seasonal closures) to ensure sustainable output. However regulation without monitoring, compliance, surveillance (MCS), and/or convictions of offenders could be considered meaningless.

Privatisation as a tool to avert fisheries collapse through Rights Based Fisheries Management (RBFM) is becoming a more popular and, arguably, a much more effective way to manage fisheries. As an example, Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQ) allocates a portion of the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) to an individual fisher who effectively owns this share of the fish stock. If a fish stock increases, governments can increase TACs and fishers can then catch more fish, thus incentivising all fishers to fish at levels where fish stocks increase or are maintained at a biomass where they can fish at what is known as Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) . In the case of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) a fisher can also sell or lease his or her quota, thus the value of their “stock” increases with increasing fish stock.

Read the full story at Medium

Slump in global squid catch ignites fisheries management efforts

July 12, 2018 — A global slump in the catch of squid — that has caused alarm bells as prices for key commercial species rocket — is bringing some of the biggest industry players together in an effort to improve squid fisheries management. But significant obstacles stand in their way, with China’s role front and center.

In recent years squid has become an increasingly important commercial species. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), global squid catch has increased from 3.09 million metric tons in 2000, to 3.95m metric tons in 2015.

Squid previously discarded as worthless bycatch is now the target of international fleets.

But in 2016, global catch fell by over a million metric tons, to 2.79m metric tons (see graph below). Prices of Argentine shortfin squid, a key benchmark, have more than doubled. This season’s Argentine squid catch in international waters is said to be half last year’s levels, or worse.

Speaking to Undercurrent News, Sam Grimley, director of strategic initiatives at Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), an NGO, said concerns have mobilized industry stakeholders to come together to find solutions. Today, several fisheries improvement projects (FIP) are now underway or in the pipeline; five years ago, bar a couple in North America, there were none.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

UN Predicts Growth in World Fish Production

July 10, 2018 — World fish production is expected to grow over the next 10 years despite a slowdown in both farmed and wild caught fish, the U.N.’s food agency said.

In a new report on global fisheries, the Food and Agricultural Agency predicts world fish production will grow to 201 million metric tons by 2030 — an 18 percent rise over current levels.

This is despite the amount of wild caught fish leveling off and the number of farmed fish slowing down after decades of rapid growth.

“The fisheries sector is crucial in meeting FAO’s goal of a world without hunger and malnutrition, and its contribution to economic growth and the fight against poverty is growing,” FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said.

But the report said future growth depends on sustainable and stronger fishing management, and successfully fighting such problems as pollution, global warming and illegal fishing.

Read the full story at VOA News

UN warns the Mediterranean Sea is worlds’ most over-fished

July 10, 2018 — A health-check report on world fisheries and aquaculture by the United Nations (UN) has revealed that one-third of global marine fish stocks are now fished at unsustainable levels and have reached “over-fished” status.

NGO Oceana flags particular attention to the state of the Mediterranean — which according to the report published today, is the world’s most over-fished sea — as well as the Black Sea.

The 2018 State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) report, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN confirmed a global trend toward unsustainable fishing.

33% of global fish stocks are now overfished, a figure that is increasing year after year, Oceana claimed the report said.

“The new report from the FAO is discouraging: it shows that the world still has a long way to go toward responsible management of our oceans. The number of over-fished marine fisheries has risen over the last years. And, despite increasingly sophisticated and aggressive fishing techniques, global catch has continued to decline,” said Andrew Sharpless, Oceana CEO.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

One in three fish caught never makes it to the plate – UN report

July 9, 2018 — One in three fish caught around the world never makes it to the plate, either being thrown back overboard or rotting before it can be eaten, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Its biannual report on the state of the world’s fisheries, released on Monday, also shows that total fish production has reached a record high thanks to more fish farming, particularly in China, with over half the fish eaten in the world now coming from aquaculture.

In contrast, the amount of wild caught fish has barely changed since the late 1980s and a third of commercial fish species are overfished, the FAO says. Fish farms will continue to expand and the FAO projects that almost 20% more fish will be eaten by 2030, helping sustain the growing global population. However, farmed fish can harm wild populations because often their feed, made from wild fish such as sardines and anchovies, is caught at sea and they can cause pollution.

Fish are a crucial source of nutrition for billions of people around the globe, but overfishing is rife in some regions, with two-thirds of species overexploited in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Southeast Pacific. Previous analyses that include estimates for illegal fishing indicate that wild fish stocks are declining faster than FAO data suggest and that half the world’s oceans are now industrially fished.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Your Poke Addiction Won’t Drive Tuna Extinct

June 22, 2018 — The hotel where I stayed in London last week has a restaurant that specializes in poke, the Hawaiian dish featuring chunks of raw fish atop of a bed of rice and vegetables. A couple of blocks away, in the restaurant arcade under the new Bloomberg building, I encountered a branch of Ahi Poke, a five-location London chain.

I first ate poke in Los Angeles in the summer of 2015, as it took Southern California by storm. Not long afterward, it conquered New York. By late 2016, Nation’s Restaurant News was proclaiming that “poke is sweeping the nation.” Now it appears to be sweeping yet another nation.

And so, as I consumed an Oahu bowl at Ahi Poke one day last week, I started wondering whether there are enough fish in the sea to survive this globalization of poke. I am not the first to wonder this. LA Weekly ran an April Fools’ spoof last year headlined “L.A. Poke Joints Shutter as Ocean Officially Runs Out of Fish.” Hawaii-based journalist Jennifer Fiedler took a more serious look in an extensively reported 2016 article for New York magazine’s Grub Street site, although she wasn’t able to answer the question definitively. I won’t be able to answer it definitively, either, but I can at least take a couple more steps in that direction, plus share some cool charts.

The main fish of concern here is the yellowfin tuna (scientific name: Thunnus albacares), which is almost certainly what was in my Oahu bowl. Poke restaurants outside of Hawaii also serve a lot of raw salmon, but the overwhelming majority of commercially available salmon is farmed, and while there are environmental concerns about some salmon-farming practices, we do not seem to be in any danger of running out of the fishies.

The quintessential poke fish, though, is ahi tuna, and it’s all wild-caught. In Hawaii, ahi originally meant bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus), but yellowfin now gets the name, too. With the global yellowfin catch almost four times bigger than the bigeye catch, and the price lower, the ahi you eat in your poke is generally going to be yellowfin.

Read the full story at Bloomberg