The sinking of the US Tuna treaty

There have been plenty of talk in the media and tuna world of the “sinking of the US treaty” last week, and I been asked about my views on it. So I here is my take on this, with a big acknowledgement to Chris Lord who put together his views and let me quote him here. The man has been in the Tuna business for a long time and is well read on the issues.

The fact

The United States has given Pacific Island nations notice that it plans to withdraw from the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, one of its most important aid, trade and geopolitical arrangements with the region. The 27-year-old treaty is set to expire 12 months from the date of the withdrawal notice. The announcement came after Washington agreed in South Pacific Tuna Treaty negotiations in August, to a total of $89.2 million for 2016 fishing days, but within months reneged on the deal saying its fleet could not afford to pay.

 What is the Tuna treaty?

The Multilateral Treaty on Fisheries Between Certain Governments of the Pacific Island States and the Government of the United States of America (commonly known as the “US Treaty”) began in 1987. It entered into force in 1988 and has since been renewed twice, with the last renewal in 2003 allowing the US Treaty to continue for an additional 10 years until 2013. The treaty enables a maximum of 40 US purse seine vessels to fish in the waters of the 16 Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) member states. From the 16 countries, Australia and New Zealand do not receive any development aid from the treaty. In exchange for fishing access the US contributes an agreed annual amount, regardless of how much fish they take out. Under this arrangement the USA has, in the first 16 years of operation, paid the FFA a total of US$276 million. Once the administration fee is put aside, the FFA then divides these funds in two parts. First, each Pacific Island party receives a fixed minimum payment and the other part (a major component) is based on the amount of tuna caught in national waters of each member states. In effect almost 80%  of the money has been diverted to five countries (Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu – all PNA countries) based on the distribution of skipjack stock in the region.

Last week, The United States government has officially announced it is pulling out of the US Pacific islands fisheries treaty. The US State Department this week advised the Forum Fisheries Agency that it had officially communicated to the Papua New Guinea government - which is the depository for the treaty - that it is withdrawing from the treaty. The State Department's move was presaged last month when the US government and its tuna fishing industry asked the FFA to "take back" 2,000 fishing days that the American fleet had requested as part of an earlier package of over 6,000 vessel days for 2016. FFA refused, saying it was a signed agreement that the US should abide by. Hence it (FFA) refuses to issue new licences until the U.S. pays for all 5700 fishing days agreed during the Tuna Treaty negotiations in Brisbane during August 2015 (I wrote about it here), a total of $89.2 million, and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has decreed that, as of 01 January 2016, all 37 purse seiners in the U.S. tuna fishing fleet are prohibited from fishing in the western Pacific region until new licences are issued.

This dispute, of course, has a bigger framework that what is only seen at the surface... it seems (as Chris coined it) the culmination of the “perfect storm”: supply, demand, fishing access and weather.

Supply

A price crisis is hitting the purse seine tuna fishing industry in the central and western Pacific. In fact, tuna landings on both sides of the Pacific have been at record levels for most of the year. Fishing vessels and island-based processors are losing money as a glut of tuna on the market keeps prices low. The western and central Pacific account for half of the global supply of skipjack tuna, and the price of skipjack on the world market has plummeted, from over US$2000 per ton in 2013, to less than US$1000 today. In these circumstances, all US vessels have been losing money, according to the American Tunaboat Association.

In April, the World Tuna Purse Seine Organization (WTPO) announced a 35% reduction in fishing effort until the end of the year, in an effort to pull the industry out of the market crisis. The measure covered the Western and Central Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and applied to all commercial refrigerated industrial tuna purse seiners. Fleets in the Eastern Pacific Ocean were excluded from the measure due to the upcoming fishery closure in the region in Jul-Aug.

The slow-down in operations implemented by the WTPO temporarily lifted prices, but they quickly fell again when catch rates were not significantly decreased.

In Ecuador, annual closures to fishing activity also failed to reduce landings. As a result, cold stores filled and refrigerated carrier vessels were backed-up in regional transshipment ports. Processors in Southeast Asia have been operating below capacity, with many factories in Ecuador reduced to a single-shift basis. Catch rates remained high through the end of the year. This is reflected in current offers of skipjack tuna at $950 per ton for January deliveries to Bangkok.

In short, vessel operators have been losing money.

Demand

Global demand for shelf-stable tuna products has been in a slump for at least the past two years. As the supply increased, prices fell and buyers become reticent to commit forward. It boils downs to a classic case of “supply vs. demand” economics… too much fish and slow sales of finished products.

Another factor in the slump is a growing consumer trend away from canned foods towards, fresh and natural products. Consumption levels in traditional markets such as Europe and the US, are stable or declining. Asia-Pacific processors depend heavily upon these markets for canned tuna and pre-cooked loin exports. In addition, access to these markets, especially the EU, has become increasingly complex.

Future growth in canned tuna demand will likely stem from emerging markets. However, the largest of these, the Middle East, has been severely disrupted by political turmoil, in particular, Egypt and Libya. This makes for stiff competition in other emerging markets, such as Latin America.

Finally, the industry’s propensity for “shooting itself in the foot” has also played a role in eroding consumer confidence. A seemingly never-ending series of events involving major players in the industry have made the headlines. These fall into three (3) basic categories:

• Social welfare: Human trafficking, slavery and forced labor
• Responsible fishing: IUU fishing, traceability and sustainability (FADs)
• Ethical business practices: Under-filling, price-fixing, truth in labeling (Omega-3)

Following are some examples…

• In 2013, a class-action suit was filed accusing StarKist of “systematically under filling and selling short weighted cans of StarKist Chunk Light Tuna in Water”, a violation of California’s consumer laws, amounting to “negligent misrepresentation”, “unjust enrichment” and “fraud”.
• About the same time, StarKist’s Korean mother company, Dongwon Industries, came under fire for the mutiny of an American purse seine captain, as well as appalling working conditions, illegal fishing practices, and deceit over tuna fishing licences, all in relation to its purse seine vessel, “Majestic Blue” . The Company later re-flagged the vessel and withdrew from the South Pacific Tuna Treaty as a vessel-owner.
• The recent disappearance of Keith Davis , a US Fisheries Observer from a Panamanian flagged tuna carrier. Unfortunately one in a list of observers’ deaths I wrote about it before
• In April 2015, the European Commission issued a 'yellow card' to Thailand (where most of the tuna in the world is processed) for not taking sufficient measures in the international fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU). A somewhat belated response from the government is addressing the issues. Only time will tell if the EU deems the response to be sufficient.
• In June 2014, Thailand was downgraded to the lowest ranking (Tier 3) on The US State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, joining al illustrious list of countries, including Iran, North Korea, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In July 2015, this status was reconfirmed for a second year.
• A shocking report by the Associated Press (AP) documented a year-long investigation of a single large shipment of slave-caught seafood from the Indonesian village of Benjina, to Thai ports, thru most major Thai seafood processing plants and onto familiar retailers in the United States. This report sparked government action in Thailand and Indonesia that has at least taken steps towards resolving the matter. Sadly, the leader of Thailand's investigation team into Rohingya human trafficking was reassigned to the very area where he conducted the investigations. His pleas to his superiors for reconsideration fell on deaf ears. Fearing retribution from "senior police involved with the trade”, he was forced to flee to Australia, where he is now seeking political asylum.
• Recently Greenpeace ranked fourteen US tuna brands regarding “fundamental sustainability standards”, which to Greenpeace, means fishing with Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). The top three US canned tuna brands: Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and StarKist all failed and occupied three of the bottom four positions. A similar ranking in the UK later in the year, ranked Thai Union’s John West brand last out of eleven brands. To drive the point home, Greenpeace followed up with highly publicized protests in San Diego and Liverpool, at the headquarters for Thai Union owned Chicken of the Sea and John West brands respectively.
• The U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division announced it is conducting an investigation into price collusion in the Packaged Seafood Industry. Forty-three (43) class-action suits from various states, directed primarily at Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee Foods and StarKist, followed and have now been consolidated in California. This series of events more or less scuttled Thai Union’s proposed take-over of Bumble Bee.
• Late in the year, Bumble Bee was also hit with class-action suits regarding improper Omega 3 labeling of tuna and other seafood products. The suit claims Bumble Bee had no legal right to claim the products as an “excellent source of Omega-3s”, as the required applications had not been submitted to US FDA.

Considering the above issues, and growing consumer interest in sustainability, transparency and social welfare, it is logic to see lower consumption (even if not all players are tainted)  .

Fishing Access

A major mitigating factor to this dispute was Kiribati's sovereign decision in October 2014 at the Honolulu negotiations, when they announced that due to “other commitments”, they would allocate only 300 fish days towards the treaty with the US in 2015, a 95% reduction, as compared to 4313 days in 2014.

Whatever the reasons, the number of VDS days Kiribati allocated to the Treaty was not sufficient for the US fleet to be able to operate economically within their EEZ. Neighboring Pacific countries to Kiribati offered fishing days to replace those the US had lost but, they were not feasible options.

Kiribati's EEZ (exclusive economic zone) is closest in proximity, only two to three days away from the tuna processing factories in American Samoa. Fishing grounds in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands or Micronesia are as long as 10 to 12 days away. It is simply not economical for those boats to go such a distance to fish and then turn around and come back all the way to American Samoa. It would be far more practical to transship the fish onto carriers supplying fish to Southeast Asia.

In short, the net effect of this move by Kiribati was to diminish the value of the entire Treaty to the US fleet.

Weather

To make matters worse, the strong El Nino effect during 2015 pushed tuna fishing away from Papua New Guinea towards Kiribati, exactly where the US fleet had limited access. In June, SPC said “stocks will likely move towards the exclusive economic zones of Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tokelau and Nauru. “As water temperatures change, we should see very strong fishing activity and catches towards the central Pacific side of the region”. He also said, “If this event impacts the biology of the tuna resource in a similar fashion as it has in the past, we should see a fairly strong recruitment particularly for Skipjack tuna for the next year”, suggesting that the high catches being experienced will continue. He also offered this opinion, “while that's good from a catching perspective, there is concern the current depressed price of skipjack tuna in the marketplace will not be assisted by continuing strong supply”.

In light of all the above, it is not difficult to understand why the US pushed so hard at South Pacific Tuna Treaty negotiations in August 2015, in Brisbane, Australia, to increase the number of fishing days, only to declare less than three months later that the US fleet could not afford to pay for them.

I love to hear if anyone out there, that has diverging opinions on Chris take on this, as it is an important for tuna fishing in the Pacific.

Do “Catch Reconstructions” really Implicate Overfishing?

As expected there was some answers and rebuttals of the Pauly and Zeller paper I referred in my last post. Not surprisingly some of it comes from Ray Hilborn, as those two are sitting in opposite sides of life (I posted about his views before). Here are some of the responses:

Juan is deconstructing catch

Ray Hilborn, Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington

This paper tells us nothing fundamentally new about world catch, and absolutely nothing new about the status of fish stocks. It has long been recognized that by-catch, illegal catch and artisanal catch were underrepresented in the FAO catch database, and that by-catch has declined dramatically.

What the authors claim, and the numerous media have taken up, is the cry that their results show that world fish stocks are in worse shape than we thought. This is absolutely wrong. We know that fish stocks are stable in some places, increasing in others and declining in yet others.

Most of the major fish stocks of the world, constituting 40% of the total catch are scientifically assessed using a mixture of data sources including data on the trends in abundance of the fish stocks, size and age data of the fish caught and other information as available. This paper really adds nothing to our understanding of these major fish stocks.

Another group of stocks, constituting about 20% of global catch, are assessed using expert knowledge by the FAO. These experts use their personal knowledge of these fish stocks to provide an assessment of their status. Estimating the historical unreported catch for these stocks adds nothing to our understanding of these stocks.

For many of the most important stocks that are not assessed by scientific organizations or by expert opinion, we often know a lot about their status. For example; abundance of fish throughout almost all of South and Southeast Asia has declined significantly. This is based on the catch per unit of fishing effort and the size of the individuals being caught. Estimating the amount of other unreported catches does not change our perspective on the status of these stocks.

In the remaining fisheries where we know little about their status, does the fact that catches have declined at a faster rate than reported in the FAO catch data tell us that global fisheries are in worse shape than we thought? The answer is not really. We would have to believe that the catch is a good index of the abundance.

Looking at Figure 1 of the Pauly and Zeller paper we see that a number of major fishing regions have not seen declines in catch in the last 10 years. These areas include the Mediterranean and Black Sea, the Eastern Central Atlantic, the Eastern Indian Ocean, the Northwest Pacific and the Western Indian Ocean. Does this mean that the stocks in these areas are in good shape, while areas that have seen significant declines in catch like the Northeast Atlantic, and the Northeast Pacific are in worse shape?

We know from scientific assessments that stocks in the Mediterranean and Eastern Central Atlantic are often heavily overfished – yet catches have not declined. We know that stocks in the Northeast Pacific are abundant, stable and not overfished, and in the Northeast Atlantic are increasing in abundance. Yet their catch has declined.

Total catch, and declines in catch, are not a good index of the trends in fish stock abundance.

Pauly and Zeller have attempted to estimate the extent of unreported catch for all the fish stocks of the world. For any individual stock in the U.S. the hardest part of doing the stock assessment is often estimating the total catch. Historical discards are often unreported, species were often lumped in the historical catch data, recreational catch was poorly estimated, and illegal catch totally unreported. Scientists can spend months trying to reconstruct these data for an individual stock and it is recognized that these estimates may not be reliable. Pauly and Zeller’s attempt to do this for thousands of global stocks with a consultant spending perhaps a few months to cover every fishery in an individual country just cannot be very reliable.

We need to move beyond trying to understand the historical fish catches, and instead concentrate on understanding the status of fish stocks at present. If all the effort that had been spent in trying to estimate historical catches by Pauly and Zeller had instead been devoted to analysis of what we know about the status of a sample of fish stocks in different places, we would know much more about the status of world fisheries.

