Saving Seafood

Russia, U.S. and Other Nations Restrict Fishing in Thawing Arctic

December 1, 2017 — MOSCOW — Relations between Russia and the United States are in a deep freeze, but they share a looming common problem north of their Arctic coastlines — the prospect that commercial trawling fleets might overfish the thawing Arctic Ocean.

Out on the sea, the polar ice cap has been melting so quickly as global temperatures rise that once improbable ideas for commercial activities, including fishing near the North Pole, are becoming realistic.

While Russia, the United States and three other countries with Arctic coastline control the exclusive economic zones near their shores, overfishing in the international waters at the central Arctic Ocean could collapse fish stocks.

Whatever their disagreements elsewhere, the countries have a shared interest in protecting the high Arctic from such unregulated fishing, which could affect coastal stocks as well, conservationists say.

Read the full story at the New York Times

US, Japan, Spain focus of new Walton Family Foundation markets strategy

June 6, 2017 — The Walton Family Foundation will focus its efforts to improve seafood sustainability on the demand side of the global market, concentrating its efforts on the United States, Japan and Spain, the organization announced at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Seattle, Washington on 4 June.

The U.S., Japan and Spain together import more than two-thirds of the world’s globally traded seafood products, and are all major destinations for seafood from the five countries the foundation has targeted in its supply-side sustainability efforts.

“This strategy is about following the flow of fish and dollars from Indonesia, the United States, Mexico, Chile and Peru to those markets where those fish are bought and sold,” said Teresa Ish, the foundation’s Ocean Initiative program officer.

The foundation, created by Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton, announced in September 2016 that it would commit USD 250 million (EUR 224 million) to marine conservation efforts in those five countries. The focus of the WFF efforts will be to “ensure that the important policies of these major seafood markets helps level the playing field for lagging actors across the industry who haven’t seen that the future of fishing needs to be sustainable, as well as the major producing countries who are putting short-term resource use ahead of the long-term sustainability of their industry,” Ish said.

In 2016, the United States imported around USD 2.2 billion (EUR 2 billion) in seafood products from Chile, Indonesia, Mexico and Peru, while Japan imported USD 1.1 billion (EUR 976 million) and Spain brought in USD 290 million (EUR 258 million) in seafood from those four countries combined.

“Our markets approach aims to encourage industry to make investments – of money, time, staffing and brainpower – that raise incomes and improve the quality of life for individual fishermen and fishing communities in these countries,” the foundation said in its report, distributed at SeaWeb.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Could a Partnership Born of Fish 2.0 Become the Red Bull of Seafood?

January 9, 2017 — There’s a global divide at the heart of the seafood industry: the businesses that most need new technologies are often continents away from the businesses creating them.

Small-scale seafood operations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa catch and farm most of the seafood we eat. Startups in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are developing most of the technologies that promise to improve logistics, traceability, fish feeds, and aquaculture production. But distance and limited resources mean these businesses rarely meet. Bridging this divide is an essential step toward both healthy oceans and a healthy, equitable food supply.

That’s one reason we open Fish 2.0 to a diverse range of seafood enterprises from around the world. The Fish 2.0 competition process not only helps ventures improve individually but builds trust and gives technology and product innovators the chance to find and connect with investors as well as other fishing businesses, seafood farmers, and technology creators. Finalists gain insights into parts of the supply chain previously hidden from them and are able to form relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs they otherwise would not have met. The result is new business partnerships that offer unique growth opportunities for investors, as well as solutions to the seafood industry’s most difficult problems.

Aquaculture innovators click

My favorite recent example is the new joint venture between 2015 Canadian finalist and track winner SabrTech and Thailand based runner-up Green Innovative Biotechnology (GIB). SabrTech’s RiverBox system reduces pollution from farm runoff and grows an algae-based feed from the captured wastewater. Bangkok-based GIB has developed a feed supplement that boosts the immune systems of farm-raised fish and shrimp, leading to higher growth rates, greater resistance to diseases such as early mortality syndrome, and lower feed costs. Both technologies solve aquaculture production and cost issues using naturally derived solutions.

