World Tuna Day from a professional and personal perspective / May 2, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

World Tuna Day is observed globally on 2nd May every year; it was officially proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) by adopting resolution 71/124 in December 2016. It aimed to spotlight the importance of conservation management and ensure that a system is required to prevent tuna stocks from becoming unsustainably fished.

Radio NZ asked me to wrote about it for its Pacific Service, and that inspired me to make a more personal account for this blog

Me and the fish that gave me a better and more meaningful life

And well deserved day it is for tuna, a substantial number of nations worldwide depend upon tuna for both food security and nutrition. At the same time, more than 96 countries have tuna fisheries, and their capacity is constantly growing.

For some areas of the world, the tuna situation is worst than for others, while acknowledging that I will focus on the one I have been working for over 30 years, mainly in the area of the world where the importance of tuna is better exemplified is exemplified; pacific islands in the western and central Pacific region, the source of over 30% of the world tuna catches.

The sustainability and economic performance of the tuna resource for the pacific islands is a good story in fisheries, a key area of food production that doesn't promote many good stories.

For many years now, the Pacific Island nations have shown substantial leadership in coastal States rights and responsibilities. Our region has the strongest unions among coastal countries (countries responsible for the waters where the tuna is fished) that exist anywhere in the world. Exemplary institutions like the Pacific Islands Fisheries Forum Agency do not exist anywhere else, less along have been working for over 40 years supporting its 17 members around the critical areas of:

Compliance and surveillance; for example, anyone with a laptop and adequate access through the shared Vessels Monitoring System (VMS) we can see where each of the over 2500 vessels fishing in the Eastern Pacific is, what they are doing, their licences, their compliance history, the last port of entry, their electronic reporting, Solid registers like the FFA Regional Register of Fishing Vessels in good standing, (for those that are in compliance with the Harmonized Minimum Terms and Conditions for Access by Fishing Vessels - HMTCs) ), and so on, it also coordinates the 4 most extensive sea and aerials surveillance operations in the world every year, with the support of US, France and Australian assets to make sure all, vessels in the area are authorised (and is working for the last 5 years no illegal vessels has been found!)

Policy and management, The Pacific has been very supportive in terms of reference points, effort controls, fish aggregating device management, etc. The recent incorporation of standardised port State measures through the WCPFC Conservation and Management Measure and FFA port State measures regional framework is a further example of this vision and one I’ve been working substantially on.

But also in terms of who, how, when and where vessels can fish, the 17 countries share HMTCs for these wishing to fish in their waters, these conditions go from the size of the identification markings on the vessels via the fishing gear specification, the bycatch conditions, etc. And remarkably, this includes fishers labour rights, when they included a minimum set of requirements based on ILO’s Working in Fishing Convention (C188) as part of the requirements for the vessels to be allowed to fish in coastal State waters. This is momentous because from 1/1/2020, if a vessel does not uphold those labour rights and conditions as part of their licensing, then their right to fish can be removed, and the vessels would not be in good standing. This is the first time in the world that there is a direct link between labour standards and the right to fish being substantiated by a coalition of coastal States!

To add the these harmonised conditions, a subgroup of FFA members, the PNA countries, have created their supplementary conditions for purse seiners and recently longliners that include, among others, the Vessel Day Scheme (an effort management measure, where vessels pay for every day they gear is in the water, even if nothing is being caught), 100% observers coverage on Purse Seiners, a state of the art information management system, prohibition to tranship outside ports, and so on… these are some of the most exigent fisheries access conditions in the world.

Fisheries development, the maximisation of national returns of fisheries has been propriety for the regions and one that is working. The average value of the annual catch in FFA waters between 2016 and 2018 was $2.9 billion, 51% of the average value of WPCO annual catch of $5.7 billion.

The purse seine fishery contributed on average (2016-2018) just above 80% ($2.4 billion) of the total average (2016- 2018) catch value in the FFA EEZ. The average (2016-2018) value of the skipjack catch was 60% of the total value of the harvest; yellowfin, bigeye and albacore contributed 29%, 8% and 4% respectively.