David Agnew, Director of Standards, Marine Stewardship Council

The analysis of such a massive amount of data is a monumental task, and I suspect that the broad conclusions are correct. However, as is usual with these sorts of analyses, when one gets to a level of detail where the actual assumptions can be examined, in an area in which one is knowledgeable, it is difficult to follow all the arguments.  The Antarctic catches “reconstruction” apparently is based on one Fisheries Centre report (2015 Volume 23 Number 1) and a paper on fishing down ecosystems (Polar Record; Ainley and Pauly 2014). The only “reconstruction” appears to be the addition of IUU and discard data, all of which are scrupulously reported by CCAMLR anyway, so they are not unknown. But there is an apparent 100,000 t “unreported” catch in the reconstruction in Figure 3, Atlantic, Antarctic (48). This cannot include the Falklands (part of the Fisheries Centre paper) and it is of a size that could only be an alleged misreporting of krill catch in 2009. This is perhaps an oblique reference to concerns that CCAMLR has had in the past about conversion factors applied to krill products, or perhaps unseen (net-impact) mortality, but neither of these elements have been substantiated, nor referenced in the supporting documentation that I have seen (although I could not access the polar record paper).

The paper does not go into much detail on these reasons for the observed declines in catches and discards, except to attribute it to both reductions in fishing mortality attendant on management action to reduce mortality and generate sustainability, and some reference to declines in areas that are not managed. It is noteworthy that the peak of the industrial catches – in the late 1990s/early 2000s – coincidentally aligns with the start of the recovery of many well managed stocks. This point of recovery has been documented previously (Costello et al 2012; Rosenberg et al 2006; Gutierrez et al 2012) and particularly relates to the recovery of large numbers of stocks in the north Pacific, the north Atlantic and around Australia and New Zealand, and mostly to stocks that are assessed by analytical models. For stocks that need to begin recovery plans to achieve sustainability, this most often entails an overall reduction in fishing effort, which would be reflected in the reductions in catches seen here. So, one could attribute some of the decline in industrial catch in these regions to a correct management response to rebuild stocks to a sustainable status, although I have not directly analyzed the evidence for this. This is therefore a positive outcome worth reporting.

The above-reported inflection point is also coincident with the launch of the MSC’s sustainability standard. These standards have now been used to assess almost 300 fisheries, and have generated environmental improvements in most of them (MSC 2015). Stock sustainability is part of the requirements of the standard, and previous analyses (Gutierrez et al 2012, Agnew et al 2012) have shown that certified fisheries have improved their stock status and achieved sustainability at a higher rate than uncertified fisheries. The MSC program does not claim responsibility for the turn-around in global stocks, but along with other actions – such as those taken by global bodies such as FAO, by national administrations, and by industry and non-Governmental Organisations – it can claim to have provided a significant incentive for fisheries to become, and then remain, certified.

Original source for these two here

I also got a mail from my friend Bob Gillett, an extremely experienced fisheries consultant (his publishing record goes back to 1978), I have his knowledge (and friendship) in the highest regards. He says:

I have run into these "catch reconstructions" for almost every country in my present work of re-writing the ADB Benefish book.  I have come to the conclusion that the concept of having graduate students estimate fisheries production in countries they have never visited by remote control- just does not work.

Can we trust FAO Fisheries Statistics?

For years, most work in global fisheries always refer to my former employers statistical data, in particular because that is what they refer to, when the say that such % of world fisheries are “fully fished” or “overfished”. However a recent paper questions the accuracy of that data, and already in the tittle, they drop their conclusion: “Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining”

The paper was published by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller, and you can read it here, I will just highlight some of the parts that “hit” me the most.

Abstract

Fisheries data assembled by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggest that global marine fisheries catches increased to 86 million tonnes in 1996, then slightly declined. Here, using a decade-long multinational ‘catch reconstruction’ project covering the Exclusive Economic Zones of the world’s maritime countries and the High Seas from 1950 to 2010, and accounting for all fisheries, we identify catch trajectories differing considerably from the national data submitted to the FAO. We suggest that catch actually peaked at 130 million tonnes, and has been declining much more strongly since. This decline in reconstructed catches reflects declines in industrial catches and to a smaller extent declining discards, despite industrial fishing having expanded from industrialized countries to the waters of developing countries. The differing trajectories documented here suggest a need for improved monitoring of all fisheries, including often neglected small-scale fisheries, and illegal and other problematic fisheries, as well as discarded bycatch.

Introduction

In many developing countries (and likely also in many ‘transition‘ countries), fish is the major animal protein source that rural people can access or afford; and they are also an important source of micronutrients essential to people with otherwise deficient nutrition. However, the growing popularity of fish in countries with developed or rapidly developing economies creates a demand that cannot be met by fish stocks in their own waters (for example, the EU, the USA, China and Japan). These markets are increasingly supplied by fish imported from developing countries, or caught in the waters of developing countries by various distant-water fleets with the consequences that:

• Foreign and/or export-oriented domestic industrial fleets are increasingly fishing in the waters of developing countries.

• Industrially caught fish has become a globalized commodity that is mostly traded between continents rather than consumed in the countries where it was caught, and

• The small-scale fisheries that traditionally supplied seafood to coastal rural communities and the interior of developing countries (notably in Africa) are forced to compete with the export-oriented industrial fleets without much support from their governments.

The lack of attention that small-scale fisheries suffer in most parts of the world manifests itself in potentially misleading statistics that are submitted annually by many member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which may omit or substantially underreport small-scale fisheries data. FAO harmonizes the data submitted by its members, which then becomes the only global data set of fisheries statistics in the world, widely used by policy makers and scholars.

This data set, however, may not only underestimate artisanal (that is, small scale, commercial) and subsistence fisheries , but also generally omit the catch of recreational fisheries, discarded bycatch  and illegal and otherwise unreported catch, even when some estimates are available. Thus, except for a few obvious cases of over-reporting , the landings data updated and disseminated annually by the FAO on behalf of member countries may considerably underestimate actual fisheries catch. While this underestimation is widely known among many fisheries scientists working with FAO catch data, and is freely acknowledged by FAO, its global magnitude has not been explicitly presented until now.

Here we present the results of an approach called ‘catch reconstruction’ that utilizes a wide variety of data and information sources to derive estimates for all fisheries components missing from the official reported data. We find that reconstructed global catches between 1950 and 2010 were 50% higher than data reported to FAO suggest, and are declining more strongly since catches peaked in the 1990s. These findings and the country-specific technical work underlying these results will hopefully contribute to member countries submitting more accurate fisheries statistics to FAO. Such improved and more comprehensive data contribute a foundation that can facilitate the implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management , which is a component of the ‘FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries’ .

Results

Global pattern

The sum of the reconstructed catches of all sectors in all Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the world, plus the catch of tuna and other large pelagic fishes in the High Seas leads to two major observations.

First, the trajectory of reconstructed catches differs substantially from those reported by FAO on behalf of its member countries. The FAO statistics suggest that, starting in 1950, the world catch (actually ‘landings’, as discarded catches are explicitly excluded from the global FAO data set) increased fairly steadily to 86 million tonnes (mt) in 1996, stagnated and then slowly declined to around 77 mt by 2010 (Fig. 1). In contrast, the reconstructed catch peaked at 130 mt in 1996 and declined more strongly since. Thus, the reconstructed catches are overall 53% higher than the reported data.

Contrast between the world’s marine fisheries catches, assembled by FAO from voluntary submissions of its member countries (‘reported’) and that of the catch ‘reconstructed’ to include all fisheries known to exist, in all countries and in the High Sea (‘reconstructed’=‘reported’+ estimates of ‘unreported’). The mean weighted percentage uncertainty of the reconstructed total catches (over all countries and fisheries sectors) based on the quality scores attributed to each sector in each country and territory (dashed line) is also shown.

Figure 1: Trajectories of reported and reconstructed marine fisheries catches 1950–2010.

Furthermore, since the year of peak catches in 1996, the reconstructed catch declined strongly at a mean rate of −1.22 mt·per year, whereas FAO, at least until 2010, described the reported catch cautiously as characterized by ‘stability’19, 20, though it exhibited a gradual decline (−0.38 mt·per year). The reconstructed total catches therefore represent a decline of over three times that of the reported data as presented by FAO on behalf of countries.

A segmented regression identifies two breakpoints in the catch time series (that is, change in trend) of the reconstructed total catches as well as the reported catches. These are in 1967 as a result of a changing slope of the catch time series from a stronger increase prior to 1967 (reconstructed catches=2.82 mt·per year; reported catches=1.88 mt·per year) to a slower increase after 1967 (reconstructed catches=1.86 mt·per year; reported catches=1.30 mt·per year). The second breakpoint is in 1996 (the year of peak catch), with a subsequently decreasing trend (that is, slope) of −1.22 mt·per year for reconstructed catches and −0.38 mt per·year for reported catches, as also presented for the simple regression above (Fig. 1).

Effects of removing discards on estimates of seafood caught per capita, and of removing the catches of the major countries using quota management (that is, USA, New Zealand, Australia and Western Europe) on reconstructed total catches.

Figure 2: Trajectories of marine fisheries catches 1950–2010.

Note that the recent, stronger decline in reconstructed total catches is not due to some countries reducing catch quotas so that stocks can rebuild. For example, a similar decline (−1.01 mt·per year) in reconstructed catches is obtained when the catch from the Unites States, Northwestern Europe, Australia and New Zealand (that is, countries where quota management predominates) is excluded (Fig. 2).

Spatial pattern

Closer examination of the reconstructed versus reported catches in each of the 19 maritime FAO statistical areas suggests that some of the areas where industrial fishing originated, such as the Northwest Atlantic (FAO area 21), are the first regions of the world to demonstrate declining catches (Fig. 3). In contrast, lower-latitude areas demonstrate declines later, or still appear to have increasing catches, for example, the Indian and Western Central Pacific Oceans still showing generally increasing trends in reported catches (Fig. 3).

Contrasting reconstructed and reported catches in the 19 maritime ‘Statistical Areas’ which FAO uses to roughly spatialize the world catch. Note that for Area 18 (Arctic), the reported catch by the U.S. and Canada was zero, while only Russia (former-USSR) reported a small catch in the late 1960s, even though the coastal fishes of the high Arctic are exploited by Inuit and others.

Figure 3: Reconstructed and reported catches by FAO areas.

Catches by fishing sector

We present, for the first time, global reconstructed marine fisheries catches by fisheries sectors (Fig. 4). They are dominated by industrial fisheries, which contribute 73 mt of landings in 2010, down from 87 mt in 2000 (Fig. 4). At the global scale it is a declining industrial catch (combined with the smaller contribution of gradually reduced levels of discarding) that leads to declining global catches since 1996, while the artisanal sector, which generates a catch increasing from about 8 mt·per year in the early 1950s to 22 mt·per year in 2010, continues to show gradual growth in catches at the global scale (Fig. 4).

Reconstructed catches for all countries in the world, plus High Seas, by large-scale (industrial) and small-scale sectors (artisanal, subsistence, recreational), with discards (overwhelmingly from industrial fisheries) presented separately.

Figure 4: Reconstructed global catch by fisheries sectors.

Also noticeable is that the inter-annual variations (small peaks and troughs) in both reconstructed catches and reported catches (Fig. 1) are mainly driven by industrial data, which are relatively well documented and reported in time series, while the small-scale sector data are smoother over time (Fig. 4), and more strongly influenced by continuity assumptions over time as part of the national reconstructions.

While some countries increasingly include subsets of artisanal catches in official catch statistics provided to FAO, subsistence fisheries catches (Fig. 4) rarely are10. Worldwide, subsistence fisheries caught an estimated 3.8 mt·per year between 2000 and 2010 (Fig. 4). The current global estimate of just under 1 mt·per year of recreational catches is rather imprecise, and recreational fishing is declining in developed, but increasing in developing countries.

Discarded bycatch, generated mainly by industrial fishing, notably shrimp trawling22, was estimated at 27 mt·per year (±10 mt) and 7 mt·per year (±0.7 mt) in global studies conducted for FAO in the early 1990s and 2000s, respectively. However, these point estimates were not incorporated into FAO’s global ‘capture’ database, which thus consists only of landings. Here, these studies are used, along with numerous other sources, to generate time series of discards (Fig. 4). Discards, after peaking in the late 1980s, have declined, and during 2000–2010, an average of 10.3 mt·per year of fish were discarded.

Discussion

Our reconstructed catch data, which combines the data reported to FAO with estimates of unreported catches (that is, reconstructed data are ‘reported FAO data+unreported catches’) include estimates of uncertainty (Fig. 1) associated with each national reconstruction. Note that many reconstructions are associated with high uncertainty, especially for earlier decades, for sectors such as subsistence which receive less data collection attention by governments, and for small countries or territories (Fig. 1). We include uncertainty estimates here, despite the fact that reconstructions address an inherent negative bias in global catch data (that is, address the ‘accuracy’ of data) and not the replicability of catch data collection (that is, the statistical ‘precision’ of such estimates), which is what ‘uncertainty’ estimates (for example, confidence limits) generally are used for. We do recognize that any estimates of unreported catches implies a certain degree of uncertainty, but so do officially reported data. Most countries in the world use sampling schemes, estimations and raising factors to derive their national catch data they officially report domestically and internationally, all without including estimates of the uncertainty inherent in the numbers being reported as official national catches.

Our comparison of the reconstructed versus reported catches in each of the 19 maritime FAO statistical areas suggests that some of the lower-latitude areas still appear to have increasing reported catches. This generally increasing trend is most pronounced in the Indian and Western Central Pacific Oceans (Fig. 3), where the reconstructed catches are most uncertain, as the statistics of various countries could only partially correct a regional tendency to exaggerate reported catches5. FAO’s Indian and Western Central Pacific Oceans areas are also the only ones with an increasing FAO reported catch, which, when added to that of other FAO areas, makes the FAO reported world catch appear more stable than it is based on our global reconstructions.

Our data and analyses show that, at the global scale, it is a declining industrial catch (plus a smaller contribution of gradually declining discards) that provide for the declining global catches, while artisanal fishing continues to show slight growth in catches (Fig. 4). Thus, the gradually increasing incorporation of artisanal and other small-scale catches in the officially reported data presented by FAO on behalf of countries is partly masking the decline in industrial catches at the global level. Since officially reported data are not (at the international level) separated into large-scale versus small-scale sectors, this trend could not be easily documented until now. Obviously, these patterns may vary between countries. Furthermore, while parts of artisanal catches are increasingly included in official catch statistics by some countries, non-commercial subsistence fisheries catches, a substantial fraction of it through gleaning by women in coastal ecosystems such as coral reef flats and estuaries are generally neglected. The importance of subsistence fishing for the food security of developing countries, particularly in the tropical Indo-Pacific, cannot be overemphasized.

Our preliminary and somewhat imprecise reconstruction of recreational catches indicates that this sector is largely missing from official reported data, despite FAO’s annual data requests explicitly allowing inclusion of recreational catch data. This activity, however, generates an estimated 40 billion USD·per year of global benefits, involves between 55 and 60 million persons, and generates about one million jobs worldwide.

