5 reasons why the economy is failing the environment and humanity

I made a point of keeping this blog very "technical" and focused on fisheries. But then, fisheries operates in a political and economical context, so once in a while, I like to explore those "macro" topics. The piece below comes from an unlikely setting (The World Economic Forum 2017 Meeting) but is by clever man Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre (I wrote about their innovative work recently). Needless to say, I find it really encouranging that this message gets a place in that Forum.

Failing to sharks in Sri lanka

I paste his content below, as I’ll never be able to make any justice to their writing :-(
I just will format in italics the parts that could have been written is this was about fisheries only

Here are five ways the economy is failing people and the planet.

The tragedy of the commons
Despite recognition by many economists, the economy remains frustratingly locked in the tragedy of the commons. Economic growth comes with unaccounted environmental costs and with it, rising risks of catastrophe. The economy remains unable to internalize real Earth costs.

Today, the number one economic threat to humanity is our inability to value nature.

This is not only about monetization. Sure, valuing natural capital and ecosystem services is critical. A global price on carbon is necessary. But it is - as science and myriad attempts have shown, not easy and not always possible (particularly to get the right price). So, valuing nature also means that we have to accept leaving the realm of economics. We enter the realm of ethics, inclusiveness and justice.

We need to set planetary boundaries for world economic development. This requires political leadership. The markets cannot do it alone.

From linear thinking to non-linear reality - why discount rates do not work
Science clearly shows that human pressures on the environment follow a resilience path. When environmental resilience is high, change is slow, linear and incremental. Economies can exploit the environment with seemingly no or limited impacts. This is possible when we have abundant biodiversity, redundant atmosphere and glacial capacity to absorb greenhouse gases and pollution. When resilience has been drained following long periods of linear change, the environment can abruptly shift. Tipping points are crossed, triggering large system shifts, often irreversible, potentially catastrophic.

When costs for society go from predictable to non-predictable, from manageable to potentially infinitely dangerous, then we can no longer use market based discount rates to assess where it is most cost-effective to place our investments. In essence this means that in a non-linear world - where Earth sends invoices - the conventional economic theory falls apart.

Linear economic models do not work on a finite planet
Our economic system builds on linear principles focused on throughput, optimization and cost-benefit efficiency. We exploit, create value, and then waste. There is no such thing as a Fourth Industrial Revolution with 9 billion thriving co-citizens in the world, if it is accomplished on linear economic principles. We need a transition to circular economic principles and practice.

The current economic model benefits the few at the expense of the many
There is an old belief that solving environmental problems can only be achieved by first building enough economic wealth, so we can "afford to save the environment". This "Kuznets Curve" thinking has never been correct and must be abandoned once and for all if we are serious about economic development for a thriving humanity on Earth.

The cynical truth is that it is only "thanks" to poverty that we do not have very dangerous climate change already. People in low-income nations are responsible for far less emissions every year.

Moreover, economic growth - as shown by Piketty and others, does not trickle down to the poor. An inequity aggravated by the fact that the economic wealth in the world so far is accomplished through unsustainable subsidies from the planet, while the cost for these subsidies are largely taken up by others, in general to poorest communities.

Cost-benefit analyses no longer work for natural capital
And much less so for the stability and resilience of planet Earth. We are unable in our current economic system to incorporate long-term risk and value. We may, already when transgressing 2C, trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Not over decades but over centuries. This would subject future generations to a rise in sea level of 7-metres. Clearly, an unacceptable future. Still, the economy is unable to place any value whatsoever to long-term infinite and existential global risk. 

Under stable and incremental conditions, a free market economy spurs entrepreneurship, ensures efficiency and generates wealth. Those conditions no longer apply. Global risks are too high, and the benefits of transitioning to global sustainable development are not recognised. We are failing to create the right incentives on the market. Unsustainable behavior still gives the highest returns.

Global sustainability is now the only avenue to future inclusive progress that can deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement. To succeed, we need to set planetary boundaries to create a safe operating space on Earth for the world economy – that is, confining the Fourth Industrial Revolution within social and environmental boundaries. This is not a way of grinding the revolution to a halt. It is instead a way of spurring deeper innovation and step-changes to a healthy, thriving global economy.

U.S. Tuna Fisheries: a trifecta of sustainable practices at odds with climate change mitigation

Many people sent me versions of an article that came originally in the New Scientist arguing that Sustainable tuna fishing is bad for climate, since the pole&liners and longliners consume more fuel than purseiners per tonne of product. This just shows that there are no magic bullets in fisheries, and everything in life has advantages and disadvantages.

burning out your ecolabel...

The new scientist quoted a poster presented at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting by Brandi McKuin and J Elliott Campbell from University of California Merced. They recognise that environmental concerns have given rise to eco-label initiatives in the seafood industry and a shift to more sustainable fishing practices. So they looked at sustainable practices employed by U.S. tuna fisheries and find the term “sustainably sourced” changes when climate forcing is added to the criteria.

Specifically, there are three sustainable practices at odds with climate change mitigation:

1) The use of selective fishing gear reduces bycatch but increases fuel use;

2) Fishing within exclusive economic zones is more equitable to coastal fishermen, and allows the high seas to serve as an ecological bank, but fishing within these regions means fisheries are subject to more stringent fuel sulphur laws thereby diminishing the cooling effects of sulphate aerosols and increasing climate forcing; and

3) Removing sulphur from fuels improves air quality, but there are added emissions from the refinery process. 

They used ship registry data, historical sulphur levels in fuels; gear-specific fishery fuel use data collected from the literature, historical gear-specific tuna landings data, and a range of global warming potentials to estimate the climate forcing of U.S. tuna fisheries over the last fifteen years.

And they found that for tuna caught within exclusive economic zones, the net fuel-related climate forcing has more than doubled over the last fifteen years.  Thanks to a drop in purse seining in the US tuna fishery since about 1990, the team estimates that catching a tonne of tuna takes about three times as much fuel today as it did 25 years ago.

The also normalised the fuel-related Climate forcing results to a unit of tuna protein and compared these results to other farmed sources of protein.

And they found that tuna caught within exclusive economic zones has the highest climate impact of all land-based protein sources considered, with the exception of beef. 

But none of this is really new… my friend Bob Gillet already wrote in 2009 (Fisheries in the Economies of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories) the following:

”tuna longliners have the highest fuel consumption per tonne of catch—on average, over four times as much as purse seiners. Small-scale coastal fisheries fall between the two, consuming about twice as much fuel per ton as purse seiners. The costs of fuel per dollar of catch value show similar differences, but less pronounced because prices of some fish products have increased more than others.
The financial impact of fuel price increases of longliners is still greater than that of purse seiners, but the difference is very much smaller than that in specific fuel consumption per tonne of catch, because of increases in fish prices. Artisanal fishers are the most financially exposed of all the fleets analysed.”

