Saving Seafood

NFI seeks to reach administration on seafood trade in 2018

January 2, 2018 — Pressing the importance of all trade on the Donald Trump administration, including imported seafood, will be one of the top priorities of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) in 2018.

The US seafood industry’s biggest trade association, representing close to 300 companies, is still smarting from several of the moves made by the White House and its Cabinet in their first year, including its formal withdrawal from a trade deal with Pacific countries, a lack of progress on a trade deal with Europe and implementation of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (Simp).

But NFI president John Connelly said trade will remain a top focal point for the group in the New Year.

“We just need to spend more time on the Hill and in the administration to help them appreciate that not all trade is negative for the US,” Connelly told Undercurrent News in an December interview at his office in McLean, Virginia. “Seafood is not like steel or autos or something else. We cannot now produce enough seafood in the US, whether it be from wild capture or aquaculture, to feed all Americans.”

The US exports 40% to 60% of the seafood it produces, depending on the value of the dollar and some other factors, and imports about 85% of the seafood it consumes. Seafood is responsible for 1,270,141 jobs in the U.S. and imports account for 525,291 of those, according to Department of Commerce data noted by the association.

“Gladys, down in Brownsville, Texas, is cutting imported tilapia right now, and that job is extraordinarily important to her family. Why is that job any less important than a job involving domestic codfish?” Connelly said.

High points and low points in 2017

But in looking back at 2017, Connelly can point to at least one major trade-related victory: The removal of the prospective border adjustment tax from the legislative tax overhaul passed by Congress and signed by the president before leaving on its winter break. The provision, which was supported by several Republican leaders, would have forced some seafood dealers to raise their prices 30% to 40%, said Connelly, quoting a Wall Street Journal article.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

China is Fishing Ever Farther From Home, Adding to Stress on Fish Stocks

January 1, 2018 — China’s fishing fleet, which reaches as far as Latin America, West Africa, and even Antarctica, is adding to a worldwide strain on fish stocks.

So it’s no surprise that Chinese fishermen have been involved in clashes with foreign fishermen and coast guards at great distances from their homeland.

In perhaps the most dramatic clash, which occurred in March 2016, Argentina’s coast guard sank a Chinese trawler that was fishing within its territorial waters more than 11,000 miles from its home base on the China coast. The trawler had tried to ram the Argentine vessel.

Argentine Navy submarines have been assigned to “chase down illegal fishing vessels in the frigid waters off southern Argentina,” according to a Wall Street Journal report from that country published early this month.

Reuters news agency, meanwhile, reported at the end of August that Ecuador had jailed 20 Chinese fishermen for up to four years for illegally fishing off the Galapagos Islands, where they were caught with some 6,600 sharks.

Their vessel contained some 300 tons of near-extinct or endangered species, including hammerhead sharks.

Incidents have also occurred near South Korea and in disputed areas in the South China Sea, where Chinese Coast Guard ships have clashed with Vietnamese fishermen.

Pressures in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea leading to incidents like this are driving China to fish elsewhere in the world.

Chinese fishermen target West Africa

In April 2017, The New York Times reported from Senegal that Chinese fishermen were increasingly heading to West Africa.

The fishermen are enabled by corrupt local governments and their weak enforcement of fishing limits.

Citing experts, The Times states that West Africa now provides “the vast majority” of fish caught by China’s distant-water fishing fleet.

Fishing off the coast of Senegal, “most of the Chinese ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in one week as Senegalese boats catch in a year,” The Times report said.

Most of the fish are sent abroad, with some of it ending up as fishmeal fodder for chickens and pigs in Europe and the United States.

For Senegalese citizens, many of whom depend on fish as a source of protein, diminishing fish catches mean higher food prices.

In nearby Sierra Leone, meanwhile, a similar scenario is playing out.

The Economist Magazine reported on Dec. 7 from Sierra Leone that “nearly half of the population” of 7.4 million people in the small west African nation “does not have enough to eat.”

“But the country’s once plentiful shoals, combined with its weak government, have lured a flotilla of unscrupulous foreign trawlers to its waters.”

Most of the trawlers fly Chinese flags, but dozens also come from South Korea, Italy, Guinea, and Russia.

According to Tabitha Mallory, an expert on these issues, by 2015 more than 160 Chinese fishing enterprises had agreements to operate off the shores of some 40 countries, the high seas, and Antarctica. But other Chinese vessels may be operating in more countries illegally.

But in contrast with West Africa, where Chinese fishermen have done great harm to local economies, Antarctica stands out as a new frontier where the fishermen appear to have begun playing by internationally agreed upon rules.

China has joined a commission for the conservation of marine life in Antarctica and has pledged its support for a marine protected area on the cold continent.

However, poor regulation of China’s distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet elsewhere has added to a strain on global fish stocks, according to experts and nongovernmental organizations monitoring the issue.

Greenpeace, a nongovernmental organization which campaigns to change attitudes toward the environment, has found that from 2014-2016, China’s distant water fishing (DWF) fleet — vessels operating outside Chinese territorial waters — increased by 400 to nearly 2,900.

This followed a similar period of expansion between 2012 and 2014, when the fleet grew by 15 percent each year on average.

By comparison, the United States had just 225 large-size DWF vessels, according to 2015 data.

Read the full commentary at Radio Free Asia

 

Pacific Bluefin Tuna Catch Quotas to be Based on Stock Recovery

December 12, 2017 — TOKYO, SEAFOOD NEWS — An international panel has decided to introduce a new framework to change catch quotas for Pacific bluefin tuna according to the extent of stock recovery.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission made the decision at its annual meeting in Manila, which ended early Friday.

The WCPFC, which discusses resources management for tuna and bonito in the Western and Central Pacific, has 26 member economies, including Japan, the United States and China.

The panel has set a goal of increasing adult Pacific bluefin tuna stocks from some 17,000 tons in 2014 to around 41,000 tons by 2024.

In September, the WCPFC’s Northern Committee agreed to increase catch quotas once the probability of achieving the goal reaches 75 pct or more and to reduce the quotas if the figure falls below 60 pct.

With the WCPFC approving the introduction of the new rules, the framework to change catch quotas according to the speed of stock recovery is expected to be put in place in 2019 at the earliest.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

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