Finally, our country-by-country reconstructed data supports previous studies illustrating that global discards have decreased12, 24. Discarded catches should therefore be included in catch databases, if only to allow for correct inferences on the state of the fisheries involved in this problematic practice.

The reconstructed catch data presented here for the first time for all countries in the world can contribute to formulating better policies for governing the world’s marine fisheries, with a first step being the recognition in national policies of the likely magnitude of fisheries not properly captured in the official national data collection systems.

This recognition will hopefully contribute to improvements in national data collection systems, an aspiration that we share with FAO. For example, in Mauritania and Guinea Bissau, which, in large part as a result of the reconstructions and our ongoing direct engagement with these countries, are now initiating national data collection systems for recreational fisheries (a growth industry in both countries and missing from current data systems). It is hoped that this type of data, and other missing data (for example, subsistence catches), will be included in future national data reports to FAO, as is the case for some other countries such as Finland.

The taxonomic composition of this reconstructed catch (not presented here but available from the Sea Around Us and through the individual catch reconstruction reports) can also contribute to the development of more useful first-order indicators of fisheries status than has been possible previously, especially in the absence of comprehensive stock assessments for all taxa targeted.

A policy change that would be straightforward for FAO to coordinate and implement with all countries around the world is to request countries to submit their annual catch statistics separately for large-scale and small-scale fisheries, which would be an excellent contribution towards the implementation of the ‘Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication’ recently adopted and endorsed at the thirty-first Session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (COFI) in June 2014 (ref. 35). While we have found that many countries already have such data or data structure at hand, until all countries can implement such a data-change request, FAO could incorporate such a split into their internal data harmonization procedures, based, for example, on the same or similar information sources as used by the reconstructions.

The very high catches that were achieved globally in the 1990s were probably not sustainable. However, they do suggest that stock rebuilding, as successfully achieved in many Australian and US fisheries, and beginning to be applied in some European fisheries, is a policy that needs wider implementation, and which would generate even higher sustained benefits than previously estimated from reported catches.

On the other hand, the recent catch decline documented here is of considerable concern in its implication for food security, as evidenced by the decline in per capita seafood availability (Fig. 2). Note that the recent, strong decline in reconstructed total catches is also evident if catches in countries with well-established quota management systems (United States, Northwestern Europe, Australia and New Zealand) are excluded (Fig. 2).

Low quotas are generally not imposed when a stock is abundant; rather low and reduced quotas in fully developed fisheries are generally a management intervention to reduce fishing pressure as a result of past overfishing. Similarly, it has been proposed that strongly declining catches in unmanaged, heavily exploited fisheries are likely a sign of overfishing. The often raised suggestion that aquaculture production can replace or compensate for the shortfall in wild capture seafood availability, while being questionable for various reasons, is not addressed here.

The last policy relevant point to be made here transcends fisheries in that it deals with the accuracy of the data used by the international community for its decision making, and the generation of factual knowledge that this requires. After the creation of the United Nations and its technical organizations, including the FAO, a major project of ‘quantifying the world’ began to provide data for national and international agencies on which they could base their policies. As a result, large databases, for example on agricultural crops and forest cover, were created whose accuracy is becoming increasingly important given the expanding exploitation of our natural ecosystems.

Periodic validation of these databases should therefore be a priority to ensure they avoid producing ‘poor numbers’. For example, reports of member countries to FAO about their forest cover, when aggregated at the global level, suggest that the annual rate of forest loss between 1990/2000 and 2001/2005 was nearly halved, while the actual loss rate doubled when assessed by remote sensing and rigorous sampling. Similarly, here we show that the main trend of the world marine fisheries catches is not one of ‘stability’ as cautiously suggested earlier by FAO, but one of decline. Moreover, this decline, which began in the mid-1990s, started from a considerably higher peak catch than suggested by the aggregate statistics supplied by FAO members, implying that we have more to lose if this decline continues. Thankfully, this also means that there may be more to gain by rebuilding stocks.

For the global community, a solution could therefore be to provide the FAO the required funds to more intensively assist member countries in submitting better and more comprehensive fishery statistics, especially statistics that cover all fisheries components, and report data by sector. Such improved statistics can then lead to better-informed policy changes for rebuilding stocks and maintaining (sea)food security. Alternatively, or in addition, FAO could team up with other groups (as was done for forestry statistics) to improve the fisheries statistics of member countries that often have fisheries departments with very limited human and financial resources.

Ultimately, the only database of international fisheries statistics that the world has (through FAO) can be improved. The more rapid decline of fisheries catches documented here is a good reason for this.

What is happening with UN Port State Measures Agreement ?

My friend and colleague Pramod Ganapathiraju recently published a very interesting review of the state of the play of the UN PSMA, and where is it going. I reproduce some of the the main parts below. 

South Korea became the 19th country to ratify the UN Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) on 14 January 2016 (surely as result of the EU yellow card pressure). The spree of recent ratifications is seen as a stride in the right direction. If the present pace continues the treaty might come into effect well before the end of first quarter this year.

UN- PSMA (Ratifications) Jan 14, 2016 Countries that have ratified the PSMA

The UN Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing was approved by the FAO Conference at its Thirty-sixth Session (Rome, 18-23 November 2009) under paragraph 1 of Article XIV of the FAO Constitution, through Resolution No 12/2009 dated 22 November 2009.

Progress: 23 Parties have signed the agreement until today  include Angola, Australia, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, European Union, France, Gabon, Ghana, Iceland, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Russian Federation, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Turkey, USA, Uruguay. The Agreement shall enter into force thirty days after the date of deposit with the Director-General of FAO of the 25th instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. With the latest ratification 19 parties have ratified the PSMA till date.

So there a need of another six countries to ratify the agreement.

In this context however it is surprising to see that progressive countries like Canada and France are still lagging behind in the ratification process although both signed the treaty as early as 2010 (Canada and France signed the treaty on 19 November 2010). Brazil signed the treaty on 22 November 2009 but is yet to follow up with the ratification process

Countries that have signed the PSMA but not ratified it yet

This fact assumes importance as five countries have directly ratified the treaty without initially signing it just within the last two months. The notable five include Republic of Korea (14 January 2016), Saint Kitts and Nevis (9 December 2015), Palau (30 November 2015), Somalia (9 November 2015), Costa Rica (4 December 2015) and Mauritius (31 August 2015).

Canada, France, Russia, Indonesia, Ghana, Peru and Brazil should expedite the ratification process so that the PSMA will come into effect as soon as possible.

However, only when countries with big import markets such as Japan, Taiwan and China also become a party, then meaningful change and improved traceability would be achieved. (Taiwan cannot in reality... because is not a UN member country due to China's position that taiwan is actually a province of China)

What is the deal in the Pacific?

The position of the Pacific Island Countries is a cautious one, as the signing would incorporate strict requirements to the already limited capacities of many of our countries.  Four of the 100 main fishing ports in the world are in the Pacific Islands. 

Many of the PI countries believe that signing will result in transferring a disproportionate burden of compliance action to them, while the "rich" Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFN) like China and Taiwan keep business as usual.

The special requirements of developing countries, in particular Small Island Developing States and Participating Territories provided for in Article 30 of the WCPFC Convention and most UN documents, including the importance of port operations in the domestic economies of many Small Island Developing States and Participating Territories, supports they posture.

The recent rejection of a FFA sponsored Post State Measure to be incorporated as a CMM (Conservation and Management Measure) by WCPFC in their last meeting in Bali, by the DWFN seem to prove right their fears.

As usual... is more than just fishing and signing agreements...

Pramod original piece is here

EEZ expansions (but not for fisheries)

France adopted four decrees in September 2015 that redefined the external limits of its continental shelf (the seabed and the soil under the seabed that can be included in a country’s landmass).

some countries do considerably better than others in relation to their land area

Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), which grant special rights to resources such as fishing and mineral extraction in an area extending 200 nautical miles (370km) from a country’s coast, are enshrined in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which has been ratified by 167 countries.

Article 76 deals with the continental shelf, not the EEZ. The continental shelf's constrained maximum, if other criteria are met, is either 350 nautical miles or 100 nautical miles beyond the 2500m isobath, whichever gives the best result. The EEZ can only extend to a maximum of 200 nautical miles (thanks Stuart Kaye for a technical correction). But it only applies to the seabed and so excludes fishing rights. France demonstrated an increase was appropriate to its territories of French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, New Caledonia and the Kerguelen Islands, adding a total of 579,000 square km to its surface area.

est toute la France

These special areas are potentially very valuable so there are plenty of disputes. There are many dual claims on territorial waters such as France’s claim around Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, which is surrounded by Canada’s EEZ. Canada and America have overlapping claims in the Beaufort Sea. In the South China Sea tension has risen over disagreements between China and several neighbouring countries. With the oceans covering 140 million square miles (226 million square km) of the Earth's surface, around a third of which are EEZs, there is plenty up for grabs. It is unlikely to be plain sailing any time soon.

The Imperial Residues

Since 1946, the United Nations has compiled a list of the world's “Non-Self-Governing Territories”: overseas domains it considers, in effect, to be colonies. Since then 100-odd entries have come and gone. Leavers may gain full independence (such as Cameroon or Singapore) or merge more or less fully with their parent nation (Puerto Rico or French Guiana). Today the number of entries has dwindled to just 15, most of which are British, or 16 if you include ambiguous Western Sahara.

The UN lists only inhabited territory. A host of other, unpopulated, territories would be open to scrutiny on grounds of proximity, or lack of it: swathes of Antarctica for example. Norway's Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic is the most remote island on the planet, lying furthest from any other land mass. But at a meagre 12,700 km from Oslo it cannot compete with some inhabited British, French or American islands for the furthest distance from the motherland.

Sources: here and here

The Fisheries MCS (Monitoring, Control and Surveillance) world in Auckland

MCS (Monitoring, Control and Surveillance) are the mechanism for implementation of agreed policies, plans or strategies for fisheries management. The absence of effective MCS operations renders a fisheries management scheme incomplete and ineffective.

measuring is always the 1st step :-)

In early March of this year (2016), two big events will take place in Auckland that deal with some aspects of this grounding pilar of good good fisheries management. 

WWF's MCS Emerging Technologies Workshop

This event will take place on March 3-4, 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand. This workshop is organised in partnership with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) and in conjunction with the International Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (IMCS) Network's 5th Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop (GFETW).

The workshop will allow technology providers the opportunity to fully understand the unique challenges and circumstances faced by MCS professionals working in the multi-billion dollar tuna fishing industry. 

Several new technology providers will be presenting their advancements, including varieties of aquatic and aerial drones, satellite remote sensing, cloud computing solutions, video imaging, and other exciting technological innovations that could play a role in monitoring, control and surveillance.

Moreover, the workshop will serve as a forum to address questions about emerging technologies such as how or if those new technologies might make MCS efforts more economical, efficient, or effective by engaging experts and vendors who have implemented the technologies in a variety of circumstances.

I'm very lucky to have been invited as a presenter on the work we have been doing with FIMS and iFIMS. I'm very interested to see the other advances on these topics as synergies are always an exiting prospect. 

And then the week after we have

Fifth Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop

Where MCS practitioners from around the world will convene in Auckland, New Zealand from 7–11 March 2016 for the Fifth Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop (5th GFETW), organised by New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in partnership with the International MCS Network.

The GFETWs are biennial conferences intended to improve and enhance capacity and communications between MCS professionals from around the world. They offer MCS practitioners a unique opportunity to discuss and resolve issues relating to their work and facilitate international cooperation between national fisheries enforcement authorities, which is essential for promoting compliance and thus sustainability of fish stocks.

The 5th GFETW will build on the past four Workshops (Malaysia in 2005, Norway in 2008, Mozambique in 2011 and Costa Rica in 2014), which have succeeded in raising awareness of the importance of MCS as well as fostering new and stronger relationships among MCS professionals. Like its predecessors, the 5th GFETW will promote cooperation between enforcement authorities across national borders, build trust between MCS practitioners and deliver information about the latest, most effective MCS technologies, programs and strategies.

The themes of the 5th GFETW will be be “Toitu Te Moana” (“Sustaining the Life Force of the Sea”) and “Kahore He Wahi Heihuna” (“No place to hide”), as explained more fully in the Prospectus. The focus of the Workshop will be on “Regional and global collective efforts in combatting IUU fishing using effective MCS management tools including enforcement powers to protect the sustainability and cultural and economic viability of all fish stocks.”

Planned Workshop topics include:

• Case studies of International and Regional Cooperation
• MCS Partnerships, Sponsorship and Technical Assistance, including government–nongovernment arrangements
• Successfully-introduced Cost-effective MCS Tools
• New MCS Technologies and Methodologies
• MCS Capability and Capacity Building Activities
• Case Studies of the Utilisation of MCS Tools in Indigenous Fishing Communities and Archipelago Nations
• Development of an MCS IUU Risk Framework
• FAO presentation on Instruments, Future Risks and Opportunities

Again, I'm very lucky to have been invited as a presenter on the work we have been doing with the "Landing or  Unloading Authorisation Code" and its interface with the ecds.fimsportal.com 

If any of you comes over, please let me know and love to catch up :-)

The Main Fishing Ports in this world

Ports play a major role in the fishing industry. They give vessels and crews access to essential services and supplies, and enable vessel operators to land their catch. While the vast majority of ports operate responsibly and seek to avoid becoming conduits for fish caught via illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) means some do not . There are ports that accept IUU catch knowingly while others, because they lack sufficient resources, expertise and/or training, may unwittingly allow IUU caught fish to pass through their facilities.

at #79... never controls to be seen...

My colleagues Tim Huntington, Fiona Nimmo and Graeme Macfadyen from Poseidon Consultants with the support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, just published a study set out to identify the world’s busiest and most important fishing ports. And is avery good read!

I find the ranking quite interesting (at a professional and personal level) since I worked in many of them. And while I had no idea how they compare with others... it was obvious to me that the levels of controls in many of them (particularly the South American ones) where less than expected. 

Moreover, it surprised me the positioning of some of the ones here in the pacific: Tarawa (Kiribati) is the 17th busiest fishing port in the world, Rabaul (PNG) the 40th, Pago Pago (American Samoa) 67th, Majuro (Marshals) 72th, Honiara  (Solomon Islands) 82nd, Pohnpei (Micronesia) 89th. And while I wonder if the results  for Tarawa include Kirimati and Honiara include Noro.