Furthermore, every time I get confronted by recreational fisherman saying that their fishery is so much more sustainable and at a much higher ecological high ground than the commercial one. I bring the fuel consumption issue to the table, outboards are terrible in fuel consumption and liquefy their exhausts into the water. If you were to quantify fuel-related Climate forcing results to a unit of animal protein obtained, recreational fishing would be the worst by far, yet that is never taking into consideration

Anyway, back to the study presented. Personally, I would have separated the type of tunas by “destiny” (canning or sashimi), since the values are very different and this is reflected by the harvesting gear.

Purseine is a bulk fishery and the quality of the fish brought on board is not individually handled, generalized by the freezing method of brining (holding the fish in a refrigerated hypersaline seawater solution) , which brings the fish to -12C at the best, since the brine will get too thick to be pumped around the boat and re-refrigerated below those temperatures. The “quality” of the resulting tuna is far from fantastic, therefore we used mostly for canning.

On the other side, longliners aim to the sashimi market, hence the fish is treated individually and in a whole different way (ikied, bled, gutted) and then frozen (depending on the boat) to -30C or -50C and maintained at that temperature.

The fuel consumption of a longliner is not just determined by the main engine consumption over miles travelled, but also by the capacity and “power” of the refrigeration equipment on board that has to be fed by every time bigger generators.

As a consequence, a tonne of skipjack is 1800 USD in Bangkok, less than an 80kg yellowfin in avg day in Tokio… and definitely less than the 1st Bluefin tuna of the season there (300000 USD!)

The point of all this: everything has advantages and disadvantages (as my dad’s said when I told him I was getting married), and we have to navigate ethical choices since there is no one perfect way. With science, we can determine what king of management of a fishery will lead to long-term sustainability of food production. Fisheries policy can set up the harvesting regimes needed, and MCS will help stakeholders to obey the rules set. Furthermore, science can (and should) evaluate the environmental impacts of a fishery (including fuel-related Climate forcing results). Yet, it would be imposible for science, policy and MCS to tell you what environmental impacts are low enough – that is a question of individual choice and public policy via political pressure.

And I know this will sound terrible, but the only guaranteed way to have no impact on our environment is for all of us (humanity) to disappear (fast and at once). All other options imply compromises

EU’s Long Distance Advisory Council (LDAC) says something we knew, but is good that they say it

The LDAC is an EU fisheries body representing stakeholders of both the distant water fishing sector and other groups of interest, whose mission is to provide advice to the European institutions and EU member states on matters including the international market for fishing products.

illustration for a EU IUU CCS manual I did for Indonesia in 2014

They have recently published an Opinion on improving implementation of the EU IUU Regulation (Regulation (EC) No. 1005/2008), that reflects many of the issues a few of us working outside the EU have been talking about for quite a few years now. Back in 2015 I was heavily censured by an EU official who opposed my nomination to a FAO expert group for what I wrote here, here, it builds on one published in 2016 by some of the LDAC members that failed to impress me.

Beyond the technicalities of these contributions, I'm happy they exist. Because they bring good criticism to a CDS that could have the potential to be truly influential, yet fails to live up to its full potential due to some lethal flaws that have nothing to do with technical capabilities, but rather design and politics. Also, because they criticise from a full European context.

LDAC’s recommendations to the Commission to improve implementation of the IUU Regulation include the following:

• establish a centralised electronic database at EU level for the CC scheme as a matter of priority by latest mid-2017;
• establish risk analysis criteria to verify those CCs with high risk;
• establish a minimum import verification %, using variables such as risk analysis depending on the country of origin or track record of the operator, amongst others;
• ensure improved and harmonised reporting of activities by member states in their biennial compliance reports under the Regulation; and
• undertake audit missions to member states to assess compliance of their procedures with the Regulation’s requirements regarding the CC scheme.

In some way they also revindicate the opinion that myself, and friends like Gilles Hosch and Carlos Palin have been arguing since 2011 at least.

I never been against the EU IUU CCS (in fact it has kept me very busy!) it is just that it always had fatal flaws and the potential for them to be fixed relatively easy, and somehow yet it never happened. But i still hopefull :-) (i'm always are!)

Keystone dialogue for Ocean Stewardship

In June 2015, I blogged about a paper published by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Institute,  which focused on the role of global transnational fishing corporations instead of the role of nation states as the key players which traditionally formed the basis for governance of fisheries resources.

fisherman fish, traders rule

They used the ecology concept of “keystone species”, that are those …"that have a profound and disproportionate effect on communities and ecosystems and determine their structure and function to a much larger degree than what would be expected from their abundance'… And they adapt this concept to identify “seafood companies” that take a similar role in the global seafood industry “ecosystem”.

I was quite taken but that approach, since I see a similar pattern in tuna with 3 big traders that influence everything and everyone in the sector, and I always wondered how could be getting those guys at a table and find solutions.

Now the authors have moved another step by getting the key managers of the 8 biggest fishing conglomerates identified in their paper, into a fancy resort in the Maldives (smart move!) and getting them to issue a ten-point statement committing to action on ocean stewardship following the first “keystone dialogue” between scientists and business leaders.

The companies commit to improving transparency and traceability and reducing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in their supply chains. Antibiotic use in aquaculture, greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution will also be prioritized. The seafood businesses commit to eliminating any products in their supply chains that may have been obtained through “modern slavery including forced, bonded and child labour”.

As keystone actors, they set up a new global initiative – “Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship” – that brings together, for the first time, leaders in science and business, the wild capture and aquaculture sectors of the seafood industry, and companies from Asia, Europe and North America, operating globally.

Through “Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship”, they intend to develop a common understanding and a common approach among the keystone actors globally, building on the many existing initiatives in which our companies are already engaged.

This is an initiative between science and business, with an ambition to engage with governments and other stakeholders for positive change. It is not only about supplying sustainable seafood to consumers; it is about becoming stewards of the world’s ocean and aquaculture environments.

And they will act on the following:

• Improve transparency and traceability in our own operations, and work together to share information and best practice, building on existing industry partnerships and collaborations.
• Engage in concerted e orts to help reduce IUU fishing and seek to ensure that IUU products and endangered species are not present in our supply chains.
• Engage in science-based e orts to improve fisheries and aquaculture management and productivity, through collaboration with industry, regulators and civil society.
• Engage in concerted e orts to eliminate any form of modern slavery including forced, bonded and child labour in our supply chains.
• Work towards reducing the use of antibiotics in aquaculture.
• Reduce the use of plastics in seafood operations, and encourage global efforts to reduce plastic pollution.
• Reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions.
• Secure new growth in aquaculture, by deploying best practices in preventive health management, including improved regulatory regimes.
• Collaborate and invest in the development and deployment of emerging approaches and technologies for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.
• Support novel initiatives and innovations for ocean stewardship

Is all nice words, but for me, the point is that if these guys are really committed, they have a massive driving force.

Interestingly the Q&A section has a very good question (and answer):
Why should people think this is nothing more than just a corporate PR project?
This is a long-term initiative facilitated by science. The initiative did not come from the companies themselves, but originated from research conducted by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The scientists believe that the largest companies within the seafood industry have the capacity to lead a transformation towards a more sustainable and transparent business. This meeting was intended to test this idea and future meetings will define how concrete actions will be developed. This will inevitably take some time, but the future will show how it can complement efforts and actions developed by governments. This initiative will be supported by independent science, and it is up to the companies to live up to their joint commitments.