Foreign fleets which once dominated the harvest sector in FFA EEZs, have seen their share of the value of the catch declined significantly in recent years. In 2010 the share of

the value of the catch taken in FFA member's water by their national fleets (that is, vessels flagged by or chartered to them) was 29% while in 2018 this share had increased to 48%

Source: Tuna Economic Indicators 2019 https://www.ffa.int/system/files/FFA%202019%20Tuna%20Economic%20Indicators%20Brochure%202019.pdf — Source: Tuna Economic Indicators 2019 https://www.ffa.int/system/files/FFA%202019%20Tuna%20Economic%20Indicators%20Brochure%202019.pdf

The value of access fees paid by foreign vessels to FFA members continue to increase over the recent years rising from around $114 million in 2009 to $554 million in 2018.

These license and access fee revenue make an important contribution to FFA member's government finances, representing 25% or more of government revenue (excluding grants) for six FFA members and as high as 85%.

Revenue from the purse seine fleet increased rapidly up to 2015 increase by an average 27% per annum between 2011 and 2015. Growth then slowed increasing by just 2% in 2016 and 4% in 2017 before rising 12% in 2018. This growth has been driven by the increase in the value of days under the PNA purse seine effort-based Vessel Day Scheme (VDS). Prior to 2011, the value of the day was generally less than $2000 but this increased rapidly following the introduction of a benchmark price that set an agreed minimum price.

This benchmark price was set at $5000 in 2011, increased to $6000 in 2014 and again increased to $8000 in 2015 where it currently stands. VDS days in 2018 sold in a range between $9,000 and $14,000/day.

Total employment related to tuna fisheries in FFA member countries for 2018 is estimated at around 22,350, an increase of 3% from the previous year. Since 2010, there has been consistent growth in employment numbers. The onshore processing sector makes the largest contribution to employment with about 65% of total employment related to tuna fisheries coming from this sector. Total employment in the onshore processing sector in 2018 was estimated at 14,497, an increase of 7% from the previous year. The harvest, observers and the public sector contribute around 25%, 4% and 7% of total employment respectively. The majority of those employed in the processing sector are employed in PNG, which accounts for about 60% of all processing works. Around 16% of processing employment is in the Solomon Islands, 15% in Fiji and 3% in the Marshall Islands. Among processing workers an estimated 10,800, or 75%, are women while an estimated 3,600 are male. Significant growth in employment was also observed in the public sector with numbers increasing to around 1,568, more than 60% higher than 5 years ago.

And all this has been achieved while maintaining the stock at sustainable levels as evaluated by arguably the best tuna and stock assessments scientist in the world, such as those based in the Oceanic Fisheries Programme of the Pacific Community headquarters in New Caledonia and confirmed by the peer review process. All four main WCPO tuna stocks (albacore, bigeye, skipjack and yellowfin) are deemed to be "biologically healthy" in that they are not overfished nor is overfishing occurring.

Source: The western and central Pacific tuna fishery: 2019 overview and status of stocks https://fame1.spc.int/en/component/content/article/251 — Source: *The western and central Pacific tuna fishery: 2019 overview and status of stocks* https://fame1.spc.int/en/component/content/article/251

This great 4 minute video explains how Tuna Governance works in the Western and Central Pacific… and surely because that our outcomes in terms of sustainability are different from other ocean basins

And this is not to say that is all perfect… the region has seen a changed perception of the stock provided by the 2019 assessment, discussions on the appropriate TRP value for skipjack tuna continue. The albacore stock is projected to decline further below its target reference point of 56% of unfished biomass if recent high catch levels continue into the future, significant concerns remain for us with regard to low catch rates in longline fisheries targeting albacore and the economic returns these fisheries generate. Therefore as 17 country blocks with sufficient muscle to operate at the international level we push for stronger conservation and management measures at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, the management body that brings together the coastal states and the Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFN)

And while substantial challenges remain (for example, increasing fishing effort and transhipment and labour issues in the HS – where the flag states have sole responsibility, the impact of "fishing effort creep" through new technologies like Fish Aggregation Devices with automatised echo sounders, able to transmit via satellite not only the positions but also the volumes and species composition of fish below, the impact of climate change, etc ) Yet we have some of the best people in the world dealing with these issues. As an example the FFA countries were in 2016 the 1st region to identify under and misreporting as the main elements of IUU fishing in our region as well as to quantify the rent loss to coastal countries of that practices, estimating a value of around 160 million US… well below previous estimates. The 2021 update of this work is presently being done and is showing promising results.

So yes… Tuna is fundamental for the pacific region, and the region is managing their fisheries sustainably because they are capable and understand better than anyone else, the implications of a failure.