In any case having 6 in the top 100 is very important reference for the work I do in the Pacific. As my colleague Tim Adams from FFA commented: "It would be even more useful for MCS/IUU work if it analysed the vessel traffic at each port (separating national- and foreign-flagged) rather than just the weight of fish landings. The workload in implementing port MCS measures is related to the number of vessels and inspections more directly than to the amount of fish"... 

The authors themselves recognise that: "

The original objective of this study was to segment existing data on tonnage of fish landed (sorted by factors such as type of fish where possible), port visits (sorted by vessel flag-of-registration where possible), and other basic elements that reflect a port’s activity. Early in the study it became clear that such data were rarely publicly available. As a result, the ranking of the top 100 ports (or in the case of China, provinces) by landings tonnage around the world as presented here and in the online Supplement is the product of a lengthy analysis of multiple, incomplete sources. To the best of our knowledge it is the first ranking of its kind to be published in the modern era of commercial fishing.

I'm sure it would be further developed in the future, and is definitivelly something I would love to keep reading and working on. 

Here is the ranking:

Top 100 ports or provinces by landing tonnage for 2012 (data for Denmark, Indonesia and Viet Nam is 2011)

The EU Fish Market 2015

This recent publication by the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA) aims at providing an economic description of the whole European fisheries and aquaculture industry. It replies to questions such as what is produced/exported/imported, when and where, what is consumed, by whom and what are the main trends. For those of us that make a living of exporting there, is always interesting reading. Here are some of the things that grabbed my attention.

The EU confirmed itself as a major seafood consumption market with household expenditures of EUR 54,7 billion in 2013. This marked a 1% increase over 2012 – the highest amount ever recorded.

The EU is the largest trader of fishery and aquaculture products in the world in terms of value. EU trade – comprising extra-EU imports and exports, and intra-EU exchanges – has increased steadily over the past five years. In 2014, the trade flow amounted to EUR 45,9 billion and 13,8 million tonnes.

Apparent consumption per capita for 2012 was 23,9 kg, a 3% decrease from 2011. This downward trend has been seen since 2008, when per capita fish consumption amounted to 26 kg. EU consumers buy less seafood but spend more for it, which indicates a change in consumption preferences as well as fish prices.

Values of extra-EU imports have been increasing since 2009, at an average annual growth rate of 6%. In 2014, the EU imported fish and seafood for a value of some EUR 21 billion. Extra-EU imports of seafood are more than 4 times higher than meat in value, and this ratio is increasing.

Consumption in the EU market is dominated by wild fish. Farmed products represent 24% of EU total apparent consumption. Over 3 out of 4 fish consumed in the EU come from the wild.  

The EU is a net importer of fishery and seafood products, with a trade balance deficit (exports minus imports) that has been growing rapidly since 2009. The 2014 trade deficit was the largest ever at EUR 16.6 billion. This was primarily due to the growing import of shrimps, which increased by EUR 630 million between 2013 and 2014. 

The 2014 trade deficit was the largest of the 12 years analysed. This was caused by the growing imports of fresh and frozen products between 2013 and 2014, both of which peaked in that period, due mainly to remarkable import growth in the top six EU markets: Spain (+EUR 280 million), Sweden (+EUR 195 million), the Netherlands (+EUR 179 million), Italy (+EUR 140 million), the United Kingdom (+EUR 127 million) and Denmark (+EUR 96 million). 

Most of the growth in value is due to tropical shrimps and salmon, which increased by EUR 440 million and EUR 279 million, respectively. For tropical shrimps, the growth took place despite a remarkable 17% increase in prices. The 11% reduction in tuna import price led to values decreasing by EUR 260 million. 

EU self-sufficiency for seafood (production relative to internal consumption) reduced continuously between 2008 and 2011. From 2011 to 2012, it increased from 44% to 44,5%. Flatfish reported a remarkable loss – from 97% to 77% – due to a significant decrease in landings and an increase in imports of frozen products from China.

The EU expenditure for fishery and aquaculture products was lower than meat and other foods. It reached EUR 54,7 billion, around one-fourth of the EUR 216 billion expenditure for meat.

Retail prices of fish and seafood have grown steadily in the last years, but the growth rate has slowed since 2012. However, fish prices increased faster than meat and food over the period 2009-2014.

Canned tuna continued to be the most important product in terms of apparent consumption in 2012, with its 2 kg per capita. This was a 6% decrease from 2011, reflecting a decline of canned tuna imports in several EU countries, mainly Spain and Italy. 

EU imports of tuna and tuna-like species totalled almost 700.000 tonnes in 2014, worth EUR 2,5 billion. Among these, swordfish imports reach 18.000 tonnes, with a value of EUR 87 million. The major part of this commodity (73%) consists of “processed tuna”, which includes canned tuna (80%), and prepared and preserved loins (20%). About 23% of processed tuna imported in the EU originated from Ecuador at an average price of 3,87 EUR/kg. Thailand and Mauritius also were relevant suppliers, at average prices of 3,53 EUR/kg and 3,93 EUR/kg, respectively. As shown in the chart below, each had seen an upward trend between 2006 and 2012, but they reported decreasing values between 2013 and 2014, especially as concerns Ecuador.

Imports, which totalled 505.904 tonnes in 2014 for a value of more than EUR 2 billion, represented a strong decrease of EUR 282 million from 2013. This was in relation to a significant decrease in the average price, which fell from 4,53 EUR/kg in 2013 to 4,01 EUR/kg in 2014. The United Kingdom and Spain imported the most of canned tuna. Most UK imports originated from Mauritius (21.000 tonnes), at a price of 3,74 EUR/kg, while Spain imported the majority of its canned tuna (22.600 tonnes) from Ecuador, at a price of 3,45 EUR/kg.

According to the report on the Economic Performance of the EU fish processing industry almost 3.500 enterprises in the European fish processing industry in 2012 were registered, with more than 120.000 employees. Employment in the EU fish processing sector has decreased by 5% from 2008 to 2012. Italy accounted the largest number in terms of firms (16% of the total) while the UK reported the highest number of employees (around 20.000).
Compared to 2011, the European fish processing industry increased its income by 2% in 2012. Costs also increased by 4% in 2012. 63%-65% of the total costs regarded the purchase of fish and other raw material for production.

The law of the Sea

Here is a hard discussed topic, that most of us know very little about, the figure below while does not discuss fisheries issues, is quite informative. Maritime trade officially began in the year 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia confirmed the ideas set out by Hugo Grotius, who said that the sea should be open for international trade. This evolved further in the year 1982, when the first collaborative effort to establish a maritime security organisation, with ocean law framework in place, was established.

Because over 90% of the entire World’s trade occurs by the sea, it is important for its entirety to be carefully preserved in order to ensure that successful trade is not threatened. Numerous developments were made in these laws that established power over things like general security and trading practices.

Three separate conventions, which had occurred between 1961 and 1988, had resulted in much stricter protective policies to be enacted on maritime trade, especially around problem areas. The control measures that were provided by these treaties immediately resulted in the decrease of narcotics and legal drugs being traded on the black market, but the organisation’s goals are far from over.

To learn more about international maritime trade laws, checkout the infographic below created by Norwich University’s Master of Arts in Diplomacy online program. 

Thanks Mercedes Rosello for the link to this!

Inroads on Fisheries Subsidies at the latest WTO meeting

Policymakers in the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Kenya yesterday decided to bring effective discipline in subsidies on fishing to conserve the fish resource worldwide.

Considering that the WTO must play a central role in achieving effective disciplines on fisheries subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity, and that action is urgently needed to control, reduce and eventually eliminate fisheries subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity; Australia, Argentina, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Fiji, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Solomon Islands, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay, Vanuatu and OECS Economic Union WTO Members (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines) pushed in a "Fisheries Subsidies Ministerial Statement"  (I think NZ was the main driver, tho)

Their aim is "to continue to seek appropriate enhanced WTO transparency and reporting to enable the evaluation of the trade and resource effects of fisheries subsidies programmes,” according to the statement

The members agreed to reduce subsidies on fishing and recognise the crucial role of fisheries in ensuring food security, employment and livelihoods. 

However, India was not satisfied with the text on fisheries trade that has proposed punitive action for unauthorised fishing, something that many developing countries are not comfortable with given that it goes back on the tentative agreement reached in 2008. This is not surprising form India actually... from all the countries I worked (over 50 so far), none subsidises its fisherydirectly or indirectly via compensations) as much as them, nor have a completely lax internal MCS system... but then, from my experience, I think they bigger and more vital priorities.

overcapacity? 

Fisheries subsidies contribute to economic losses in the fisheries sector and create serious distortions in global fish markets and push fisheries beyond their realistic economic (and biological) models. I wrote about this here and here. They also produce serious impacts on food security and livelihoods, particularly in developing countries, and that effectively addressing fisheries subsidies will deliver trade, economic, development and environmental benefits.

The other interesting outcome,  not for fisheries but for other commodities is in regards:

Preferential rules of origin for LDCs

The Ministerial Conference adopted a decision that will facilitate opportunities for least-developed countries' export of goods to both developed and developing countries under unilateral preferential trade arrangements in favour of LDCs.

The decision in Nairobi builds on the 2013 Bali Ministerial Decision on preferential rules of origin for LDCs. The Bali Decision set out, for the first time, a set of multilaterally agreed guidelines to help make it easier for LDC exports to qualify for preferential market access.

The Nairobi Decision expands upon this by providing more detailed directions on specific issues such as methods for determining when a product qualifies as “made in an LDC,” and when inputs from other sources can be “cumulated” — or combined together — into the consideration of origin.  It calls on preference-granting members to consider allowing the use of non-originating materials up to 75% of the final value of the product.

The decision also calls on preference-granting members to consider simplifying documentary and procedural requirements related to origin.

Key beneficiaries will be sub-Saharan African countries, which make up the majority of the LDC Group, the proponent for the Nairobi Decision on Preferential Rules of Origin for LDCs. More information on rules of origin is available here; a briefing note on the negotiations for a Nairobi Decision is available here.

Thanks Chris Lord for the tip on this statements.

New rules proposed for the EU Distant Water Fishing Fleet

The new proposed regulation, will apply to all EU vessels fishing outside EU waters, wherever they operate and irrespective of the legal framework under which the fishing takes place.

These vessels will not be able to fish in third country waters or in the high sea unless they have been previously authorised by their flag Member State, i.e. the state under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed.

Latest design French Purse Seiners

The fishing outside the EEZ authorisations is supposed to be already a standard under international law, so nothing new there! However what really interested me, is that to obtain authorisation they will have to show that they comply with a set of specific criteria– for instance that they have an International Maritime Organisation (IMO) number and a valid fishing license, and have not been found guilty of infringements.

The flag Member State, under the supervision of the European Commission, will have to check the vessel's information thoroughly before granting authorisation and will enter this information into an official register.

This should facilitate monitoring and record keeping of our vessels' activities abroad, with obvious advantages when it comes to enforcing the EU's rules. Having all EU vessels subject to the same set of rules inside and outside the EU also adds legal clarity and fairness for the sector, even in the case of private licensing and reflagging.

Third countries will benefit as well from the additional safeguards of stricter controls. And as the vessels' information will be partly made public, citizens will have a better overview of where and how their fish was caught. 

If this proposal is made into regulations (which i really hope they do), then PLEASE, make it a Market Access Requirement condition (claim equivalent measures) for fish from other fleets (China, Taiwan, Korea, etc) to enter the EU market at the same level than the Health or Catch Certificate. That would be a radical blow to IUU fishing.

The Fisheries Professor and the Ecolabels

I knew about professor Ray Hilborn's work before I meet him for first time in NZ, he did a lot work under a contract of the University of Washington and the NZ Seafood Industry Council. He is definitively a brilliant scientist and also has a rather controversial public persona.

Who eats who in the fisheries world?

Beyond his work, I appreciate the setting of perspectives in regards the sustainability and very limited total environmental impact of fishing in comparison with other forms of food production such as livestock and agriculture. Particularly as his wife run a organic farm and cooperative, so he also has that perspective really near him. 

His critics (mostly environmentalists and some other scientists) accuse him to be a whitewasher for the seafood industry, but I don't thing you get to be a professor at the most well know fishery university in the world if you don't have a solid scientific background, and his opinions are valid even if you disagree with them.

In any case he has been very vocal on his views on Ecolabels, (so do I, if you care to read my opinion)

In this post I'll quote a recent opinion piece he wrote for the CFOOD (Science of Fisheries Sustainability) project page. You make your own decisions, but the title alone says a lot.

Where is the science in seafood sustainability and certification?

Seafood sustainability is again in the news as the Global Seafood Sustainability Initiative (GSSI) released its tool for evaluating the sustainability of fisheries. The GSSI tool has drawn immediate criticism from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as they recently published an article titled, “GSSI compliance does not indicate sustainability certification, WWF warns.” 

This is an interesting development since WWF is on the board of GSSI. GSSI is intended to provide an agreed standard for the wide range of certification and seafood labeling schemes. As their web site says “GSSI is a global platform and partnership of seafood companies, NGOs, experts, governmental and intergovernmental organizations working towards more sustainable seafood for everyone.” So who is right in this case, does the GSSI benchmarking tool tell you if a fishery is sustainable?

At its core, seafood sustainability is about the ability to produce food from the sea in the long term. Put another way, we can ask ‘Are the fishery and its management system operated in such a way that our grandchildren can still enjoy the same production from the fishery (subject to the constraints of external factors such as climate change) as we do today?’

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, whose charge is food security, has been a big supporter of the development of GSSI. For FAO sustainability is about continued food production. During the 1990s when overfishing in developed countries was at its height, many retailers supported seafood certification because they wanted to have products to sell in the future… again a focus on food sustainability. This interest spawned the development of a number of different ecolabels for seafood, of which the Marine Stewardship Council was one of the first. 

Wat do they really mean?

However, the newly emerging seafood ecolabels created their own criteria for the assessment of sustainability without necessarily using accepted standards such as the FAO criteria as a benchmark (although some clearly did anchor themselves to these criteria). While in many other areas of food production there are clearly defined and standards and compliance monitoring bodies, this was lacking for the fledgling seafood ecolabels. This lack of oversight led to the development of the GSSI from a German Government initiative to have clear benchmarking of ecolabel standards.

However environmental NGOs such as WWF are interested less in food sustainability, and more in reducing the environmental impacts of fishing on the wider ecosystem, whether that be catch of non-target species like sharks, or impacts of fishing gear on the seafloor. Of course, WWF together with Unilever initiated the development of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) in 1996, and hence not surprisingly WWF has been a strong supporter of the MSC which is perceived by many to be the leading certification scheme for sustainable fisheries.