I don't know how far will this go, but I would keep an eye on it because is a novel and realistic approach. Furthermore, I would love to have something like that in the tuna world, because while we work with flag, coastal, port and market states, in our sector we have 3 "supra states" that amalgamate all others, the 3 big traders: "Trimarine, FCF and Itochu", and their combined influence shape the industry.

Fisheries Management Impacts on Target Species Status

We all know that many fish stocks around the world are in trouble, but also that there are some success stories with fish stocks increasing in abundance and overfishing being reduced. A key question is why is the status of fish stocks improving in some places and declining in others?

Scores for each country for 5 different aggregate measures of the management system and the status of the stocks

Mike Melnychuk and 3 co-authors (Emily Peterson, Matthew Elliott, and Ray Hilborn) made an effort to answer this question in a recent paper.

Their answer is on the logic and simple side: countries that have effective fisheries management systems generally have healthy fish stocks, while those without effective fisheries management have declining abundance and increasing fishing pressure on fish stocks.

In a survey of 28 countries, including the top 20 countries in terms of total landings, they found a good correlation between the management of the fisheries and the state of the fish stocks.

Not surprisingly, three characteristics are particularly important to good outcomes:
(1) the scientific assessment of the status of the stock,
(2) limiting fishing pressure, and
(3) enforcing regulations.

To score on the management system, the authors elaborated a “Fisheries Management Index” (FMI) based on 5 different aggregate measures of the management system and the status of the stocks (Research, Management, Enforcement, Socioeconomics, and Stock status).

I know quite well the fisheries realities of many of the top 14 countries, and the position of some do surprise me... so I search in the  methodology and not surprisingly, at least for me, is the absence of a measure for corruption (perhaps via the Transparency Int ranking of the country). But then I agree that is difficult to quantify measure.

In any case (and not surprisingly) the FMI was closely related to the wealth of the countries. Those countries with high per capita GDP had the highest scores in fisheries management.

After accounting for this influence, they further found that fisheries subsidies had considerable impact as well. Investment into the management system (“beneficial subsidies”) produced positive results for the overall management score, as one would hope, but capacity-enhancing subsidies (“bad subsidies”) were associated with poorer overall performance at meeting management objectives.

The FMI, showed wide variation among countries and was strongly affected by per capita gross domestic product (positively) and capacity-enhancing subsidies (negatively). Among 13 management attributes considered, three were particularly influential in whether stock size and fishing mortality are currently in or trending toward desirable states: extensiveness of stock assessments, strength of fishing pressure limits, and comprehensiveness of enforcement programs.

These results support arguments that the key to successful fisheries management is the implementation and enforcement of science based catch or effort limits, and that monetary investment into fisheries can help achieve management objectives if used to limit fishing pressure rather than enhance fishing capacity. Countries with currently less-effective management systems have the greatest potential for improving long-term stock status outcomes and should be the focus of efforts to improve fisheries management globally.

In recent years there has been increasing concern about whether our fisheries can sustainably provide seafood without overfishing fish stocks. Several papers have described the global status of fish populations (i.e., their abundance and exploitation rates) and have hypothesized influences of fisheries management, but this report is unique in being a comprehensive analysis of how specific management attributes (which are numerous and operate simultaneously) affect population status across oceans, countries, and taxonomic groups. This report integrates management policies and population ecology to assess sustainable harvesting outcomes of target species in marine fisheries; results have important global food security implications.

The authors suggest that sustainability of fisheries results from a functioning management system, and the nature of the management system more than the current abundance of fish stocks or the history of catch is a better reflection of sustainability into the future. Improving the performance of global fisheries will be best achieved by improving the fisheries management system in the low-performing countries, especially by building capacity to perform stock assessments, restrict fishing pressure and enforce regulations.

Criminal case against Vidal Armadores fails on appeal

I have quoted work by my colleague Mercedes Rosello before, she is a PhD researcher in fisheries law, hence her views on the recent failure of the Spanish courts to criminally charge members of the Vidal family for their involvement as beneficial owners of notorious IUU vessels, are of interest to me. I know from a first source that the lawyers of this family are some of the most ruthless people he has ever seen, so no doubt all technicalities possible would have been exploited for this trial. Here is what Mercedes had to say:

Pride of the Spanish feet...

The Spanish press has reported that the criminal case commenced against several individuals connected to the Vidal conglomerate has failed following an appeal to the Spanish Supreme Tribunal. According to the latest media report the appeal succeeded as the Tribunal declined jurisdiction on the basis that the national law of the accused is insufficient to attach criminality to an act committed on a territory where it was not classified as a crime.

The case highlights the current underdevelopment of the legal bases required for the establishment of transnational criminal accountability of individuals in respect of illegal and unregulated fishing activities. It also suggests administrative and economic routes to be more resilient and expedient policy choices at the present time, pending further international work regarding the assignation of criminality to illegal fishing activities.

The criminal case was separate to the administrative proceedings commenced by the Spanish Fisheries Secretariat earlier this year, which ended in the imposition of several fines and suspensions. Mercedes blogged about this in March.

Transnational crime is definitely an area that needs research and juridical development, I feel a bit sorry for the Spanish prosecutors that had to see the binning of their case. Furthermore, the case creates a worrisome instance of jurisprudence, that can be exploited by other fisheries syndicates.

WTO members engage on new fisheries subsidies proposals

Members engaged in detailed discussions on three new proposals aimed at achieving an outcome on fisheries subsidies at the WTO’s upcoming Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017. The proposals from the European Union, the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of members, and six Latin American members — Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Uruguay — all seek to achieve the 2020 targets set out in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

image from http://www.nereusprogram.org/

SDG 14.6 calls for prohibiting certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, eliminating subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and refraining from introducing new such subsidies, by 2020. Goal 14.6 also recognizes that appropriate and effective special and differential (S&D) treatment for developing and least developed members should be an integral part of the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations.

The three proposals presented at the 9 December meeting of the Negotiating Group on Rules (NGR) all share the same objectives:

• achieving the goals set out in SDG 14.6
• ensuring effective disciplines while also providing special and differential treatment for developing and least developed country (LDC) members
• securing an outcome at the Eleventh Ministerial Conference (MC11) in Buenos Aires. 

In addition, the proponents call for the negotiations to proceed on a stand-alone basis, i.e. there should be no linkage with other issues being discussed as part of the rules negotiations.

The proposal, which was first introduced at the previous NGR meeting on 11 November, seeks to prohibit subsidies linked to overcapacity (including those used to increase the capacity of, or support the construction of, fishing vessels) and to IUU fishing, provides special and differential treatment for developing members and LDCs, and highlights the importance of members notifying all kind of subsidies that support, directly or indirectly, marine fishing activity.

The ACP proposal primarily targets subsidies provided to large scale commercial or industrial fishing and subsidies to fishing activities outside of members' maritime jurisdictions. The proposal would impose a ban on all IUU subsidies and all subsidies granted to fishing vessels or fishing activity negatively affecting fish stocks that are in an overfished condition; flexibilities would be included allowing developing members with small scale fishing sectors to increase their capacity to fish.