Mather Carscallen, president and CEO of SabrTech, and Karsidete Teeranitayatarn, chief innovation officer of GIB, met during the pitch practice session for the Fish 2.0 finals at Stanford University last fall.  Mather helped Karsidete polish his delivery, and the two learned enough about each other to want to stay in touch.

Read the full story at National Geographic

JIM MEEK: Sure, let’s protect the oceans, but we still need to fish

November 7, 2016 — Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are getting as common as hipster sightings along the south end of Agricola Street.

Just last week, the world’s largest MPA (600,000 square miles) was announced for Antarctica’s Ross Sea.

The new MPA was the result of a multilateral negotiating marathon involving nations that don’t get along — like Russia and the U.S. — so let’s hope it all works out for the environment.

Speaking of the Americans, their outgoing president has burnished his legacy by using executive orders to announce two massive “national marine monuments” off Hawaii and New England.

By massive, I mean 5,000 square miles of MPA territory. We’re not talking the Sailors’ Monument in Point Pleasant Park here, or the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen.

Normally, Americans declare marine sanctuaries instead of marine monuments, but the former would involve pre-consultation with a bunch of noisy people including disgruntled fishermen — who can raise an awful ruckus once they’re riled up.

So Barack Obama got around all that “let’s-listen-to-the-people-first” nonsense by declaring marine monuments under a century-plus old piece of legislation called the Antiquities Act.

So, you’re asking yourself, who can blame a president for using an executive order or two during his last months in office?

New England fishermen, that’s who.

David Borden, who represents offshore lobstermen, goes straight and smart to the heart of the matter.

Environmental groups keep saying the neglected waters are pristine, but ignore the inconvenient truth that they remain blue, serene, and contented after decades of continuous fishing.

Borden’s argument: If the water’s pure, why kick the lobster and crab fishermen out while oil tankers still crisscross the North Atlantic without swearing allegiance to Greenpeace?

Read the full story at The Chronicle Herald

Marine Resource Education Program bridging trust gaps between fishermen, scientists and regulators

October 28, 2016 — In most coastal areas of the United States where fishing is a significant part of the economy, it’s taken for granted that fishermen and regulators don’t think fondly of each other.

Fishermen are convinced regulators don’t know what they’re doing. Regulators are frustrated that fishermen don’t put much stock in their scientific assessments.

This mistrust has real consequences. Fishermen begrudge – and sometimes flaunt – regulatory decisions. Regulators come off as vengeful or pedantic. Meetings between the two parties devolve into shouting matches. Scientific conclusions get ignored or flaunted, and opportunities for improving the accuracy of stock estimates through greater participation are lost amidst the acrimony.

About 15 years ago, two members of the New England fishing industry, John Williamson and Mary Beth Tooley, created the Marine Resource Education Program (MREP) with the goal of initiating a more positive era of fisher-regulator relations.

The program brought regulators –mostly senior officials – together with commercial fishermen and other representatives from industry for a three-day get-together. While the program has been fine-tuned over the years – most notably with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute taking over the management of the program in 2005 after several years as a pilot study at the University of New Hampshire – the key to its longevity has been a deep collaborative approach to program design and delivery, and a simple and wildly successful idea originally articulated by John Williamson: give all parties ample time to listen to each other’s perspectives and get to know each other on a personal level, and explain the process in plain English.

Today, there are three different regions with MREPs, including the flagship New England/Mid-Atlantic program, a program in the Southeast, and a program attuned to the specialized needs of recreational and charter-for-hire fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and the Caribbean, plus a newly launched MREP for the West Coast.

Alexa Dayton and her staff, who support all of the MREP regional teams through the GMRI, said MREPs have been found to be most effective when a core team collaborates to develop the workshop agenda and host each of these events, creating a community atmosphere that welcomes newcomers to fisheries science and management.

Read the full story at Seafood Source 

US scallop prices expected to rise with little relief in sight

September 27, 2016 — US scallop prices look set to fluctuate but generally trend upwards throughout the fall, with no alternatives at reasonable prices, sources told Undercurrent News.

After the July 4 celebrations, prices for fresh scallop raw materials took an unusual dip in pricing, several sources said – though this quickly corrected and prices are now high again.