The MSC standard covers much more than sustainable food production, and sets a high bar for environmental impacts of fishing and is continually evaluating and then improving the rigor of its own process. Yet some environmental NGOs reject MSC certification because they feel the environmental standards in MSC are not high enough. Even within WWF there emerge inconsistent messages with some national chapters of WWF rejecting the MSC standard.

Due to the support of a broad range of diverse stakeholders, GSSI poses a threat to the MSC fished because GSSI will add credibility to other consumer guides Consumer and retailers will continue to face a broad range of conflicting standards and hence seafood advice. Worse still, within the realm of acceptable environmental impacts, things become confused very quickly as there are so many different types of impacts with no consensus on which ones are more important than others. This is where fisheries certification moves from the arena of science to one based either on values or ‘expert’ judgement.

For consumers and retailers all that conflicting seafood advice is confusing. Take pollock from Alaska, the largest fishery in the US. This fishery is MSC certified, yet the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch does not rate it as a top choice, but as a “good alternative.” Greenpeace puts pollock on its red list.

Note: Same situation with the NZ Hoki fishery managed under an internationally peer review Quota Management System (QMS) has been certified by MSC since 2001, nevertheless, since 2010 Greenpeace added it to its seafood red list, as Greenpeace believes “the stocks of Hoki are now considered to be overfished”… so who is to believe?

Equally interesting is the conflict within the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch itself. Skipjack tuna is one of the largest fisheries in the world and provides most of the world’s canned tuna. Skipjack from the western Pacific are red, yellow and green on the Seafood Watch guide, depending on how they are caught. Purse seine fishing has by-catch of many species and is thus red, while pole-and-line fishing has less by-catch and is green. However, purse seining has a much lower carbon footprint than pole-and-line fishing — obviously, Seafood Watch puts more emphasis on by-catch than carbon footprint.

There is clearly a role for science in seafood sustainability. Science can determine if the management of a fishery will lead to long-term sustainability of food production. Science can evaluate the environmental impacts of a fishery. However, it would be very difficult for science at present to tell you what environmental impacts are low enough – that is a question of individual choice or public policy.

So where does this leave consumers, retailers and the rest of us interested in fisheries?

The answer is confused and likely to continue to be confused. GSSI was held out as a hope to sort out the conflicts in seafood labelling – given the WWF response it doesn’t seem that the eNGO community consider that it is likely that it will do so. However, the development of GSSI is a welcome step forward in that it at least provides a mechanism against which ecolabels for seafood can be assessed.

Highlighting those ecolabels that do meet any recognized minimum definition of responsible fishing (e.g. the FAO guidelines) will be a useful start and at least provide a clear division between those ecolabels that are mere green wash and those that have the potential to drive positive change in fisheries.

Jonathan Wara doing his job

The most interesting development in seafood sustainability is the force driving certification, and — spoiler alert — it isn’t consumers. Not too many people buy their fish based on sustainability ratings. Retailers, like your neighborhood Whole Foods, Costco or Safeway, do not want the media on their backs or an environmental NGO picketing their store for selling unsustainably harvested fish. They certainly want a continued supply of the fish they sell, but they also want to be seen as supporting sustainable fishing to avoid such protests, and they consider seafood certification that is backed by key NGOs like WWF as their protection. The logical next step was formal partnership agreements with the relevant NGO to advise them on what fish products to sell.

This is a dangerous development because the seafood certification turned partnership becomes a secure funding source for the NGO. Tim Wilson, in his 2012 paper, called this relationship between “friendly” NGOs that provide cover from “hostile” NGOs that might picket a retailer “naked extortion.” If, however, initiatives like GSSI were to be widely accepted, those steady sources of funds will dry up.

NGOs have been an important force in fisheries reform, but it is in the nature of NGOs that they must raise money to fund their activities, and alarmist appeals to stop fisheries collapses continue to bring in the big bucks. News of fisheries successes might, at best, raise an indifferent “meh.”

I know of many private conversations where quite reasonable NGO staff admit the need to find new crises to keep donations flowing. It’s no wonder, then, that, no matter how well fisheries are actually performing, the bar must be raised again and again to keep the story alive that fisheries are failing to meet the ever shape-shifting sustainability standards.

In the immortal words of Deep Throat — Follow the money! Science, poor beggar, has largely been lost.

Some news from the 12th session of the WCPFC in Bali

The WCPFC is the top body that makes the decisions in regards the tuna fisheries in the western pacific. The Commission holds annual meetings and is presided over by a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman, who are elected from amongst the membership and this year’s one just finished in Bali. Is at this level where you can see the confrontation in between fisheries science and management on one side and fisheries politics on the other… even if there is no a clear line in between them many times.

Some faces say it all... feeling for Rhea, Feleti and Lara... good people dealing with some very uncooperative ones (pic by FFA)

Decisions taken by the Commission are generally done by consensus. In cases where decisions have to be taken by vote, usually on substantive matters, a “two-chamber system” applies. The FFA members of the Commission comprise one chamber, while the non-FFA members form the other chamber. Decisions are taken by a three-fourths majority of those present and voting in each chamber and no proposal can be defeated by two or fewer votes in either chamber. This type of arrangement makes any substantial measure really hard to move forwards… as it gives the DWFN a huge say on matters that actually correspond to the Island Nations. On top of that you have the fisheries in the High Seas… normally the domain of the DWFN.

I have lot of admiration for my colleagues and friends that submit themselves to the grueling and frankly sometimes totally disheartening marathon meetings associated to these plenaries… I don't think I could do that type of work.

In this post, I will bring up some of the words and actions of friends/colleagues that were involved in this last session, as to exemplify some of the conflicts and topics covered. 

From start Executive Director Mr Feleti Teo said it is the collective responsibility of all members and stakeholders of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to contribute to the solutions to rebuild overfished tuna stocks like Bigeye and by taking immediate urgent action. Teo, who himself hails from the small island of Tuvalu, which is a member nation of the Parties to Nauru Agreement, said since he took over at the WCPFC he has consistently advocated that in light of the scientific advice “doing nothing” is not an option for the Commission. “The status quo is untenable because the future consequences significantly outweigh the short term benefit that current efforts and fishing practises offer,”

Chief Executive Officer for the PNA, Dr Transform Aqorau said:  "Tuna catches in the eight PNA 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) have remained stable over the past five years, while catches on the high seas have increased dramatically over the same period for lack of control. Effort in the high seas has more than doubled in 2015. This is particularly troubling since purse seine bigeye catches in the high seas have been growing steadily, while purse seine bigeye catches in EEZs have been declining and catches in archipelagic waters have been steady. The anticipated large increases in bigeye catch on the high seas during 2015 can be expected to substantially damage the WCPFC’s bigeye conservation efforts.

Tuvalu has become the latest Parties to Nauru Agreement (PNA) member nation to implement the Vessel Day Scheme for its longline fishing industry, signing on to the scheme at the PNA meeting in Bali. Is only Kiribati that is not being collaborative to it for their own (and sometimes unexplainable) reasons

The Vessel Day Scheme recognizes that zone-based management is the way we want to manage our fisheries in the Pacific, and is based on the Purse seine model. We long know that the longline fishery is “out of control”, the approximately 3,000 longliners operating in the national and international waters have less than 5% observer coverage (vs 100% in the purseine),  and revenue to island nations has remained flat for 15 years, there is low reporting of tuna catch data, and high seas transshipment of tuna is the norm, which limits availability of catch data.

Note: Is very hard to get substantial observer coverage because the lengths of the trips, and the substantial difficulties in the living conditions on this vessels (the worst you can imagine). So we are working on this via video overseers (but this will come in another post) ☺

Papua New Guinea said that a notable concern for them at the current WCPFC annual meeting was fishing in the high seas and recommended urgent management intervention, they reiterated their call for effective and appropriate mechanisms to encourage member compliance with their obligations under the Conservation and Management Measures developed and adopted by the Commission. 

The High Seas and the Bigeye are perhaps the biggest disappointments of the meeting as PIC came away without a meaningful measure on tropical tuna species Bigeye, Skipjack and Yellowfin.
  
Both the chairperson Rhea Moss-Christian and the compliance manager Lara Manarangi-Trott tried hard to get WCPFC members to come to some common ground. But it was evident that certain DWFN (read China, Japan & Taiwan) were determined to derail the whole process. The plan to address the overfished status of bigeye tuna did not move forwards once again, as  the Commission has had to adhere to “consensus.”

Rhea made it clear from the onset that the status quo wasn’t an option: "We have been clear about our goals and our positions on the key issues before the Commission since we took up our roles this year. Our goals are not unknown to you. Given the lack of progress, we now need to consider other mechanisms. There will be some delegates here who would welcome a vote on the key issues before us. Others who don’t want change would obviously not welcome such a move. But it’s obvious the working groups are not reaching consensus in a way that delivers progress, so I am reviewing options for a conciliation process. This mechanism has precedent as a tool for moving things forward and may well benefit us here..." 

She called a special heads of delegation meeting to attempt to tackle blockages to agreement on action. Her intervention follows her warning late Friday that there may be a move to push the consensus driven body to its first-ever vote if progress isn’t made. She urged heads of delegation to prepare to compromise in order to bring about resolution to issues concerning the sustainability of tuna fisheries. She stepped into the process after deciding that the 40 members of the commission had not made sufficient process on conservation management methods with two days to the end of the meeting. Unfortunate to no avail…

some of the 2 faces of pacific tuna fishing

For a good brief of the highs and lows, my colleague Wez Norris (deputy director of FFA and sempiternal lender of his diving gear to me) made a great summary at the end of the session and responded some question that I transcribe below (original here)

FFA members came here with four highest priorities, and four high priorities and really happy to note there has been good progress on three of the highest priorities and one of the high priorities. 

So the commission has adopted a conservation and management measure for a target reference point for skipjack tuna and that is a really fundamental measure on a fundamental stock. It paved the way for more robust and strategic management frameworks and it is a great pay off for the hard work and the leadership that, particularly, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement have put in. They have been working on this for a long time. It has cost them money to get together and talk about it. It has taken a lot of support from SPC, FFA and the PNA office so it is an excellent pay off there. I think it is also significant to note that the final proposal that was adopted was actually a joint proposal between FFA members and Japan. And that is significant because Japan’s concerns about range contraction in the skipjack stock have been a very contentious point of discussions throughout this week so the fact that Japan and FFA members managed to find ways in the text to accommodate those different views about that issue sort of speaks to the maturity of the relationship between Japan and the Pacific Island countries. So, as I say, that was one of our highest priorities and the fact that it has been adopted was really positive. 

Secondly the Commission has adopted the work plan on development of harvest strategies and I think I have been through the background to that before but basically what that is useful for now is that it provides guidance to all stakeholders on how the commission intends to develop these management frameworks over the next couple of years and in doing so it mainstreams a lot of the work that is being done on the edges, a lot of work that PNA members have done for their own purposes, that Tokelau Arrangement participants have done on albacore and so on so now it is more a part of the commission. 

The third of the highest priorities that we have had success on is the development of a revised compliance monitoring scheme so this is the process that the commission uses to assess the level of implementation and compliance of members, so are they going home and implementing the obligations they take on. This has been an evolving measure over the last couple of years and there are some very significant changes that have been done to it this year. Things like better reflecting the fact that in some cases there are obligations that small island developing states can’t implement because of lack of capacity. So finding a way for the Commission to actually recognise that and actually put in place plans to improve the capacity of the small island developing states so it can comply, rather than it be simply a punitive measure that badges people as non-compliant. 

Unfortunately our fourth top priority was the adoption of a target reference point for albacore tuna and we weren’t able to get any movement on that so obviously we are deeply disappointed that such an important stock is going to sort of lag behind a year in terms of the development of a harvest strategy. 

Having said that the results of the new stock assessment are very threatening and very different from our previous understanding of the albacore stock. And they talk about relatively significant reductions in catch that are required just to keep the stock where it is at the moment let alone to rebuild it to the level that the Tokelau arrangement participants want to see for reasons of fishery profitability. So in some ways the reluctance of the inability of the distant water fishing nations to sign up to that target reference point even as an interim is understandable but the fact is that this fishery is just so important to those Tokelau arrangement countries that they can’t afford for the management to simply lag because the science has changed or the results ae threatening. So basically what that means is we have got to go back to the drawing board. We will continue our work internally on the development of the catch management scheme under the Tokelau arrangement and we will be using our recommendation for the target reference pint as the basis for that. 

We had some very positive and pro-active announcements from the Cook Islands as part of the negotiations indicating their willingness to take the difficult decisions provided it was part of a package of agreements from others as well. So we will just be looking to build on that momentum and work internally. 

At the same time, you know, we are calling on the distant water fishing nations to do their home work; to go home and go through some of the detail that they said they weren’t quite comfortable with here and we are looking forward to more discussions at the science committee and at the Commission again next year. 

On the albacore fishery tho the Commission has adopted some amendments on the current conservation and management measure that seeks to manage that stock; relatively small improvements but improvements none the less. 

The compliance committee has been saying over the last couple of years that because of various ambiguities in the measure. They haven’t been able to adequately assess implementation and compliance. So what we proposed this year and what the commission has agreed to has been some improvements in the data reporting requirements. So flag states will be required to provide a much greater level of detail than they ever have in the past. And that will give us a much better idea on what has happened in the last 10 years or so of the fisheries operations and where it is going from here on in. So, as I say, relatively small improvements but ones that will give us a better picture as to what is going on. In the meantime we have that internal wok going on catch management schemes and so on. So it is great that the other flag states were able to come on board and agree to those measures, because we have been proposing measures year after year since 2010 without success so this is at least a positive sign for the future. 

Unfortunately we didn’t gain any traction on our other three second-tier priorities, high priorities. The first one was a proposal to ban transhipment in the four high seas pockets in the convention area and one semi enclosed area between Kiribati, Tuvalu and Tokelau and that is a real shame because these areas are known IUU risks. 

Transhipment in those areas is known to be a risk of illegal fishing, in that vessels that are in there are operating under a lower degree of scrutiny than vessels that are operating in the EEZ’s that surround them, they are allowed to undertake transhipment under relatively loose oversight from their flag states and there has been a lot of evidence provided that vessels that are operating in those areas are not operating in accordance with all the rules of the commission. So it is a great shame that other commission members were unable to support that and it is very worrying that these flag states remain far more interested in defending the operational convenience of their vessels rather than putting in place proper management measures and enforcing those management measures. 