The joint proposal from Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Uruguay advocates using a flexible approach to the application of disciplines by developing members and LDCs, inspired by that adopted in the Trade Facilitation Agreement. In particular, under the proposal these countries could apply transition periods (to be defined through negotiations) for implementing the specific disciplines to be established, in some cases subject to the receipt of technical assistance and support for capacity building.

Summing up the discussions, Ambassador Wayne McCook of Jamaica, the chair of the NGR, noted commonalities in the proposals, in particular their reliance on SDG 14.6.  It is clear that members will need to look at the impact of certain subsidies that contribute to overfishing and to overcapacity of fishing fleets, as well as how to address IUU fishing, he said.  Members have been working on these issues for more than a decade, so any solution will require new creativity, which he said was perhaps being seen in some of the proposals now being put forward.

Plurilateral negotiations on fisheries subsidies

Canada told members that a group of members participating in a plurilateral initiative on fisheries subsidies were planning to hold their first substantive meeting early next year and that any member wishing to take part in the initiative could join in. So far, 16 members have signaled their interest, Canada said.

Next meeting

The next dedicated session on fisheries subsidies is tentatively scheduled to take place on 24 January 2017.

source https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news16_e/fish_09dec16_e.htm

Some details on the U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Program

Last week I posted on the "new" U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Program, and lamented that as the EU at the time, they put they coins in a unilateral CDS, instead of using their market strength to set up a multilateral one, (after all in between both they have the have at least 2/3 of the import trade... corral Japan and China into it, and the picture is complete. But yeah... truly international concerted action is always dreamland stuff unfortunately.

Who's your importer?

In any case here are some of the details:

As I presumed they kind of follow the model set originally up by the Seafood HACCP rule that kicked in around 1998, the responsibility is in the importer.  In most countries, importers must be registered for customs and tax purposes, hence these are identified and can be registered, licensed and "audited" by the authorities against defined responsibilities. That didn't work particularly well initially with the HACCP rule, but been refined since then

Those responsibilities over importers got bigger with the Bioterrorism Act 2002 and then the US Food Safety Modernization Act 2014, that includes specific provisions for a Voluntary Qualified Importer Program, Import Certifications for Food and Prior Notice of Food Shipments among others. Hence there is a solid base to add fisheries requirements on top. On a positive note, from scratch via the US Presidential Task Force, got the fisheries authority (NOAA) and Food Safety (FDA) under the same page, always a smart move as many of the traceability requirements are similar.

The information to be collected and is to be available by the importer at the moment of reception is the ABC of any basic (but well designed) CDS, namely: 

Harvesting or Producing Entity

• Name and flag state of harvesting vessel(s)
• Evidence of authorization to fish (permit or license number)
• Unique vessel identifier (when available)
• Type(s) of fishing gear.

Note: The fishing area and type of fishing gear should be specified per the reporting convention and codes used by the competent authority exercising jurisdiction over the wild capture operation. If no such reporting requirements exist, FAO fishing areas and gear codes should be used.

Fish – What, when and where?

• Species of fish—Scientific/Acceptable market name (ASFIS three-alpha code)
• Harvest date(s)
• Product form(s) at time of landing - including quantity and weight of product
• Area(s) of wild-capture or aquaculture harvest
• Point(s) of first landing
• Name of entity(ies) to which the fish was landed or delivered

Note: In cases where entries and products comprise more than one harvest event, each event that is relevant to a shipment must be reported but the importer does not need to link each event to a particular fish or portion of the shipment.

Importer of Record

• Name, affiliation and contact information
• NOAA Fisheries issued international fisheries trade permit (IFTP) number.
• Importer of record is responsible for keeping records regarding the chain of custody detailed above.
• Information on any transshipment of product (declarations by harvesting/carrier vessels, bills of lading)
• Records on processing, re-processing, and commingling of product.

As I mention las week, the collection of catch and landing documentation for these the seafood species will be done through the International Trade Data System (ITDS), the U.S. government’s single data portal for all import and export reporting.

I think that in the Pacific (all tunas are in) we are ripe to set up a "multilateral CDS" that even if does not incorporate all the "end-markets", it can provide the requested set of data to the ITDS in centralised way. Otherwise we need to rely on individual exporters, which may be cheaper, but information has a massive value for decision making in the fishery. Furthermore is not yet clear for me how the importer knows that the information provided is true?  As I said, the most common sense solution is a multilateral CDS that can communicate with the ITDS, where the information is "real"

US FINAL RULE TO IMPLEMENT A SEAFOOD IMPORT MONITORING PROGRAM

On December 8, 2016, NOAA Fisheries released the final rule establishing the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP).  The Program establishes, for imports of certain seafood products, the reporting and recordkeeping requirements needed to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)-caught and/or misrepresented seafood from entering U.S. commerce, thereby providing additional protections for our national economy, global food security and the sustainability of our shared ocean resources.

prove me right

This is the first-phase of a risk-based traceability program—requiring the importer of record to provide and report key data—from the point of harvest to the point of entry into U.S. commerce—on an initial list of imported fish and fish products identified as particularly vulnerable to IUU fishing and/or seafood fraud.  

Overview of the Final Rule 

The final rule reflects the efforts to establish an effective program that minimizes the burden of compliance on industry while providing the necessary information to identify illegal and/or misrepresented seafood imports before they enter the U.S. market.

The Seafood Import Monitoring Program establishes permitting, data reporting and recordkeeping requirements for the importation of certain priority fish and fish products that have been identified as being particularly vulnerable to IUU fishing and/or seafood fraud.

The data collected will allow these priority species of seafood to be traced from the point of entry into U.S. commerce back to the point of harvest or production to verify whether it was lawfully harvested or produced.

The collection of catch and landing documentation for these priority seafood species will be accomplished through the International Trade Data System (ITDS), the U.S. government’s single data portal for all import and export reporting.  

The Seafood Import Monitoring Program is not a labeling program, nor is it consumer facing. In keeping with the Magnuson-Stevens Act authority (under which the regulatory program has been promulgated) and the strict information security of the ITDS--the information collected under this program is confidential.

The importer of record will be required to keep records regarding the chain of custody of the fish or fish product from harvest to point of entry into U.S. 

List of Priority Seafood Species
Abalone *                     
Atlantic Cod                 
Blue Crab (Atlantic)       
Dolphinfish (Mahi Mahi)
Grouper                                   
King Crab (red)             
Pacific Cod                    
Red Snapper
Sea Cucumber
Sharks
Shrimp *
Swordfish
Tunas: Albacore, Bigeye, Skipjack, Yellowfin, and Bluefin

Implementation

January 1, 2018 is the mandatory compliance date for most priority species listed in the rule, with *shrimp and abalone compliance phased in at a later date. The effective date of this rule for all imported shrimp and abalone products – wild capture and aquaculture-raised - will be stayed until commensurate reporting and/or recordkeeping requirements have been established for domestic aquaculture-raised shrimp and abalone production.  

