I have always been a fan of FAO work, their publications helped me lot trough my fisherman life and later on during my consulting career. I’m immensely proud of having been an FAO Fishery Officer, and having my name as an author for one of their “green books” was one of the proudest days of my life, I have done 2 more since then (and doing another two at the present!). Yet for 1st time in all my life, I find myself at odds with one part of the contents in one of their publications.
Fish should not be unloaded until proven legal by the catcher… simple.
Transhipment: a closer look, is the product of “The In-depth Study on Transshipment” that was been carried out with the assistance of the European Union (and this will become important later on), and while I was aware of the consultation I was not involved (never asked to be involved either). (Full document here)
As someone that works and specialises on the topic, I had an immediate interest on it… nicely produced and illustrated. But then when I started reading their “definition” of transhipment:
“Transshipment” – meaning the transfer of catch (i.e. fish and fish products) from one fishing vessel to another fishing vessel or other vessel either directly or indirectly through other vessels, (so far so good for me! but then…) vehicles, points, containers, installations, facilities or premises used for the carriage, storage or facilitating the transfer or transit of such catch prior to the landing – is a widely practised fishing-related activity in all regions of the world and in various fisheries. I was dismayed…
Furthermore, the publication has an illustrated example of a vessel landing and then loading fish into a container… I just totally disagree with that being called transhipment… Not that it really matters as I’m just an ex fisherman and I’m sure that the people involved in this publication are very well known fisheries administrators and academics.
But just because I was a fisherman… I’ll make a point of my opinion being expressed.
This is not transhipment in my opinion.
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Ok, let go by parts… English is not my 1st language… but in these aspects I like it:
Transhipment – in between two ships… easy. Landing: something touches land… simple
But no… the document somehow defines the term “landing” in this context means a process through which a shipment or cargo of catch is documented or declared to have been subjected to the prescribed process of entry into a country or to have been cleared as an import by customs or the competent authority of the port state.
Sorry, but how come a vessel is authorised to unload (either transhipment or landing) without the catch being “documented or declared to have been subjected to the prescribed process of entry into a country”.
You see (in my humble opinion) this is wrong.
Reality is that by definition of most RFMOs (and the EU IUU regulation) transhipment "is the transfer of fish in between two vessels"
points in case:
Transhipment is defined in the WCPFC Convention as meaning “the unloading of all or any of the fish on board a fishing vessel to another fishing vessel at sea or in port"
for the EU 1005/200810:‘transhipment’ means the unloading of all or any fishery products onboard a fishing vessel to another fishing vessel; (the EU IUU reg specifically mention that container vessels don fit into the fishing vessel category!)
IOTC defines around transhipment conditions for donor and carrier vessels, but not for container vessels...
and so on
My take is that when fish is landed as per FAO PSMA (or just PSMA best practices) it falls under the PSM responsibilities of the country that is hosting that landing... even if the fish was just landed to be put in a container. The exporter, in this case, is not the vessel, but the entity that is exporting the containers
We had issue already in the pacific with EU catch certificates because fish landed and put in containers in Kosrae (FSM) was sent to EU as it was transhipped, when in reality it wasn't. Furthermore from the sanitary side, as on as the fish is landed in a country that is not authorised by the EU as equivalent in terms of seafood safety, that fish loses eligibility for the EU (that is the reasons RMI is trying to become an EU authorised country), so fish can be landed, sorted and containerised for export and still eligible for the EU, even if processed in Thailand or Vietnam.
We get a lot of slack from Chinese and Taiwanese operators for not signing section 7 (transhipment in port) in the EU Catch Certificate since the operation of unloading to the wharf, sorting and containerization does not fit the definition of transhipment in the EU regulation, and we don’t want more yellow cards. So now those operators are pointing to this illustration and saying you guys are wrong…
In fact, since Thailand got hard on PSM the increase of fish arriving in container skyrocketed as a way to go around PSM controls, as that fish fall out of PSMA since it was lander before.
I also interacted with one of the authors on this and he raised the following valid points (in italics, to which I answer in normal text)
Landing is not defined in any the legislations and RFMOs.
But for me, the fact that landing is not defined, while a worry, can be seen as an advantage because transhipment is defined... i.e. vessels to vessels... so any other stuff that happens we can argue what to name it: landing, wharfing, whatever... but is not transhipment... which is exactly my point!