Equally, we are very frustrated that our proposal on Port State Measures wasn’t accepted. So our proposal was to strengthen the controls that each country uses when foreign vessels come into their ports in terms of the levels of inspection and information and communication sharing. We have worked hard over the last two years to try and develop a measure that is robust and meaningful but also addresses the elements of the FAO Port States measures that a lot of countries don’t like. So there is a global instrument agreed by the FAO on port State measures. FFA members have certain problems with that instrument and other commission members do as well so we have been trying to find the right balance between the elements that we do like out of it and avoiding the issues.

Unfortunately for at least some members we are still not there yet and so partially we are calling on them to tell us what more we can do to the measure to make it acceptable to them but partially also we will have to turn our view inwards now and simply work among ourselves as FFA members on our own measure for port state control because it has been two years now that we have been proposing this and we can’t simply avoid taking the management reforms for our ports just simply because we are waiting for a decision from the commission. 

Then, last but by no means least, the commission has again failed to improve on the management of the tropical tuna fisheries and in particular to take additional steps to reduce the fishing mortality on bigeye tuna. The lack of agreement does belie the level of effort that went into it. There was a serious effort on behalf of all embers and particularly led by the chair to get a deal done. And there was an emerging deal that had some potential to get through. Unfortunately where the commission fell down which is nothing new is trying to find the right balance between those countries that have purse seine interest and those countries that have longline interests. And the commission members simply couldn’t find the right balance. 

Now this is a particularly important issue for the FFA members and in particular the PNA members because it comes back down to this concept of disproportionate burden; the FAD closures which are one of the main components of the measure transfer what we call a disproportionate burden onto the small island developing states. It means they are suffering a cost that far outweighs the costs that are being borne by other commission members and far outweighs the benefits that they get for the conservation of bigeye tuna. So that is why PNA have been proposing a package of measures to improve the longline measures and to improve the purse seine measures because until you do start to get a better balance between the flow of costs and benefits then it is going to be very, very difficult, well impossible, to talk about further reductions in the purse seine fishery. 

The package of measures that the PNA members put on the table at the start of the meeting were used by the chair as the basis for her endeavours to secure an agreement, and as I say, the difference and the divergence between the two groups have meant it was just too much and there is very different perceptions about what is a fair contribution between each fishery depending on which country you talk to. So that is a deeply frustrating situation and what it really highlights, yet again is the fact that the way that the way the WCPFC approaches the management of fisheries needs to be fundamentally reviewed. 

The measure that is on the table is the product of negotiations over at least a ten year period and so it contains a real mix of measures; some measures are zone based, like it reflects the vessel day scheme for the regulation of purse seine effort. Other measures are FAD based, like the FAD closures and the FAD set limits which each flag state, Japan, Korea, and Chinese Taipei gets to decide on how they manage their fleet  and when you have that system of flag limits superimposed over exclusive economic zones you create lots of anomalies. You create the need for things like SIDs exemptions, because small island developing states as flag states, they are only just building their fleets now so they don’t have 50 years of catch history to fall back on like the developed fleets so it just doesn’t work. So we need to be doing things like moving towards establishing rights that are zonal rather than flag-based. This is nothing new. It is exactly what the vessel day scheme is. It is exactly what the longline vessel day scheme is and the emerging catch management scheme under the Tokelau arrangement for albacore. So these are the types of more strategic discussions that need to be happening now. It is quite clear that simply the concept of amending this paragraph is not going to work. We have tried it the last two years without any movement at all so now we need to step back and say ‘how are we going to manage these fisheries?’ 

The commission has agreed that a new strategic plan will be developed for the WCPFC and we think that is an excellent idea and we think that will be a really good vehicle for the WCPFC to have some of this higher level debate, and to have it not focussed on the context of how to manage bigeye tuna, to have it as a more strategic thing about ‘how should we be going about our job?’

Bigeye stocks
It is always very difficult for the science community to predict the outcomes of any management measure, particularly one as complicated as this. It has got so many moving parts. So many choices that different countries can make on how they do things but the modelling that SPC has done that under any combination of the options that are available to all the countries the measure is not going to achieve its objectives. Its objectives are to remove the overfishing of the bigeye; so to reduce the fishing mortality to the levels which will produce maximum sustainable yield. 
Having said that it does clearly show that the measure is having a positive impact; it has reduced FAD sets, it has reduced longline catches and it has improved the amount of information that is available. The modelling also suggests that the measures that are in place right now will contribute to increasing the spawning biomass so as you say the spawning biomass at the moment is at 16 per cent of unfished levels and the measure that is in place will assist that to rebuild. The issue is ‘does it do so strongly enough?’ and the answer clearly is ‘no’. So in terms of overall effectiveness what is really needed is a relatively minor series of improvements but unfortunately because of the evolution of the measure those minor improvements are turning out to be impossible to agree to. So I think overall, the outlook in the short-term is not overly pessimistic. We will see a stock improvement but it is not a stock improvement anyone would go boasting about. So the commission really does have its work cut out for it to say ‘well, this measure expires by 2017. By this time we have to have a really good idea on how we are going to fix this thing. 

There are programs in the wings that will contribute to this. The PNA members are commencing a FAD charging trial as of 1st January and what this endeavours to do is use market forces to regulate fishing behaviour. So any day you go fishing and you set on a FAD you pay an extra fee basically and so basically what that does is force the vessel operator to choose ‘is it worth me setting on this FAD? Am I going to catch that much more fish and earn that much more money, that makes it worthwhile paying this fee?’ And eventually over time we see these sorts of market based measures as replacing some of the regulatory measures so we’ve got a four month FAD closure in place at the moment at some stage we hope it can go down to a 3 month FAD closure because FAD sets generally are being reduced by this economic 

not in the high seas... but a transhipment nevertheless 

High Seas Transhipments
There’s been a lot of discussion on transhipment throughout the week both in the context of the Tropical Tuna Measure and our proposal on the high seas pockets and it’s really disappointing. The convention itself talks about reducing, as far as possible, transhipment. The CMM that was agreed in 2009 sets a very high bar for what you have to satisfy before you allow your vessels to tranship on the high seas. And that hasn't been lived up to by the major flag states. There are blanket exemptions they have issued that allow their vessels to continue fishing and the argument they use is simply one of convenience and economics.

The vessels don’t want to steam from the high seas into ports where they can be monitored and be properly observed. It is as simple as that! And sure there is an argument for that, no one is going to volunteer to do that, but it is certainly possible for fleets to do that. Let me use the EU Longline fleet as an example. It fishes a lot on the high seas. It conducts all of its transhipment in port because the EU makes them. So they have to steam from their fishing grounds into port and unload where they can be properly monitored and so on. It certainly can be done and flag states have an obligation to move down that path and they are really not doing it at the moment so this is going to be a big ticket item for next year. 

I think as we've seen with our proposal this year to ban transhipment in that area not being successful, we can expect a fairly prolonged and bitter resistance to it but that doesn't mean it’s not a good idea and it doesn't mean we shouldn't invest the time to start it. None of these things can happen overnight and none of them should happen overnight so again, it’s a matter of working with the DWFNs that are using those areas, and trying to work out where there are avenues where we can pull different levers.

Port State Measures
One of the issues we have faced internally is making sure that before you sign up to an obligation to have certain levels and standards of inspection, to make sure that you've actually got the capacity to do those. And so in the measure that we've crafted it provides the avenue for SIDS to build up that capacity and then take on the obligations. That has been the main concern in the past. The sort of chicken and egg type thing. 

There is absolute commitment to improving monitoring. The FFA members already have the most fundamental of the monitoring systems in the pacific, probably 80% of the log-sheet data that is available to the SPC comes from FFA members collecting it from vessels observers are all provided by the member countries the VMS is run from Honiara and so on. So they have a long history of being prepared to implement monitoring systems even in their own scrutiny over their own ports or their own fleets. 

State of the Pacific Ports
Most of the major ports in the region used by foreign vessels are in FFA members. They have very busy ports like Majuro, Pohnpei Funafuti and Tarawa. And so when you've got literally hundreds of vessels doing port calls a year if you're required to do a minimum level of inspection then you need a decent pool of inspectors you need the computer systems to be able to handle the data they are collecting and so on and so forth so I think it would be fair to say they all have concerns about their ability to increase that none of them have extra inspectors that are just sitting around at the moment. 

Jobs and Resourcing
Under the Roadmap for the Future of Fisheries the Pacific islands leaders adopted in Port Moresby earlier this year we have a goal of doubling the employment in the fishing related industry and that is obviously largely in the private sector through employment and processing facilities and employment on fishing vessels but managing fisheries is getting more and more complex and therefore its taking more and more people and so yeah the development of Port State Measures that require highly trained and highly skilled inspectors is a good boost to employment. The observer program is now a very large employer there’s over 800 observers in the region and they are relatively well paid positions and so on. 

Thefuture of processing in the pacific is going to face some quite significant challenges. We have a very large number of forces acting against the ease of development. The tyranny of distance, where product that is processed in the Pacific has to travel further to get to markets, we have issues where labour costs in most PI countries are higher than SE Asia, utility costs like electricity are higher and so on. But the huge advantage that the PICs have is the raw material. They control the supply of most of the world’s raw (tuna) material and so they certainly have the ability to regulate where that goes and where it gets processed and with the right type of investors and the right type of commercial partnerships, you can make that work. You can make the supply of raw material that you own to processing facilities that you have some sort of an interest in, and make it economical. Obviously market preferences are very important and that is an ongoing body of work both with existing markets and new ones to try and sort of develop more avenues than we have at the moment.  

tuna: many want it... few have it... no one wants to pay its real price.

China
The main issue we have with China is about the reform of the albacore fishery. On the one hand it was very positive they were able to agree to the additional data reporting requirements in the CMM but on the other hand they are just finishing this very large fleet expansion program and obviously that its inconsistent with our push to reduce catch in the fishery to achieve the TRP. So our call to them is to find a way to work with us, find a way we can sit down together and we can talk about the importance of the albacore fishery to the Pacific island countries and more importantly, we can talk about the opportunities for a partnership approach in trying to manage it.

Simply avoiding management is not in anyone’s interests; it’s not in the interests of the Chinese fleet because while they may be operating economically at the moment if the stock continues to decline they certainly won’t be. It’s certainly not to the advantage of the FFA members because they are reliant on these fisheries and we’ve already got fleets tied up. So yeah, our call to them is just work with us. And at some point every country needs to embrace the science. If we all simply ignore the science, or pretend the science is incorrect, then we will watch the fishery go down the gurgler. And there is a litany of failed fisheries around the world where fisheries managers have done exactly that so were calling on them to embrace the science if there are legitimate issues with it, then let’s work them. Let’s work them in the SC and in the commission but let’s roll up our sleeves and get something done on albacore. 

China's Fleet Expansion
Unfortunately because of the lack of the data reporting requirements that have been in the CMM up until now we don’t have a clear picture on exactly what vessels have come in and where they’ve been. But we do know the Chinese fleets have expanded by 400 vessels and these are 400 new efficient vessels, they are quite small, they are fibreglass. They have low operating costs but the ability to set very large numbers of hooks so you can have a look at the catch data for the Chinese fleet....which I can pull up for you if you like and it has expended tens of thousands of tonnes in the last 5 years. So they've done this huge ramp up which they've been very transparent about but that doesn't really help us in a fishery where were trying to put the brakes on and trying to actually pull back on, having one player just quite brazenly expanding their fleet that makes it difficult to achieve some kind of consensus type management. 

The political relationships that China is trying to build probably pave the way for us try and address their fisheries approach because it is one avenue where, as I say, they could take a partnership approach and that would then have benefits both the fisheries and to the geopolitical relationship. We look at partnerships at two levels and there are obviously political partnerships and there are certain implications of that when it comes to China but then there are also commercial partnerships and even in countries that don’t have a recognition with China there are Chinese companies investing and operating in those countries and so there still is a platform of cooperation there. 

FFA Japan relationship
I wouldn't say that Japan and FFA members are always on the same page but we have a very mature relationship of being able to sit down and work through issues and Japan makes a really concerted effort to understand the positions that FFA members take and to find a way to work with them. We don’t have that level of relationship with some of the other CCMs and in particular China, Chinese Taipei and Korea. And that’s no criticism to them, that’s obviously our responsibility as well, to build those relationships and to work out how to cooperate better with them. 

In the past we’ve endeavored to arrange informal visits where either the FFA secretariat or a small group of members will visit whoever it is we are trying to build a relationship with. On other occasions we’ve invited reps down to meet with the FFC when it’s meeting in annual meetings and so on. So I think there are a number of ways of doing it but the lesson were learning is don’t wait until the WCPFC meeting to try and cooperate with each other. This has to be done well before so that people...lots of people when they arrive here they've got their formal position and so we need to make sure that those formal positions accommodate a level of cooperation with us already. 

Some good news for sharks

In March 2013, Parties to CITES added porbeagle and oceanic whitetip sharks, three species of hammerhead sharks—scalloped, great, and smooth—as well as all species of manta ray to CITES Appendix II. Appendix II listed species can still be traded legally but only if the trade does not cause a detriment to the species in the wild.

Pew Fundation recently released a report on the CITES work on this topic. It seems that Hong Kong is playing (finally) ball... but as I mention in some post before (here and here), this is only the legal side :-)

all roads lead to Rome... all shark fins go to Hong Kong

Over 50% of the annual global shark fin trade passes through Hong Kong SAR, making effective implementation of the CITES listings there particularly important.  Hong Kong SAR imported 5,759 metric tons of shark fin and other shark products in 2014, according to data from its Census and Statistics Department.

Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries, and Conservation Department (AFCD) has been at the forefront of global efforts to implement the new listings, ensuring that Hong Kong SAR is fully compliant with CITES obligations.

On top of strong domestic legislation to implement the listings, AFCD has run more than a week’s worth of workshops, helping train customs and enforcement officials on how to visually identify fins from the listed species. The agency is also supported by the Government Laboratory, which has developed genetic testing protocols to confirm whether fins come from listed species.

The importation of shark fins into Hong Kong SAR is being monitored, and CITES-listed species are being allowed in only when their exports were authorized by exporting countries. Fins from these species traded without permits are now confiscated upon arrival in Hong Kong SAR.

How easy is to get permits in some countries, is definitively the next question

Climate Change Negotiations

Climate change is a really complex issue and is difficult to take perspective of what are the issues and "who" is to blame (like if that is to help).