Just by reading this one see that the US has gone in a complete different path that the EU system, hence in principle we will have two masters asking for different things and saying “I don't care about the other one”, as we had when the market access requirements from the sanitary perspective were put in place.  I see this as an opportunity to strengthen the efforts towards a comprehensive eCDS, where the data streams are compiled and the full set of movements and transformation from a legal capture to final products are incorporated, then how you present this information to the final market becomes an "end function" and not a process driver.

sources: here

A new Market Access requirement by the US

Under the Fish and Fish Product Import Provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, exporters of fish and fish products to the United States must now follow the same protective rules for marine mammal bycatch as domestic fishing operations, even if they dont have the same issues.

Marine mammals interacting with a fisherman and his kids :-)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a final rule that, effective 1 January 2017, will revise its regulations to implement the import provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. NOAA states that under this rule U.S. trading partners will need to show that killing or injuring marine mammals incidental to fishing activities (bycatch) in their export fisheries do not exceed U.S. standards. There will be an initial five-year exemption period to give nations time to assess their marine mammal stocks and estimate and lower their bycatch.

Among other things, this rule establishes procedures and conditions for evaluating a harvesting nation’s regulatory programme addressing marine mammal incidental mortality and serious injury in fisheries that export fish and fish products to the United States to determine if it is comparable in effectiveness to the U.S. regulatory programme (even if it uses different mechanisms).

Harvesting nations will be required to apply for and receive, every four years (after the initial five-year exemption period), a comparability finding for each fishery identified by NOAA in the List of Foreign Fisheries to export fish and fish products to the United States. Notably, imports of fish and fish products from fisheries that do not receive a comparability finding or have had a previous finding terminated will be banned.

Any such import prohibition will become effective 30 days after publication of a notice in the Federal Register announcing the comparability finding and will only apply to fish and fish products caught or harvested in that fishery.

NOAA, in consultation with the U.S. Department of State and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, will consult with harvesting nations that fail to receive a comparability finding for a fishery, provide the reasons for the denial, and encourage the harvesting nation to take corrective action and reapply for a comparability finding. A harvesting nation may, at any time, reapply for or request the reconsideration of a denied comparability finding for a fishery and submit documentary evidence in support of such application or request.

Harvesting nations will have to follow certain procedures and meet certain conditions to receive a comparability finding. For export fisheries operating within a harvesting nation’s exclusive economic zone or the territorial waters of that nation, the conditions include:

• marine mammal stock assessments that estimate population abundance for marine mammal stocks in waters under its jurisdiction that are incidentally killed or seriously injured in the export fishery;
• an export fishery register containing a list of all vessels participating in the export fishery under the jurisdiction of the harvesting nation, including the number of vessels participating and information on gear type, target species, fishing season and fishing area;
• various regulatory requirements (e.g., including copies of relevant laws, decrees and implementing regulations or measures);
• implementation of monitoring procedures in export fisheries designed to estimate incidental mortality and serious injury of marine mammals in each export fishery under its jurisdiction, as well as estimates of cumulative incidental mortality and serious injury for marine mammal stocks in waters under its jurisdiction that are incidentally killed or seriously injured in the export fishery and other export fisheries with the same marine mammal stock, including an indication of the statistical reliability of those estimates;
• calculation of bycatch limits for marine mammal stocks in waters under its jurisdiction that are incidentally killed or seriously injured in an export fishery; and
• comparison of the incidental mortality and serious injury of each marine mammal stock or stocks that interact with the export fishery in relation to the bycatch limit for each stock, as well as comparison of the cumulative incidental mortality and serious injury of each marine mammal stock or stocks that interact with the export fishery and any other export fisheries of the harvesting nation showing that these export fisheries
  • (i) do not exceed the bycatch limit for that stock or stocks, or
  • (ii) exceed the bycatch limit for that stock or stocks but the portion of incidental marine mammal mortality or serious injury for which the exporting fishery is responsible is at a level that, if the other export fisheries interacting with the same marine mammal stock or stocks were at the same level, would not result in cumulative incidental mortality and serious injury in excess of the bycatch limit for that stock or stocks.

For export fisheries operating within the jurisdiction of another state, the conditions include:

• with respect to any transboundary stock interacting with the export fishery, any measures to reduce the incidental mortality and serious injury of that stock that the United States requires its domestic fisheries to take with respect to that transboundary stock; and
• with respect to any other marine mammal stocks interacting with the export fishery while operating within the jurisdiction of the state, any measures to reduce incidental mortality and serious injury that the United States requires its domestic fisheries to take with respect to that marine mammal stock.

The rule allows NOAA to consider, during the initial five-year exemption period, an emergency ban on imports of fish and fish products from an export or exempt fishery that are having or are likely to have an immediate and significant adverse impact on a marine mammal stock. In addition, it establishes provisions for intermediary nations to ensure that they do not import and re-export to the United States fish or fish products subject to an import prohibition.

Now, how small development coastal states whose fisheries have very limited interaction with marine mammals would be able to prove all this while doing all the other thinkgs they are expected to do, is the eternal dilemma of fisheries development.  All this comes as another addition to their burden of having to prove themselves innocent of problems that they didn't create.

have no issues with protecting marine mammals, yet I’ll like to see trade measures to countries that support inequality, withholding drugs for communicable diseases based on IP, war (just search Aleppo war and images in Google), and so on. Equally important areas if you wish, were the same high moral ground consumers are bystanders.

Sources: here, here

World Tuna Day announced by UN

The United Nations General Assembly has voted today to make May 2nd World Tuna Day.

is more than just a fish... is life for the pacific islands. (Pic by my brother Hugh Walton)

The Parties to the Nauru Agreement have been pushing to establish an internationally recognised event for the past five years.  The United Nations General Assembly voted without objection to ratify a resolution on World Tuna Day that had been endorsed by nearly 100 nations prior to today’s vote at UN headquarters in New York City. Ambassadors from PNA nations attended the vote.

Tuna is a primary source of revenue for Pacific Island governments and is a key part of food security in the region and World Tuna Day helps strengthen the voice of Pacific nations striving to ensure their succeses and challenges are part of the global tuna conversation.

As the resource owners of the regions multi-billion-dollar fishery, it is clearly important that Pacific knowledge, progress and experiences must lead the global tuna conversations. And tuna is keeping the Pacific working, with jobs in the fisheries sector rising from 10,500 in 2010 to an estimated 19,000 in the present.  Added to that, while just under 20% of the tuna catch in the Pacific EEZs is caught by domestic fleets, that is still a rising trend, on top of another area of increase-- the amount of the catch being processed on shore, where the majority of the jobs are filled by women.

A range of factors lead to these upward trends, amongst them an ability to implement at national level the results of regional agreements and actions for fisheries licensing, compliance, and monitoring policies, and management measures 

Our challenge in the region is to continue this growth, including extending it to a broader range of the membership and to all fisheries.  The success of the PNA members in leveraging huge returns from the purse seine fishery is our collective inspiration for also reforming and benefiting more from long lining for example.  

And of course, fisheries are not all rosy.  The Pacific faces numerous and substantial challenges including the overfished status of bigeye tuna, marginal economic status of albacore and concerted attacks on pacific islands sovereign rights from distant water fishing nations.  