And this is an issue of overarching importance since competing interests are impacting tuna sustainability. There is a fundamental (and perhaps unbridgeable) difference; as clearly expressed to me, by my Nauruan friend and colleague Monte Depaune: “for non-Pacific Islands and Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFN) the issue of tuna sustainability is one of long-term financial benefit. However, for coastal States PICs it is also an identity and food security issue, one that DWFNs have less trouble with, as they can leave… but PICs cannot”.

Pacific leaders (albeit the cultural differences they have) have always understood that unity and collaboration are the best approaches against the divide and conquer strategies they sometimes face. Whilst there is little they can do in terms of managing the High Seas, they are themselves Large Oceanic Nations instead of Small Island States, and in their waters, they have the last word.

The western and central Pacific tuna fishery: 2019 overview and status of stocks https://fame1.spc.int/en/component/content/article/251 — *The western and central Pacific tuna fishery: 2019 overview and status of stocks* https://fame1.spc.int/en/component/content/article/251

The graph above compares the sustainability of the main tuna stock in the different regions of the world, the WCPO is the proud green tower, and this is really good news, that should be known!

In the fisheries world, the power shift is moving to the ones with the fish from the ones with the boats, even if the latter are richer and more influential. Without the strong cooperation and cultural linkages among Pacific Islands coastal States that I have been honoured to witness and learn from, I doubt there would be a healthy tuna fishery such as the one they now have. I'm incredibly proud to be trusted by my hosts in the region as to be a small part of the massive team that has achieved that.

At the personal level the story goes a bit darker and private

The last picture of the ARA Belgrano @Martín Sgut on 2/5/1982

2nd May was always a sad and difficult day for me many others that were with me as cadets and conscripts in the Argentinean Navy ( I grow up there). On 2nd May of 1982, during Falklands/Malvinas Islands war that England and Argentina had over these islands (450 km from the Argentinean coast / 12500km from England), Argentina's biggest ship, a relic from the 2nd world war, "The General Belgrano" was sunk by a British Nuclear Submarine outside the 200nm exclusion zone, south-east of "Isla de los Estados" The sinking took place at 57S in the sub-Antarctic oceans, where the weather and water are freezing and miserable, is already hard to survive there as a well-equipped search and rescue swimmer (my "job" then) so imagine as unequipped and in many cases wounded sailors… 323 young people (most of them around my age) died either from wounds or hypothermia… just over half of the Argentine deaths in the war, in a matter of a few hours. I never blamed any side in particular, yet I never forgot either… wars are declared by old powerful people, yet fought by young and poor ones. Who is to blame… who's side is "right" (as if that was an excuse), means nothing to the families of those young people like me, that never made it back…

In any case… 2nd May dragged not good memories for my generation… I had my difficulties with it over years to come, mostly around believing in humanity, believing that “good” works and being a “good person” pays back and is ultimately rewarded. After leaving the Navy a year later, I was a bit lost, I loved the ocean, but I had little respect for authority… so I use my navy skills and went into commercial fishing… then started studying fisheries and working my way to the ranks both on the boats and the science world… Over the next 10 years, I had some good times, but also I grew more bitter with Argentina, its political authorities, its economic mismanagement, its fisheries industry and administrations, and a society whose values were departing far from my own sense of fairness.

I left on a sailing boat to come to the Pacific, which since I was a kid and read on a 1976 National Geographic about the travels of the Hōkūleʻa, knowing the islands i had read about was a fantasy of mine… I was escaping, full of hope but also as a broken man not just economically and at my soul… other than some family I had nothing left there…nothing to come back. The only good thing about not having much… is that you have nothing to lose… everything is an opportunity.

I found then a new life fishing tuna, I remember looking at my 1st yellowfin working on longliner west of French Polynesia, and just been amazed and the strength, colour and "mana" of that fish…

I didn't realise then, but that fish gave me a 2nd chance in life…

I kept fishing tuna and moving west and then south for the next couple of years knowing the islands, meeting people that lived at different beat… one much closer to ones I grow up with and then life in the cities and boats made me forget

Many things had happened since those days, through tuna… Tuna gave me more opportunities than my own country of birth without expecting from me anything other than honesty and respect. But most importantly it gave me many good friends and an extended family in places that barely figure on maps, yet there is more "humanity" here than in countries whose "empires" cover the earth.