This little video by "The Economist" ads to that understanding and discussion.

The Ocean Prosperity Roadmap: Fisheries and Beyond

Recently published, a new collection of research designed to inform decision makers, including governments and investors, on effective ocean and coastal resource management strategies to maximize economic, conservation and societal benefits.

The research demonstrates how governance and management reform can reduce poverty while achieving economic gains, increasing food production, replenishing fish and conserving ocean health for future generations. This is especially true in the case of wild capture fisheries.

I would be presenting some of the research in the blog, but is always better to go to the source (as good scientist I’m) but if you want a digest, then stay here ☺

Country-Level Costs vs. Benefits of Improved Fishery Management

This came out in May, and is supported by a “stars” filled group of fisheries scientists… most analyses of fisheries often demonstrate the potential biological, economic, and social benefits of fisheries recovery, but few studies have incorporated the costs associated with the design and implementation of the management systems needed to achieve recovery. 

Using available data and anecdotes they suggest that the current cost of fishery management may be quite substantial and that additional costs arising from major upgrades in management could be prohibitive in some countries.  Their analysis focused on OC (Output Controls) and CS (Catch Shares - Quotas)  Scenarios of Management measure and compared them a Business as Usual Scenario

A careful analysis comparing the country-level benefits of fishery management improvements to the additional costs of doing so has never been undertaken. Therefore, a study focusing on the current and incremental costs of fishery management upgrades could have important implications for policy design to efficiently rebuild global fisheries. 

This analysis has three objectives. The first is to estimate the current cost of managing fisheries in the top fishing countries of the world. The second is to estimate, for a range of alternative management approaches, the concomitant change in cost, also at the country level. Finally, they combine these cost estimates with recent estimates of the economic benefits of fishery recovery to arrive at a cost-benefit calculation of improved fishery management around the world.

This comparison determines if the expected economic benefits of a suite of fishery management reforms are greater than the management costs associated with those reforms. The analysis is decidedly practical: our goal is to derive ballpark estimates of these values to ultimately inform the question of whether the potential benefits can justify the likely increase in management costs.

Methodology

There are five major steps to completing this analysis. First, they estimate the cost of managing fisheries for all major fishing countries in the world and standardize by the cost per metric tonne (MT). This step is accomplished by developing a cost database including as many countries as possible and then imputing cost, based on the available data, for countries with limited data. They then focus on the 25 countries with largest fish catch.

Second, They categorize the landings in each country by management type. The third and fourth steps are developing and implementing a model of incremental management cost parameterized with cost data, fishery management data, and a survey of global fishery management experts to estimate the future costs of alternative management interventions using.

Finally, using projected profits in the year 2050 associated with different management interventions, they compare the economic benefits of management reform with the estimated costs associated with the new management in each country.

Results

They find substantial variation in current management costs across countries (approximately an order of magnitude difference in management cost per MT) and that incremental costs of upgrading fishery management can be quite substantial (in some countries, this could involve a doubling or tripling of management cost). Despite these results, our overall finding is that in every country examined, the benefits of reform substantially outweigh the incremental costs in management. This result holds across a wide range of assumptions and is consistent with empirical data, new case studies, and ad hoc interviews conducted with fishery managers in countries that have already undergone these welfare-improving transitions.

OC and CS  Scenarios Compared to BAU, 2050

Figures below shows the incremental cost vs. the incremental benefit of fishery management reform, where each country is represented by a single point. The size of the point indicates the size of the fishing sector in that country measured in total harvest (in MT) for 2012. Therefore, larger dots represent counties with higher annual landings in 2012. The top panels provide results for CS vs. BAU and the bottom panels provide results for OC vs. BAU.

Difference between future profits and management costs: CS Scenario and OC Scenario compared to BAU. Benefit-cost-ratios are capped at 10 in the figures on the right.

Difference between future profits and management costs: CS Scenario and OC Scenario compared to BAU. Benefit-cost-ratios are capped at 10 in the figures on the right.

Three results immediately pop out. The first is that when considering reforming all fisheries in a country to some form of CS, we find that the cumulative benefits always exceed the costs (all dots are above the 1:1 line on the top left panel and all benefit cost ratios exceed 1.0 on the top right panel). Indeed, the benefit cost ratios range from just over 1.0 up to 82 or more, averaging at about 29. The global benefit cost ratio average for catch share management is 34. These results are at the country level and do not necessarily imply that the benefits of switching to catch share management will outweigh the costs in each fishery. Instead, this result compares the aggregate benefits of moving to CS against the aggregate costs of doing so.

The second result is that the large fishing countries tend to also have the largest benefit cost ratios – it turns out that the larger a country’s catch, the more it stands to gain from aggressive fishery management reforms.

The third result is that while the numerical results are somewhat muted when moving from BAU to OC, most countries would still benefit from such a shift. The global cost of managing all fisheries in our database under catch share management in 2050 is about USD 11.09 billion, which is not quite double the global cost of BAU (USD 6.21 billion) and 2012 current global management costs (USD 5.76 billion).

Discussion

Two interpretations emerge from this study: First, while adopting effective catch shares is likely to entail the largest incremental increases in management cost, it is also likely to lead to even more significant increases in economic rent or profit. In fact, expert opinion suggests that depending on how well fisheries are already managed, the cost of switching to catch share management might even lower costs relative to BAU, which would further strengthen our main results. If some of that increase in profit can be captured to pay for the change in management cost (indeed, only a small fraction of it would be required in most countries), then the policy reform would be win-win. 

A key question that comes up when considering management costs is who should pay. It has been argued because the fishing industry benefits from management services, it should pay the costs associated with that management. Generally, taxpayers end up paying for these services, which are in turn provided by the government. 
Importantly, the benefits depicted in these results do not reflect individual fisheries, but the generalized benefits at the national level. Specific fisheries might benefit differently from management changes, and effective catch shares will surely require careful design tailored to each fishery. 

In addition, while this study suggests that those directly employed by the fishing industry could experience an increase in profits with a shift from less effective management to catch shares, and to a lesser extent, strong output controls, it does not investigate the implications of management reform down the supply chain. The value of this sector could potentially decrease with management that requires decreases in harvests. More research is needed to determine the economic implications of improved management on other related sectors.

The finding that adopting OC is still beneficial, but not as beneficial as adopting CS, is not too surprising, particularly given our assumption that securing long-run economic profit is still possible under OC. While output controls alone can be effectively implemented to regulate catch and achieve conservation objectives, there is a strong theoretical argument that they cannot ensure significant long-run profits, because rents will be dissipated by excessive effort on unregulated margins.

Thus, they regard the OC scenario as an intermediate case between open access and fully rent-capturing catch shares. As such, the profit upside from OC will always be lower than the profit upside from CS. While it is also true that our results suggest lower management costs under OC (than CS), they are not sufficiently low to make OC more attractive than CS.

Future work

There are a number of ways in which this study could be built upon to further examine the relationship between costs and fisheries management. First, while this study focused on the annual cost of management after management reform has been implemented, studies and interviews indicate that transition costs can be significant. During the transition period, the reform is designed and planned. This stage can be labor intensive and take a substantial amount of time, thus incurring significant fixed costs. In addition, it may require expensive research efforts to guide reform design. Including this expense would capture a more comprehensive cost of fisheries management.

Second, future studies could expand on this work by developing a more precise model for determining changes in management cost, for example by incorporating complexities in rules and regulations such as bycatch regulations, limits on days at sea, gear restrictions, and required reporting and analysis likely to influence the costs of administration, research, and enforcement services. 

Finally, while the country-level approach used in the current study is useful for making decisions at the national level, a fishery level-approach might provide key insights for managers working on the reform of individual fisheries. This approach would require fishery-level data on the cost associated with management attributes specific to fishery type. Importantly, improved data on the cost of managing fisheries at both the country and fishery level would facilitate more precise analyses.

Conclusion 

The research highlighted here demonstrates that when governments implement and enforce strong policies and regulations to manage their fisheries sustainably, the benefits are mutually reinforcing: fish production increases; economic profits rise; and fish stocks recover and rebuild. The path to sustainable fisheries will require not only reform by government, but also accompanying practices such as an improved business environment, increased transparency, and sound science and careful monitoring. Collectively, these practices create a synergy that helps enable the transition to sustainable fisheries management. 

One of the remaining challenges is determining how best to finance the comprehensive costs of reform, particularly during the transition period. We believe there are emerging opportunities for all sectors to contribute to the transition to sustainable management, from the private sector and public finance playing an innovative role in financing the transition, to the research community providing critical and timely data as well as innovative technologies that can enable smart policy decisions. 

The rewards of sustainable management have never been higher—and the costs of inaction have never been more clear—in unlocking the underlying potential of global fisheries.

Climate Change and Fisheries

I get asked often about this issue… A truly complicated topic I know very little about (and I believe not many people do really know a lot about it). Its really complex and truly interesting, since it adds a full new set of variables to fisheries management, which is per se already multifaceted.

A few years ago, SPC published an interesting book (Vulnerability of Tropical Pacific Fisheries and Aquaculture to Climate Change), that in my opinion still leads the pack and what is (could?) be happening. 
 
The build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is acting in two major ways that are ultimately expected to affect fisheries and aquaculture in the tropical Pacific.

First, the accumulation of greenhouse gases is trapping more of the heat that would normally escape from the Earth, leading to an overall increase in global surface Temperature. The oceans have absorbed almost 80% of the additional heat, acting as a buffer against more rapid atmospheric warming. However, the continued uptake of this extra heat has wide-ranging implications for marine resources.

Generalised effects of increased greenhouse gases on oceanic and coastal ecosystems in the tropical Pacific

Thermal expansion of the ocean, together with melting of land ice, is resulting in rising sea levels. Increases in ocean temperatures are also changing the strength and direction of currents, and making surface waters more stable, reducing vertical mixing and the availability of nutrients in the upper layer of the ocean. Reductions in the supply of nutrients usually limit the primary production at the base of the food chains that support fisheries.

Warmer oceans also cause changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, giving rise to regional changes in climate. In the tropical Pacific, greater evaporation and moisture availability are expected, leading to an intensification of the hydrological cycle, and a pole ward expansion and possible slow down of the Hadley circulation. As a result, rainfall is projected to increase in tropical areas of the Pacific and decrease in subtropical areas, although there is still considerable uncertainty about the regional pattern of projected changes. There is also the possibility that warmer conditions may result in more intense cyclones and storms, resulting in rougher seas, more powerful waves and greater physical disturbance of coastal environments.

The second way that increasing greenhouse gases are expected to affect fisheries and aquaculture is through changes to oceanic concentrations of CO2 and the resulting effect on ocean acidity. The ocean has absorbed more than 30% of human CO2 emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution and it is now more acidic than at any time during the last 800,000 years.

This effect is largely independent of global warming but also has grave consequences for marine ecosystems. The dissolved CO2 reacts with sea water to form weak carbonic acid, which reduces the availability of dissolved carbonate required by many marine calcifying organisms to build their shells or skeletons.

There is serious concern that continued emissions of CO2 will drive sufficient gas into the sea to cause under-saturation of carbonate in some areas of the ocean this century. Where this happens, the environment will favour dissolution rather than formation of carbonate shells and skeletons.

Nature of effects of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture worldwide

The basis of tuna production in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, and the main methods used to harvest tuna

We already know that variations in climate on time scales of years to decades can cause significant changes in fisheries production. For example, catches of Peruvian anchovies have varied between < 100,000 tonnes and > 13 million tonnes since 1970 as a result of changes in ENSO46,47. The different phases of the ENSO cycle also determine the distribution of skipjack tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean – the fish move further east during El Niño events and further west during La Niña episodes ( I wrote about this here and here)

Over and above normal year-to-year variations, longer-term changes in physical oceanography and biology, known as regime shifts, can have major consequences for the species composition and productivity of fisheries. Some heavily fished stocks have collapsed due to the additive effects of environmental and fishing stresses.

However, the effects of such changes in climate have not always been negative. For example, a period of ocean warming around Greenland starting in 1925 resulted in a northern extension in the range of cod by > 1000 km and the creation of an international fishery of up to > 400,000 tonnes per year.

Questions abound for fisheries management. Will the species that currently support substantial harvests still be available as climate change continues? If not, which types of species are most likely to replace them? For those species that continue to support fisheries, will climate change reduce the capacity for replenishment and production, and increase the risk of overfishing? How should managers and policymakers respond to the projected changes to maintain sustainable benefits from fisheries? How will fishers perceive and react to the risks associated with projected changes? Will fishing at sea become more hazardous? How much will it cost to adapt?

Potential impact of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture in the tropical Pacific

The range of coastal fisheries activities in the tropical Pacific, and the habitats that support them.

All fisheries and aquaculture activities in the region are likely to be affected by climate change. The distribution and abundance of tuna, which dominate oceanic fisheries and are the mainstay of the economies of some smaller PICTs1, are influenced largely by water temperature and the availability of nutrients. 

The coastal fisheries that currently provide much of the animal protein for Pacific islanders14, and the contribution of aquaculture to the economies of French Polynesia and Cook Islands, are based largely on coral reef habitats. These habitats are threatened by changes to water temperature, acidification of the ocean and sea-level rise, and possibly more severe cyclones and storms.

The freshwater fisheries of PNG have evolved in a climate of heavy rainfall and any major alterations in precipitation can be expected to change the nature of these resources, on which hundreds of thousands of people rely.
Preliminary analysis has already identified the following possible effects of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture production in the tropical Pacific from climate change:

Changes to the distribution and abundance of tuna: Alterations in ocean temperatures and currents and the food chains that support tuna, are projected to affect the location and abundance of tuna species21,48. In particular, the concentrations of skipjack and bigeye tuna are likely to be located further east than in the past. This has implications for the long-term management of the region’s tuna resources, and for the development and profitability of national industrial fishing fleets and canneries in the western Pacific.

Decline in coral reefs and coastal fisheries: Rising sea surface temperatures and more acidic oceans are projected to have direct impacts on coral reefs and the habitats and food webs they provide for reef fish and invertebrates. Degraded coral reefs are likely to support different types of fish and lower yields of some species. Reduced catches of reef-associated fish will widen the expected gap between the availability of fish and the protein needed for food security.