A Skipper of Interest (SoI) is better that Vessels of Interest (VoI).

Usually when driving a car and you get an infraction, is you the one that get the fine, not the car. The more fines you have the bigger the fines, in fact it will lead to your driver’s license being removed for even longer period of time. So why we focus on the boat in the fisheries equivalent, is the skipper that is responsible for what the boat and crew does.

You are of interest.

So I’m quite pleased that the pacific nations are initiating a watch list of vessel masters linked to the WCPFC IUU vessel blacklist. The move to strengthen tracking of IUU fishing vessels with another layer of information listing vessel masters, is hoping to gain traction amongst Tuna Commission members. 

 "At the moment we blacklist boats that have been caught illegally fishing, but as we all know, it is the people on board that are actually doing the wrong thing.  The Persons of Interest (POI) watch list will help detect vessel masters slipping through the current IUU vessel blacklist and going on to lead rogue fishing from another vessel", says FFA DG James Movick. 

FFA members first raised the idea of Persons of Interest being added to the Vessels of Interest lists at the WCPFC Technical and Compliance session this year. Their concerns over compliance by vessel crew at the centre of actual IUU activity, rather than the vessel used to carry it out, are behind the new concept.

 “FFA members have been strongly supportive of the WCPFC IUU blacklist, and the ability to identify vessels that have operated illegally and hold them to account, but we recognise a more important body of work is being able to identify the individuals who drive those vessels, and are interested in putting a far greater emphasis the master and owner,” says Movick. 

Members are looking to deal with this in two ways- by increasing the WCPFC measure to include information about the name and nationality of the master on the IUU blacklist; “and to run some internal work amongst ourselves to increase the level of information we have on the FFA Vessel Register, so we have specific details on the master of each vessel.”

Tracking performance of individuals in charge of vessels will not just focus on IUU, but help ensure countries refine the approach for prioritising dealings with compliant vessels, so that both ends of the compliance spectrum are covered, says DG Movick.

 “Obviously, our members want that information to help them make licensing decisions, especially when it comes to licensing one vessel over another,” he says.   The new persons of interest data layer will build on the current FFA database feeding the FFA Regional Surveillance Picture, or RSP. 

 “The regional surveillance picture provides a rich layer of information tracking location, activity and vessels including their license information, compliance rating and previous boardings,” says Movick, “soon, this will be yet another piece of information that FFA members will have at their disposal.” 

FFA members have already advised the WCPFC plenary of work underway on the issue, and welcomed advice from any Commission members doing similar work. 

They’ve asked the Commission Secretariat, where available, to include names of vessel masters on the WCPFC IUU Vessel list

The FFA press release is here: http://www.ffa.int/node/1861 

Fisheries Observer Safety Measure is finally agreed at WCPFC13

This has been (unfortunately) a long fight, after 5 fisheries observer deaths in the last 6 years, a very disputed CMM (like a law) on the safety of observers while on board was finally accepted today at WCPFC meeting

United they stand...  ©FFA

Fisheries Observers are the frontline of management and compliance evaluation in the pacific fishery, and their safety is paramount. Read for your self if anything is beyond the minimum anyone at sea will expect. 

Nevertheless, there was fierce opposition by Japan based on tenuous (allegedly unsubstantiated legal arguments), China (who wanted psychological and medical reports – something they don't ask from their own crew) and similar pathetic arguments by Taiwan and Korea… the usual DWFN suspects .

In an unprecedented move the Pacific nations took a stand for the 'invisible' frontline of human observers watching over fisheries practice in our oceanic fisheries. WCPFC Chair Rhea Moss-Christian confirmed a vote on a proposed Observer Safety CMM tabled by the US, after it stalled in plenary without reaching consensus, due to domestic legislation reasons given by Japan. 

However, Commission Observers WWF and the FFA bloc of all Pacific members at the Commission made it clear the time for waiting was over. "There is not another way forward," said FFA's Wez Norris before the Chair's decision to hold the vote starting 6.10pm Fiji-time. "The discussions have been had, the works been done, the drafting's been drafted." The strong condemnation from all Pacific members and call for a vote has put the Commission in no doubt that when it comes to the safety of nearly 300 Pacific Observers watching over our tuna fishery, human life can't wait.

It would have been the 2nd time the commission would have gone to a vote in their history. But at the end Japan conceded and consensus prevailed.

Bubba takes a stand...  ©FFA

My colleague Bubba Cook from WWF has been a big supporter of the observer’s measure (he already supported the distribution of a safety 2 way communication device for the e-observer app, so we get the reports on real-time, as well as any emergencies on board). "We've heard a lot about 'domestic restraints' this week.” He said… “Prove it, make evidence available. Provide facts, show us the laws. Don't make blind assertions, it wastes the time of everyone here”

"I am sorry for being angry -- but this is about people”, he said... and I agree totally… it is about people.

So may times I said, that I don't work with fish, I work with the people that work with fish. Nothing is going to change if don’t address the people factor first. 

A maori proverb says it clearly:
He aha te mea nui o te ao (What is the most important thing in the world?) 
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata (It is the people, it is the people, it is the people)

Anyone that has spend time in the Pacific knows that.

I wrote about an observer lost at sea here, one of the hardest days in my life.

FFA block cites 'management failure' of WCPFC

Pacific Islands members have pulled no punches on the critical state of Bluefin Tuna stocks in the Northern part of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean fishery, citing lack of progress from the Commissions Northern Committee as  "nothing short of a management failure".  

2016 stock assessments for Pacific Bluefin tuna confirm continued low stock levels, with the spawning stock biomass now at a perilously low level of 2.6% of unfished levels. In response, the Northern Committee at its September meeting in Japan(link is external) had recommended taking up a harvest strategy and catch limits- but not to be negotiated until next year.

There was a resounding rejection from the FFA bloc of the Northern Committee's hopeful projections and 'business as usual' scenario as their agenda item came up at the morning plenary marking the mid-way point of the annual Commission meeting. FFA members say the Northern Committee is not fulfilling its mandate, and raised their voices with enough momentum to force the Committee to reconvene at WCPFC13 and offer a solution to calm frustrations.

"The failure of the Northern Committee to sustainably manage the very stock they were set up to protect is quite frankly, bringing the whole of the WCPFC into disrepute," says FFA Director General James Movick. "FFA member countries have no role in that fishery, and its management has deliberately been kept separate - and we are now facing the consequences of international scorn for failing to manage the Bluefin fishery."

While any Commission decisions on this stock must be based on recommendations from the Northern Committee, some FFA members have gone so far as to imply that they will take the Bluefin decision to the Commission’s first ever vote if they have to. 

He says the strong responses from FFA members in plenary at the deferred approach from the Northern Committee mirrored "strong frustrations from members that this decision making process from Northern Committee to Commission means we have a Convention which gives particular protection to the culture of inaction."

"The Northern Committee has failed to develop meaningful management recommendations and as a Commission, we failed to hold the Northern Committee to the same standards that are adopted for the other stocks we manage, and we have got to do better," FFA members told the Commission plenary. 

