January 7, 2021 — The Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Russia have signed an agreement outlining safeguards for Russia’s marine biological resources and the environment.
Signed by Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries Head Ilya Shestakov and WWF-Russia Director Dmitry Gorshkov, the document also calls for closer efforts between WWF and the Russian government to study marine life and find more efficient ways to utilize it.
December 22, 2020 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:
The action by IATTC at its emergency Commission meeting held on December 22 — a meeting and decision that ISSF and its stakeholders called for earlier this month — keeps crucial “status quo” fishing effort and catch limit provisions and active FAD limits in place for 2021. This decision ensures that the valuable tuna resources and the marine ecosystems of the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) will not be unmanaged for 2021. And it gives the Commission an opportune period to develop and adopt new comprehensive tuna management measures for 2022, including science-based limits on FADs and floating objects (e.g., active numbers, sets, deployments, etc.), that fully implement scientific advice.
ISSF calls on IATTC parties to work collaboratively throughout next year to hold detailed, inclusive discussions that will lead to decisive and science-based action for the protection of EPO tuna stocks and their marine ecosystems. Regardless of meeting format in 2021, ISSF will pursue all opportunities to help guide IATTC and all tuna RFMOs, member governments, industry, vessels, FIPs and NGOs on the complex issues they must navigate for sustainable global tuna stocks and their ecosystems.
About the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) is a global coalition of scientists, the tuna industry and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) — the world’s leading conservation organization — promoting science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks, reducing bycatch and promoting ecosystem health. Helping global tuna fisheries meet sustainability criteria to achieve the Marine Stewardship Council certification standard — without conditions — is ISSF’s ultimate objective. To learn more, visit iss-foundation.org and follow ISSF on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
December 14, 2020 — About 87 percent of the worldwide commercial catch of tuna is coming from stocks seen at healthy levels of abundance, although some regional stocks including Pacific bluefin are overfished, the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation says in a new status report.
Based on findings by regional fishery management organizations though October 2020, the summary by the foundation – a cooperative program involving scientists, the tuna industry, and the World Wildlife Fund – breaks down 10 percent of the world catch coming from overfished stocks and 3 percent from stocks “at an intermediate level of abundance.”
November 3, 2020 — A new report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) indicates that gaps in regulations resulting in unregulated fishing is putting fisheries in the Indian Ocean at risk.
The new report, titled “Unregulated Fishing on the High Seas of the Indian Ocean,” delved into the unregulated aspect of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by examining fisheries that have gaps in regulatory coverage. Released on 2 November, the report shows where unregulated fishing is happening, its impacts on species, and how it has expanded.
June 29, 2020 — An independent adjudicator, analyzing formal objections to the potential Marine Stewardship Council certification of the Usufuku Honten East Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery, has upheld one of the four objections presented.
The objections were presented by the World Wildlife Fund and The Pew Charitable Trusts in January, after the assessment body, Control Union Pesca Ltd., recommended that the fishery be certified in December 2019. Of the four objections, the independent adjudicator upheld objections to the evidence used to conclude how long bluefin tuna take to grow and reproduce, according to a release from MSC.
June 25, 2020 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) announced today that Dr. Vishwanie Maharaj, the lead for tunas and other multilateral fisheries at World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US), is appointed to its Environmental Stakeholder Committee (ESC).
“Dr. Maharaj is a strong addition to our already deep bench of conservation and scientific experts on the ESC,” said ISSF President Susan Jackson. “She comes to the committee with more than 20 years of experience navigating the fishery policy issues we deal with every day. Her experience and understanding of Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs) and projects like the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Program (ABNJ) will be indispensable as we continue to push for policies that promote the long-term sustainability of tuna stocks.”
Dr. Vishwanie Maharaj is an economist with more than 20 years of experience working on fishery and environmental policy issues through research and engagement of the seafood industry, regional management bodies and non-governmental organizations. Dr. Maharaj is currently the lead for tunas and other multilateral fisheries at WWF-US. In this capacity, she works in close coordination with global and regional leads on overall tuna policy and with markets teams on engaging major retailers to drive sustainable sourcing of tuna products. Her more recent work focused on engagement in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Bank ABNJ projects, using market incentives to reform Indonesian tuna fisheries and work to address overcapacity and improve business performance in the Eastern Pacific tropical tuna fisheries. Prior to her work at WWF, Dr. Maharaj held senior positions at the Environmental Defense Fund, South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council and a trade association. She holds a doctoral degree in marine resource economics from the University of Rhode Island and an undergraduate degree in oceanography from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.
About the ISSF Environmental Stakeholder Committee
The ESC comprises expert representatives from various conservation bodies who volunteer to share their expertise. The ESC, as does ISSF’s Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), provides advice to the ISSF Board of Directors on issues to consider before taking action on specific sustainability efforts, including regarding ISSF conservation measures.
The ESC Board members are:
June 17, 2020 — There are some signs that talks at the World Trade Organization on ending harmful fishery subsidies may restart next month after being suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak.
A Heads of Delegation meeting has been announced by the negotiations chair for 25 June to begin discussing the latest draft proposal for a deal. A follow-up meeting for delegation leaders on 21 July will set a potential Autumn work program for negotiators.
June 2, 2020 — In a hearing taking place 1 and 2 June, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is questioning the merits of the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) certification of the first Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery, citing a “questionable evaluation process that has repeatedly ignored the fragile status of the stock.”
According to WWF, MSC’s current certification of the bluefin tuna fishery has dismissed “the best available science and therefore produced a evaluation of the fishery that does not reflect the reality at sea.”
May 18, 2020 — Hong Kong customs officials have seized 26 tonnes of shark fins, taken from 38,500 endangered sharks, which were uncovered in two shipping containers from Ecuador, it was revealed on May 6th, 2020.
The two consignments doubled the amount seized last year, and were worth HK$8.6 million (US$1.1 million). The majority of the dried fins were from thresher and silky shark species, both of which are protected.
“It’s shocking to see such a big smuggling case in the city,” said Gloria Lai Pui-yin, Senior Conservation Officer, Sustainability at WWF-Hong Kong. “The two species of shark in the recent seizures – the thresher shark and silky shark – are both threatened species and listed on Appendix II of CITES, meaning that the international trade of these fins is controlled. WWF-Hong Kong has been working for over a decade to transform Hong Kong into a shark-fin free city by expanding our no carriage policy and ‘no shark fin’ corporate pledge. We need to remain vigilant and ensure there is better oversight in the city.”
Officers told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that they were suspicious of the shipments because the containers had Spanish-language markings identifying them as dried fish.
March 17, 2020 — Dozens of methods of documenting seafood traceability – and hundreds of individual systems – have emerged in recent years as companies across the seafood supply chain and the technology vendors that serve them seek to demonstrate the sustainable, legal origins of their products.
Rarely can those systems seamlessly interact with each other or share data, a gap that poses an ever-larger problem as regulators draft new traceability laws and consumers demand more information about the origin of their food.