“Pricing started off very strong at the beginning of the season; ex-vessel prices of $18.50 per pound for U10s and U12s, and $12+ for both 10/20s and 20/30s,” said Joe Furtado, executive vice president of Eastern Fisheries.

“But, over the last 60 days, we have actually seen a reduction in ex-vessel pricing, where it is trending about $1/lb less than April/ May pricing.”

“It’s actually the first time that I have seen post July 4 pricing trend downward,” he added.

However, two other sources suggested this dip was only temporary, and that more recently prices were right back up again.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

The Deal to Share the North American Fish and Chips Supply

September 22, 2016 — There’s a looming fish and chips crisis in the United States.

The number of cod, the fish most used in the popular pub dish, is in decline in the waters off New England, and it seems overfishing and warming ocean temperatures as a result of climate change are to blame.

The U.S. and Canada have come to a deal on how to divide what remains of the North American cod supply in parts of the Atlantic Ocean. The Associated Press has the breakdown:

The countries have agreed to set the total allowable catch at 730 metric tons next year. The U.S. will be allowed to take 146 metric tons and Canada will get the rest…

Read the full story at The Atlantic

How a spy satellite could cut down on illegal fishing

September 15, 2016 — Environmentalists hope a new satellite service that scans the earth’s seas from space in search of illegal fishing activity can act as a watchdog service, holding those who overfish or intrude on protected areas accountable for the adverse effects of their actions.

The Google-powered technology, which has been named Global Fishing Watch, monitors more than 35,000 commercial fishing vessels using public broadcast data and is available to anyone with an internet connection, The Washington Post reported. Such information allows governments, journalists, and citizens to track the movement of boats, making it easier for nations with limited resources to apprehend the fishermen illegally depleting their oceans.

“We have to find a way to enforce [fishing laws],” Secretary of State John Kerry told The Washington Post. “We have to find a way to monitor it. And that’s very difficult in vast oceans with resources that are [limited]. We’re trying to create accountability where there is very little.”

Actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio will unveil the new technology Thursday at a conference for ocean preservation in Washington, D.C.

Read the full story at the Christian Science Monitor

Hawaii and other big marine protected areas ‘could work against conservation’

September 6, 2016 — British and US marine scientists say that the race to designate ever-bigger marine national parks in remote parts of the world could work against conservation.

In an commentary timed to coincide with President Obama’s announcement of the huge extension of a marine park off Hawaii, the authors argue that the creation of very large marine protection areas (Vlmpas) may give the illusion of conservation, when in fact they may be little more than “paper parks”.

“It is not enough to simply cover the remotest parts of our oceans in notional ‘protection’ – we need to focus on seas closer to shore, where most of the fishing and drilling actually happens,” said Peter Jones, a marine researcher at University College London.

Co-author Elizabeth de Santo, an assistant professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania, added that the push for quantity over quality threatens to undermine sustainability.

“There are concerns that marine conservation aims could be undermined by this focus on a few big areas. The marine biodiversity target is about much more than the proportion of the seas that are covered,” she said.

In the past five years over 20 huge new marine parks have been designated by countries, including Britain, in response to calls by marine scientists to protect more of the oceans.

Read the full story at The Guardian

Proclamation of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Expansion

August 31, 2016 — The following is excerpted from the official proclamation of the expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Expansion:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 320301 of title 54, United States Code, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be part of the Papaha ̄naumokua ̄kea Marine National Monument Expansion (Monument Expansion) and, for the purpose of pro- tecting those objects, reserve as a part thereof all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government within the boundaries described on the accompanying map entitled ‘‘Papaha ̄naumokua ̄kea Marine National Monument Expansion’’ attached hereto, which forms a part of this proclamation. The Monument Expansion comprises the waters and sub- merged lands in the U.S. EEZ west of 163° West Longitude adjacent to the Monument. The Federal lands and interests in lands reserved consist of approximately 442,781 square miles, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of the Monument Expansion are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public land laws to the extent that those laws apply, including but not limited to, withdrawal from location, entry, and patent under mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to development of oil and gas, minerals, geothermal, or renewable energy. Lands and interest in lands within the Monument Expansion not owned or controlled by the United States shall be reserved as part of the Monument Expansion upon acquisition of title or control by the United States.

See the full proclamation here