Other fisheries stocks around the world have been slapped with commercial fisheries bans to bring them back from similar low levels. While the current management measure for Pacific Bluefin 2015-04 includes a requirement to develop emergency rules in in the event of a recruitment failure, the Northern Committee has failed to do so. 

"Commission members from all sides, and the Northern Committee in particular, have been warned in no uncertain language, that Pacific nations haven't fished Bluefin because there is no Bluefin to fish. Saying it’s just too hard to address that challenge is simply not an option,” says Movick

Source here

Solid opening from the Solomon Islands at the WCPFC13

You all know I'm very partial to the Solomon Islands, is like a 2nd home to me, and the Tuna town of Noro exemplify what I believe fisheries should be in the Pacific. So I was very proud to read the transcript of the stern opening address that my colleague Ferral Lasi, Undersecretary (Technical) to the Ministry of Fisheries delivered today at the opening of the WCPFC. I quote it below:

Don't disappoint the fish owners WCPFC13

Solomon Islands would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the Chair and WCPFC Secretariat who have so ably directed the work of the Commission over the last 12 months. We recognise that this is a very challenging task due to the sheer size of the Commission and the different interest of members.

We also would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere appreciation and thanks to the government of Fiji as host for WCPFC 13 in terms of background preparatory work, organizing, and arranging for the meeting to be held in this magnificent venue. The hospitality that we have received since our arrival here in Fiji has been very warm and friendly.

Madam Chair, we note the long list of agenda items that is before us. Some of the critical issues on the agenda need decisive action to be taken during this Commission meeting.

The Solomon Islands believes that the Commission needs to be take strong action on the following critical issues:

1. Radical management initiatives are needed to address the severely overfished Northern Bluefin tuna fishery. The current status of this stock is an embarrassment to this Commission and an indictment on the Northern Committee.
2. A new CMM to give greater protection to the health and safety of our observers is urgently needed. The Solomon Islands is very concerned at the unmanaged risks being faced by observers.
3. Progress needs to be made on the development of Harvest Strategies for all tuna species. Solomon Islands places a high priority for the development of Harvest Strategies for Skipjack Tuna and Southern Albacore tuna. Agreement on a target reference point for Southern Albacore and risk levels for all tuna species at this years meeting would signal real progress. 
4. Solomon Island sees the need to progress the reform of the Compliance Management Scheme (CMS) as absolutely critical.  We believe the existing CMS is not as effective or efficient as it could be and most importantly we believe that it is unfair to SIDS.  
5. An agreement on the process to develop bridging CMMs for both the Tropical Tunas and Southern Albacore will be critical the future success of the Commission. 

Madam Chair the Solomon Islands is committed to constructively working with all members to achieve outcomes on these critical issues and on other agenda items.

Solomon Islands re-affirms its commitment to the Commission to ensuring long term sustainability of highly migratory species through the effective implementation of WCPFC CMMs.

In-line with this commitment and as part of the PNA plus Tokelau initiative we would like to inform the Commission that we are implementing the long-line VDS in our national waters as of 1st Jan 2017. Key components of the long-line VDS are e- reporting and e-monitoring. We are confident that these developments will not only enhance compliance monitoring and data quality for science but also improve long-line fishery management as a whole.

The Solomon Islands looks forward to the day when the Commission implements compatible long-line measures for the High Seas.

Finally Madam Chair I wish you every success as you guide us all through this very challenging Commission meeting.

Thankyou and God bless.

PNA put its cards at the WCPFC 13 table

As part of the FFA members states, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) met also in Nadi to finalize their own strategy for the 13th WCPFC annual meeting that opens Monday 5 December in Denarau, Fiji.

Charlin from the Solomons (part of PNA), does her bit to control the Longliners

PNA will reiterate its call on the WCPFC to exercise management on the high seas over both longline and purse seine vessels as part of PNA’s push to see the Commission adopt a “harvest control strategy” for tuna and a bridging measure to extend and improve an existing Tropical Tuna Conservation Management Measure that expires at the end of 2017.

There are numerous areas in which the eight PNA members and Tokelau will be engaging with members of the WCPFC. PNA's strategy at the WCPFC is based on the resource rights owners taking control of their fishery to benefit economically and conserve it by ensuring sustainable practices, and pushing the WCPFC to bring the high seas fishery under similar control and sustainable management, and while fishing in PNA 200-mile exclusive economic zones is now well-regulated and controlled, the same cannot be said of high seas fishing.

“The longline fishery in our region is out of control,” said Mr. Kumoru (PNA's Boss). Catch volumes are under-reported and there is little verification by independent observers, in part because of high seas transshipment of tuna. “All this adds up to a poorly managed fishery that needs to be addressed by the WCPFC,” he said. “PNA has pushed in the past, and will continue to lobby for a ban on high seas transshipment of frozen bigeye and increasing over time fisheries observer coverage on longline vessels to 20 percent.”

PNA officials agree it is obvious from recent fishing trends on the high seas that flag state controls are not working. The WCPFC needs to adopt a “hard limit” on the number of fishing days for purse seiners on the high seas. Meanwhile, PNA has already begun rolling out a vessel day scheme (VDS) for the longline industry that is similar to its successful VDS that governs the purse seine fishery.

Other key points for PNA include:

The ongoing non-compliance of several distant water fishing nations with WCPFC requirements for providing operational catch data. Although all island members of the WCPFC provide catch data as required, several distant water fishing nations continue to violate these Commission requirements. The lack of data is serious management gap and is a critical problem for scientists evaluating the status of tuna stocks in the region.“The aim is to reduce the burden of data provision by small islands, while getting distant water fishing nations to comply with the rules of membership".

PNA will not agree to adding an additional month to the existing three-month fish aggregating device (FAD) moratorium for in-zone fishing because this will cause a disproportionate burden on a number of small islands whose fisheries revenue depends on FAD fishing.

PNA will not accept “capacity limits” on fishing vessels, which PNA views as an attempt by distant water fishing nations to limit island ownership of vessels and greater participation in the fishery.

They play hard, and good on them!

Getting ready for 13th session of the WCPFC

This is a busy time for the Pacific fisheries administrators, as they gear up in meetings going through a long list of proposals at their final round of preparatory sessions in Nadi this week before they meet with the big fishing nations on December 5th for the 13th Session of the WCPFC.

Meetings... 

My friends in FFA work quite hard to try to find common approaches among its members, to put on the table proposals for CMM (Conservation and Management Measures) that should become "law" among their members. So the Officials from the 17 member nations are spending this week working through the detail and discussing strategic engagement on each proposed measure they have tabled.

Accordingly to FFA's inside news, WCPFC 13 will look at a substantive list including those from the Pacific focused around improving ways to roll out a Harvest Strategy Approach aimed at better management measures covering regional tuna stocks - Bigeye, Yellowfin, Albacore and Skipjack. Fisheries Officials from the 17 member nations of the Forum Fisheries Agency are spending this week working through the detail and discussing strategic engagement on each proposed measure they have tabled.