In various regions where the catch is directly offloaded from catching vessels to containers which are then almost immediately loaded onto a container vessel – without oversight or involvement of any authority – fisheries, customs or otherwise, especially when this activity takes place in what is considered “private” ports – where the only documentation of what is going on is potentially only from the vessels themselves or their agents and that this practice continues to grow. There are some that do not consider these instances to be a “landing” and instead just a movement of the catch from one vessel to another while in port.
I've seen that in a few countries, yet those containers are never in a container vessel (you need sorting/handling space which is not available in the deck of a container vessel). Furthermore, container vessels are on very tight port schedules, it can take over 48 hrs -non-stop- to unload a PS based on hatches sizes, for example, a day or more for a Longliner as fish comes out 1 by one… Hence containers are on the wharf and will be moved around by a vehicle and will be kept refrigerated via electricity mains that are powered from the land, not the vessel. So whatever we call that... it is not transhipment as defined in the legislation (and again that is what I'm driving here).
To add to this point… is that those unloading operations from the vessels, the loading of the containers etc is to be authorised and monitored by fisheries and surely customs, otherwise imagine all the "other stuff” you could load in.
The global reefer fleet is really not getting bigger and they are not really building new reefers to take the place of the ageing ones, the world is moving more and more towards containerization – and the movement of goods by container which includes an increasing fleet of container vessels so, the case of the same catcher vessel coming into the same port but this time, instead of a reefer being there, there is a container vessel if the catcher vessel direct offloads to a container which is then directly unloaded to the container vessel, there are some that may view that as a transhipment rather than a landing – the transfer of catch was driven by a logistics choice…i.e. the availability of a container vessel and containers vice an actual reefer.
Interestingly, not long time ago I wrote about this recently. I believe that COVID would encourage refitting of the present fleet and potentially some new vessels. In any case again...the schedule of container vessels is much tighter than the schedule of fishing boats... so the logistics angle may play to the fact that you may unload faster the fishing vessel as to load to a container, and the container will be hoisted to the container vessels and plugged there. yet for container vessel to accept a container it needs the "Bill of Lading" for the consignment, otherwise, it will not accept them for reasons ranging from due diligence to cargo insurance. Different container handlers have variations on the maximum weight of fish in containers (20 to 25 tons) so these need to be weighed in somewhere and crosschecked with the Bill of Lading...
Also, no fisherman on earth will let go of its fish without a document with the weight of the fish he is passing off... at any unloading you'll have a crew representative checking the weights (that is why captains are really keen on the scales we were using during transhipments). Point is that there would be always some sort of paperwork (official or not) going on when fish gets into a container... So from the operational and logistics side is a matter of fisheries and customs to join in, because the paperwork is happening even if purely only from the commercial side
Yet again as per the definition this process is not strictly vessel to vessel... and I don't think that nor WCPFC, IOTC, EU, etc include container vessels in the definition of "fishing or support vessels" definitively PSMA does not either, which also a corollary of the "vessel to vessel" definition.
when various Conventions such as WCPFC and IOTC were agreed, the use of containers for moving catch was not a dominant activity where the activity occurred at a level where there might have been a need to actually define “landing” in the list of definitions so that it could clearly capture the requirements of the activity of a “landing” if and when it occurred, especially through direct offloads to containers.
Yeah, that is true... and containerisation is (as I wrote in the blog above) a really attractive option that needs deeper analysis. Yet for example, our very simple PSM SOPs that I was involved in implementing in RMI, PNG and Noro (Solomons) include the process of authorisation of port use (which includes the unloading of fish) based on the analysis of identity, licensing and operations of the vessels prior arrival, then monitoring of unloading either landing or transhipment, and the if landed irrelevant if goes to a container or to a cool store is all tallied, and then an export authorisation is given either as whole fish or as processed if it went to factory... So is not too hard, can be done and is consistent with PSMA
I guess I agree to disagree with this publication on this aspect… and I worry that if some people associate landing, sorting and containerisation as part of transhipment we going back in the advances we made already.
The whole point of PSM is that if the catching vessels cannot prove that the fish was caught in compliance with the licensing conditions port use is denied… end of the story.
Already Transhipment in the HS is a loophole to this… but at least is more identified. Now I find it weird that we could this way allow a vessel to get their potentially IUU catches into the value chain by calling the landing a transhipment to which you cannot do much until the fish gets to the destination via the realm of the custom oversight (fisheries rarely gets involved with containers)… at least in the specific transhipment definition (vessels to vessels) fisheries is to be involved the same way that fish to land… and again doesn't matter if it gets to a container to be sent away or to the factory to be processed and then send away.
Fish does not become IUU along the value chain, fish Is caught IUU and should not come out of the boat until its proven no IUU.