Difficulties in developing aquaculture: Changing patterns of rainfall and more intense storms could flood aquaculture ponds more regularly in some places, and make small pond farming for food security impractical in others due to more frequent droughts. There could also be higher financial risks associated with coastal aquaculture as a result of (1) greater damage to infrastructure and equipment from rising sea levels and the possibility of more severe cyclones and storms; and (2) the effects of higher water temperatures, ocean acidification, reduced salinity and increased incidence of disease on the growth and survival of shrimp, pearl oysters, seaweed and ornamental specimens90.

Increased operating costs: Projections that cyclones and storms could possibly become progressively more intense would involve increased risk of damage to shore-based facilities and fleets for domestic tuna fishing, and processing operations. Fleets operating within the cyclone belt may need to be upgraded to provide improved safety at sea. Rising sea level may eventually make many existing wharfs and shore-based facilities unusable. Taken together, increased costs associated with repairing and relocating shore-based facilities, and addressing increased risks to occupational health and safety for fishers, may affect the profitability of domestic fishing operations. Such increased costs will need to be taken into account by PICTs when planning the optimum mix of developing local industries for tuna and providing continued access for DWFNs.

Reality is that the main findings are mixed – there are likely to be winners and losers – underscores the importance of this vulnerability assessment. Practical adaptations, policies and investments are now needed to reduce the threats of climate change to the many fisheries and aquaculture activities that are part of the economic and social fabric of the region. Adaptations, policies and investments are also needed to capitalise on the opportunities. 

Otherwise we will keep running behind the ball (as usual)… unfortunately I don’t see that happening.

Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) are not a fad...

Fish aggregating devices (FADs) are artificial floating objects, specifically constructed to attract pelagic fish. Typically, they consist of a floating raft, submerged synthetic netting. Many this days have a “marker” of a satellite buoy that allows a fishing vessel to return to a specific location. They can be anchored or drifting ones, and they are as many design types as people deploying them! 

Many fish species naturally congregate near objects floating in the ocean, a fact that is the basis of FADs existence. How they work still debated, but here is a good talk about then.

FADs have become widely adopted as a means of improving fisheries production. In most cases, the effects of FADs—both positive and negative—are not monitored, and there is no real information on the true impacts of sometimes very costly FADs on local fisheries.

A good manual on their design use and cost efectivines has been produced by SPC here

The Pew Environment Group evaluated that FAD deployments have more than doubled since 2006 in the eastern Pacific Ocean alone. Without being as scientific my personal evaluation trouhj my wrk documents, will say the same about the western pacific.

Still, there are few regulations for fishermen or vessel owners to follow, and no penalties for deliberately abandoning FADs at sea when they are no longer deemed useful or productive. 

Some RFMOs have measures intended to improve the monitoring of drifting FADs, but the overall lack of standarised regulation makes counting these objects difficult.

Information on FAD deployments remains hard to find. Much of the data that would be needed to develop a precise estimate of their numbers exist but are confidential as industry invest heavily on the construction and electronics of it (just think how much 3 km of Polyethylene line will cost!) and they don't want other companies to use their FADS, so this information proprietary

In 2012 Pew took on the task of developing a ‘back of the envelope’ estimate of how many drifting FADs are currently in use, while acknowledging that it would be a challenging exercise and the results both imperfect and preliminary. Collating data gathered using three separate methodologies, they estimated that in 2011 the number of drifting FADs put into the oceans each year ranges from 47,000–105,000. 

Using data on fishing obtained since then, along with new scientific research and an examination of recent trends in FAD use and technology, Pew has produced updated estimates indicating that the total number of drifting FADs deployed in 2013 ranged from 81,000 to 121,000. The upper estimate has increased by 14 percent since the calculations for 2011.

Other analyses have come to similar conclusions. For instance, the European Commission released a report in 2014 estimating that 91,000 drifting FADs are deployed annually. Meanwhile, new initiatives are underway to better track and understand FAD use. For example, three French purse seine companies, operating in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, provided researchers with detailed tracking data of FAD movements to create the most extensive analysis yet of how FADs move in those ocean areas.

Parties to the Nauru Agreement, a group of eight Pacific island states that have the world’s largest skipjack fishery within their waters, plans to implement an electronic tracking system that will allow monitoring of FAD numbers and locations in near real time to better understand the impact on the tropical tuna fishery. This will provide useful data to fisheries scientists and managers on the use of tens of thousands of drifting FADs in the western and central Pacific Ocean.

Starting in 2017, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) will require vessels to provide additional FAD data and physically mark their FADs with unique identification codes.

Given the practical and feasible steps available to improve FAD management, they have been calls on RFMOs and fishing entities to:

• Harness the data collected by drifting FADs to develop science-based regulatory measures for use of the devices to minimize bycatch and catches of vulnerable species, 
• Establish comprehensive monitoring and tracking systems to accurately quantify and monitor FAD use, improve tuna stock assessments, and ascertain the contribution of FADs to marine debris.
• Set up licensing and registration systems to hold vessels accountable for the FADs they deploy.

Recently I quoted Dr. Shelton Harley presentation at the TunaForum in Fiji, where he reckon (and I totally agree) that sun powered/satellite data transmission capable Sonar devices attached to FADs are a massive game changer and complex development.

In the past the vessel  had to go to their FADs and then see if there was fish around it; with this technology fleet managers from the desk somewhere in the world can direct the vessels to the FADs that are showing signal. Here is an example of what you can buy this days.

As anything in fisheries, there are no easy answers… in these aspects i always refer to something I learned many years ago: “the risk is never in the substance, is always in the dose”

WCPFC’s Eleventh Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC11)

The WCPFC’s Eleventh Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC11) met in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia on 23-29 September to discuss technical and compliance matters in advance of WCPFC12 (and as always a mix bag)

TCC is responsible for administering the Commission’s Compliance Monitoring Scheme (CMM 2014-07). During the annual TCC meeting a review is conducted in a closed working group session of compliance of Commission members’ and cooperating non-members’ (CCMs) with obligations established in the WCPFC Convention, scientific data requirements, Commission Decisions and Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs). 

TCC11 marked the fifth year of implementation of the Compliance Monitoring Scheme, with several days dedicated to conducting the compliance monitoring review. The compliance of 36 CCMs was reviewed with a priority list of over 100 obligations for 2014 (however the report is password protected :-( )

A three-tiered system of rating compliance was applied for the second year running, where members are rated for each obligation as compliant (green), non-compliant (orange) or priority non-compliant (red) (when a CCM is non-compliant for an obligation for two or more years, is breaching catch limits and/ or is not submitting Annual Reports). If a CCM is in compliance with all assessed obligations, TCC recommends an overall compliant rating to WCPFC. 

Following the compliance monitoring review process, TCC11 developed a Provisional Compliance Monitoring Report to be forwarded to WCPFC12 for consideration which includes a provisional assessment of each CCM’s compliance status and recommendations for corrective action, as well as issues arising during the compliance monitoring review process and requests for assistance and capacity building. 

While CMM 2014-07 includes provisions for responses to non-compliance, including the establishment of a small working group to identify a range of responses to non-compliance, this issue was not progressed by TCC11. Since the current Monitoring Scheme measure expires in 2015, time was also spent during TCC11 to develop proposed text to extend the Scheme into 2016 and beyond. 

No one is dodgy... is all a misunderstanding 

In previous years, a key TCC concern was continued failure of South Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei and China to provide operational level data, which compromises the ability of the Commission to carry out its compliance functions, as well as reducing the robustness of stock assessments. At WCPFC11, operational level data requirements were included in the CMM on tropical tunas (CMM 2014-01) to help address this issue. TCC11 noted there has been significant progress in the provision of operational data from Korea and China, but further improvements are still required. Further progress is expected in 2016. 

Discussions on the Regional Observer Program touched on the paramount concern for health and safety of observers, particularly in light of the recent case of a US-observer going missing from a Panamanian carrier in Peru, as well as other reported cases of harassment, intimidation and assault. WWF delivered a strong statement to TCC11 about the critical issue of observer health and safety and indicated that it will be pushing for market-based sanctions for companies/fishing vessels who violate observer health and safety. WWF’s position was supported by several WCPFC CCMs. 

TCC11 discussed proposed amendments to existing WCPFC CMMs as well as new CMMs for consideration by WCPFC12.

• New Zealand proposed that catch data on non-tuna species be subject to mandatory collection under Scientific Data provision Rules.
• Australia is calling for agreement on a workplan for developing the harvest strategy for key tuna species (CMM 2014-06).
• Cook Islands (again) is proposing changes to Eastern High Seas Pocket requirements including the prohibition of high seas transhipment in this area (CMM 2010-02).
• FFA members are proposing an extension of the Charter Notification Scheme for another three years (CMM 2012-05).
• FFA members and the EU have once-again called for 5% fin:carcass ratio requirement for sharks to be replaced with a requirement that is easier for enforcement and compliance monitoring (e.g. fins remain naturally attached) (CMM 2010-07).
• FFA members are calling for changes to the South Pacific Albacore measure to address difficulties reviewing the number of vessels ‘actively’ fishing for albacore south of 20⁰S to set a baseline for assessing compliance (given some longline vessels targeting other tuna species/swordfish/ sharks also catch albacore as by-catch) (CMM 2010-05).
• The US has called for specific requirements for leatherback turtles to be included in the CMM on sea turtles (CMM 2008-03). 

On proposed new CMMs, at the time of TCC11 only one new proposal had been tabled by PNA for establishing a WCPO skipjack target reference point, which is a revision on their 2014 proposal to WCPFC11.

No new proposals tabled by any members on major changes to the existing measure or a proposal for a new measure for skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye, despite this being one of the most contentious and highly-debated measures in recent years. 

However, TCC11 has recommended WCPFC12 address some ambiguities in the text (e.g. defining ’current’ levels) to better facilitate review of compliance with certain requirements.

Also, there are elements that are required to be addressed in 2015 by WCPFC12 including high seas purse seine effort limits, purse seine yellowfin catch limits and longline yellowfin measures.

Additional FAD measures for 2015 and the capacity management work plan may also be discussed. FFA members also met in late October for their annual Management Options Consultation where they usually prepare multiple proposals.

All this info was adapted from FFA's FTIN for the period Sept – Oct 2015 being Volume 8: Issue 5

New Tools for Traditional Fisheries

As blogged before, I took a job that is a far distance from my usual topics... Bringing new tools to a traditional fishery.  I like to branch out sometimes, and is good for my "interest" and it challenges me to "see" things with a new mindset.

Not the usual image of the Pacific

In Chile, benthic species, small pelagic and demersal fisheries, have historically been exploited by artisanal fishermen due to an initial open access to the fisheries and the opening of new global markets. Today, approx. 60,000 fishermen depend for their livelihoods and income on these declining resources. Despite the socioeconomic importance of the artisanal sector, its “development stage is precarious” due to organizational fragmentation and institutional weaknesses.

Understanding how small scale fisherman make ends needs with fishing is complicated, since the fresh fish trade involves transacting characteristics that are very difficult to be measured, without a specific ad hoc tool needed to understand the way fishing business works at small scale vessel level, furthermore the disparity of vessels characteristics at each location varies profoundly, hence making a generalist approach to the analysis of limited utility. Furthermore, the artisanal fishery organizational structures in Chile are highly complex and regionalised.

The understanding of the cost benefit reality for fisher operation, becomes even more relevant since the introduction of quotas, as the earnings of a fisher are based on a limited quantity of catch that has already a market value, hence knowing on trip by trip basis the earning and loss situation allows for catch planning. And if that wasn't enough, exclusivity fix price arrangements for catch do not reflect the cost of fishing due to the lack of a specific tool for that aim.

So mi first job was to adapt and update a spreadsheet we used in Samoa many years ago, to help the fisherman association to keep a much better tab on if they make money or the don't.

The spreadshhet is design to give a immediate appreciation of where they are in terms of cost benefit.

My next proposal is way more ambitious... from the findings it was clear that a tool that improves the transparency of the value chain, while providing traceability and information to fisher, buyers and authorities alike, could alleviate many of the shortcomings of the present scenario for many fisherman. 

In fisheries today, new ICTs are being used across the sector, from resource assessment, capture or culture to processing and commercialization. Some are specialist applications such as sonar for locating fish. Others are general purpose applications such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) used for navigation and location finding, mobile phones for trading, information exchange and emergencies, radio programming with fishing communities and Web-based information and networking resources. 

However many of these especially dedicated tools are in a cost range that exceed the financial capabilities of the fishers, or have to be install and removed form the vessels. However, the new generation mobile phones are incredible tools that bring together in one various different “technologies”, they are at once a personal locator beacon, a GPS navigation device, and GPS equipped camera, besides being a 2-way communication device.

Based on work prior done in East Timor and Indonesia plus a existing tool being used in the Caribbean, I proposed the development of a app containing a “suite” of tools that could be used from a mobile phone that could ally itself the following focal FAO focal points:

1.  Fishing and trading activities: market and price information; advice and services; e-credit; e-government; post-harvest;
2. People and communities: vulnerability reduction; increasing safety; social inclusion; social mobilisation (empowering fishing communities in owning and communicating information); advocacy;
3. Resource management and conservation: monitoring, control and surveillance; co-management of fisheries resources.

So I proposed the conceptual design of a Android App (initially named “PescApp”). This app will open a “suite of services” that are at the disposition of the registered fishers including regulatory and traceability components as well as a market and trade services. 

The App concept is not new, the original was one in Trinidad and Tobago and it looks like the one illustrated here. I just expanded the concept to:

Registration
SOS
Navigation / Weather Information
Compliance
Alerts
Traceability
Market Information and Auction

However is important to point that  while all fisherman interviewed had a “intelligent” phone of some sort, and all of them reported having 3G signal up to 10 miles from shore (hence the technology and tools are well incorporated by the ultimate beneficiaries). The App are not expected to yield desired outcomes unless these are well articulated and drive the App design and implementation strategy.

A recent report in ITC in small scale fisheries topic, nails the complexity of this process: 

Rejuvenation of the small-scale fisheries sector with its complex interdependencies and rich ecosystem is not an easy, mechanical or even technical challenge. The integration of ICTs in the small-scale fisheries sector requires the development of various cognitive and skills-based capacities, as well as the formation, refinement and authentic ownership of new attitudes and behaviours. It calls for the human systems to be established to, in turn, articulate the various processes that in concert, aggregate to achieve bold, meaningful and consensual outcomes.

Technology cannot take the place of collaboration, engagement and negotiation, and can do little to take the place of time. Technology cannot provide a solution to the fundamental challenges, which limit participatory governance in fisheries anywhere in the world. It can only be as good as its human partners who must plan, design, implement and nurture the sector, its agents and its growth.