 While FFA members are firmly committed to the Harvest Strategy Approach, they are fully aware that comprehensive harvest strategies for all the key tuna species will take a number of years. So FFA members are turning their minds to putting in place strong interim arrangements for tropical tuna stocks as well as albacore that will stay in place until full harvest strategies are complete. One of their key focuses has been preparing for the development of new Tropical Tuna measure to replace the existing measure that expires at the end of 2017.

Observer safety proposed as a CMM by the US at WCPFC12, has also been highlighted as a key concern for the FFA bloc, who gave the issue of the safety and welfare of Fisheries Observers high priority during their July Ministerial in Vanuatu. All of the observers in the pacific are locals, hence is a simple message "these are our people and they must be afforded safe and harmonious working conditions".  The US drafted a CMM on Observer Safety that is tabled, but Pacific nations have a number of outstanding issues and concerns.  So they will have to work with others to support adoption at the Commission table.”

Proposals from the 17-country FFA bloc to the WCPFC13 cover:

Target Reference Point for South Pacific Albacore- Establishment of a Target Reference Point for the stock to provide an agreed target for the management of the fishery. Citing the SPC science showing that continued current fishing levels will result in further decline of the stock, FFA members say reductions in catch and effort are necessary to ensure a healthy stock and profitable albacore fishery. Another proposal by FFA members seeks to separate South Pacific Albacore from the proposed new Tropical Tuna CMM and create a standalone albacore CMM that limits the total catch of albacore.

Rules for High Seas areas –Backed up by the findings of the Pacific IUU report, FFA members are back with revisions to a proposal tabled at WCPFC12 seeking better fisheries management for the six High Seas areas in the WCPO. Fisheries management on the high seas of the WCPFC is one of the highest responsibilities of the Commission, as per article 8.4 of its founding convention. The proposed High Seas Areas CMM aims to strengthen the management of the Longline fishery and complement the rules for purse seine vessels covering transshipment at sea, and the PNA licensing condition preventing licensed vessels from fishing in the two western high seas pockets.

 Harvest Strategy Levels of risk (interim) FFA members propose this measure to provide a ‘starting point’ for the acceptable levels of risk of breaching limit reference points for yellowfin, skipjack, and south Pacific albacore. It’s a highly technical element of the harvest strategy approach, but is necessary to guide further work on the Harvest Strategy Workplan adopted by the WCPFC last year, and is aimed at helping Commission members decide how it will design harvest control rules and set target reference points.

Enhanced Port-based Monitoring, Control and Surveillance: FFA members are building on their 2015 proposal and flagging a revised version seeking enhanced port based MCS Initiatives to assist with procedures and capacity of Pacific nations to meet their obligations as Port States. The proposal also targets IUU- hoping to nab fish traceability and documentation gaps aboard licensed vessels dodging the rules for reporting.

As my colleague James Movick (FFA's boss) said: “There is little doubt among the Pacific nations that getting any proposal over the line involves focused, strategic engagement with an ability to recognise opportunities and read shifting positions. This is the annual negotiation meeting upon which the future of the pacific Tuna fishery rests, and FFA members remain committed to ensuring meaningful outcomes. Achieving that remains a major challenge.”

I salute all my friends and colleagues at the sessions, I truly support and admire their efforts for the "full on" next couple of weeks they have.

Kia kaha! (Maori for "Be Strong " in the meaning of offering encouragement to succeed when troubled)

How to find a Fishing Vessel anywhere in the world (as long as it has its IAS on)

In September I wrote about the public beta version of Global Fishing Watch (GFW) that is available to anyone with an Internet connection and allows users to monitor when and where commercial “apparent fishing activity" is occurring around the world.

They added a feature that may help some people doing intelligence analysis. If you now the name or identity of a specific vessel you would like to find, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to find it.

Is important to understand that AIS is not a specific Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), that is a general term to describe systems that are used in commercial fishing to allow environmental and fisheries regulatory organizations to track and monitor the activities of fishing vessels.

GFW uses data about a vessel’s identity, type, location, speed, direction and more that is broadcast using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and collected via satellites and terrestrial receivers. But the AIS unit can be switch off anytime...

AIS was developed for safety/collision-avoidance. It is a maritime navigation safety communications system standardized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that provides vessel information, including the vessel’s identity, type, position, course, speed, navigational status and other safety-related information automatically to appropriately equipped shore stations, other ships and aircraft; automatically receives such information from similarly fitted ships; monitors and tracks ships; and exchanges data with shore-based facilities.

AIS use for fisheries compliance and MCS is argued quite substantially, it can be useful in my opinion as backup system when VMS fail (until vessels come to port) of when operating in the High Seas. And while AIS is not as fisheries specific as VMS, the fact that one can individualise a vessel anywhere in the world, can only be good!

Furthermore one can "visualize" the "fishing effort", anywhere in the world is truly remarkable, and brings home the incredible amount of Chinese and Taiwanese vessels that they are fishing in the Pacific. 

Stock Assessment and harvest strategies explained in a simple way (2)

I was truly encouraged by the number of visits to the Stock Assessment and Harvest Strategies explained in a simple way (Part 1) blog post of Dr. Ian Knuckey very didactic videos.  So here is the final lot of 6 videos.

The stock assessment and harvest strategy determination is key for sustainability, and is no way that the assumptions are going to be right, without the full collaboration and the insider's knowledge of industry. I wish that this message was understood by many more (particularly the DWFN). But we will get there either by reason... or force

Enjoy.

Catch Per Unit / Effort

Collecting Fisheries Data

The Black Box

Opening the Black Box

Harvest Strategies

Fisheries Economics

Stock Assessment and harvest strategies explained in a simple way (1)

Part of the idea behind this blog was to provide information on different aspects of fisheries since it involves so many areas from social sciences to engineering, via economics and enforcement just to name a few! But one of the more "obscure" areas to make accessible is Fisheries Biology and Stock Assessment... which are key ingredients in the complex recipe of Fisheries Management.

I have never actually met Ian Knuckey, even if we have a lot of acquaintances and colleges in common and have done work for the same organizations, so when I came across his excellent series of 12 videos explaining some aspects of the biology and population dynamics of fish, fisheries data, fisheries stock assessments, harvest strategies and fisheries economics. I contacted him to ask him if I could post about them, to which he kindly agreed.

I liked the videos a lot and watched them with my science-savvy kids (11 and 14) so I relate totally to the introduction the 1st fisherman does. Ian and the production team manages to get rather obscure concepts into plain language, without loosing accuracy, and that is awesome. Furthermore, the fact that he uses real-life examples and local fisherman (from Australia- hence the accents are a bonus!), add to the "right to the point" feeling of the "lessons."

The length of the videos (all below 10') is also about right, to keep your attention focused/

If you ask me, this is the way to fight for sustainability in fisheries, don't come with paternalistic approaches, explain things in a way people can access it. I remember someone saying: "there are no complex subjects, there are complex explanations" so if we get to make explanations simple... we'll get there.

I present the 1st 6 today and the next 6 later on. Enjoy...

Meet the Fisherman

Schools of Fish - What is a stock?

Recruitment

Age and Growth

Mortality

Selectivity