So yeah, I been always deeply thankful to tuna… And when 35 years after that “first” 2nd May…. of the 365 days of the year of which World Tuna Day could have been chosen… the fact that it was 2nd May, made me drop some tears as it is perhaps more than a coincidence

The paralysis of any fisheries management initiative in the South-Western Atlantic / April 22, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

I’m not always keen to talk much about the situation in the South-Western Atlantic, the area of the world where my fisheries life started… and while I fished there, did my initial degree and worked at INIDEP. I’ve been away for over 3 decades… so I don't really know in depth what is happening, other than it hurts me to see it from the distance.

Global Fishing Watch IAS based fishing vessels "density". See the "accumulation" along Argentina’s EEZ border.

It seems that at least once a month we have some news from the mess that the HS fishery in the western South Atlantic is. Yet is important to understand this is not new… back in the late 80s when I was fishing there, we already talked about the “city in the mile 201” seawards of the EEZ of Argentina, so much so that we could see it at 20-30 miles from the EEZ border and then on the first-night satellite photos that came at the time.

At the time there was talk of potential RFMO to controls that mess, then the Falkland/Malvinas war made it worst, and any potential conversation of an RFMO has been boycotted by Argentina since in their view it will imply tacit recognition of the coastal rights of the Falklands EEZ (which in fact exist, so is basically denying reality … and this attitude goes really high in the diplomacy… I’ve seen the comments and objections on the FAO COFI statements by the Argentinean delegation objecting to any text that even remotely could indicate the need and reliance of RFMOs for regional fisheries management.

As a result, that area is perhaps the last purely unregulated fishery in the world.

Don't get me wrong… I was in the navy during the war, I lived that war 1st hand and people from my village is buried there, I know what the place means for the collective psyche of Argentineans… yet I believe that feeling is being abused for populist political ideas (the same that created that war in the 1st place!) when what we should really be talking is the management of a massive shared fisheries resource.

And of course, China is being singled as the biggest villain since it has the biggest fleet (mostly squid jiggers and some trawlers even if Korea, Taiwan, Spain and Portugal have also vessels there)). Argentina has already sunk some of the ones that they found entering the EEZ and tried to escape, and the US has sent one of it’s biggest coastguard vessels to further point the finger.

There is at least one group that is trying to create an RFMO that is not an RFMO so Argentina joins, that is a complex exercise I think…

Yet I believe that as long as you have the support of the main DWFN that operate there (CN, Spain, Korea, Japan, Spain, Portugal, etc and the main port states that support them Uruguay, Brazil and Falklands/Malvinas) in reality you may not need Argentina if they refuse to be part.

Argentina doesn’t allow foreign fishing vessels to come and use their ports unless licensed to fish in their waters, not many of their vessels operate beyond their EEZ in the HS (why would they? They face less competition inside the EEZ). In fact, if they are keen they could be a cooperating non-member (or something like that), which will bring them a place at the table without losing face, while the Falkland/Malvinas technically not a country but rather a self-governing British Overseas Territory, could be a member as “fishing entity” a solution used by Taiwan to overcome the stern opposition of CN to their presence in other RFMOs.

I’m not arguing that RFMOS are a panacea to all fisheries issues, far from that …. but they are MUCH better than nothing! And there has been quite a lot of experience gained over the decades in designing them better and research on operating them with lessons learned

The key advantages that will an RFMO immediately bring are that there would be a table where people will talk and agree to comply (at least in paper with rules), then there are some key tools that relate to their workings that are fundamental, a science committee that assesses the stocks status and agrees to conservation and management measures, as technical and compliance committee that's set up the basis of a vessel registry, a VMS, a compliance monitoring schemes, an IUU list and so on… of which NONE exists so far.

Screen Shot 2021-04-22 at 6.11.50 PM.png

In fact the UN Fisheries Stock Agreement (that Argentina obviously hasn’t ratified) has requirements on cooperation for fisheries conservation and management, but most importantly, requires in article 17 that non members/parties or non participants – Are not discharged from their obligations to cooperate

Screen Shot 2021-04-22 at 5.57.28 PM.png

Of course, setting an RFMO is not a small undertaking… but at this stage, I believe that there would be the willingness to set it up… since as now they are all losing… even if not one as much as Argentina.

The Georgias in the background - Pic by P. Pita

Below there are some references on how to make RFMOs work better:

James Harrison, Key Challenges Relating to the Governance of Regional Fisheries in Strengthening International Fisheries Law in an Era of Changing Oceans (Richard Caddell and Erik J Molenaar ed., Hart Publishing, 2019), (ap. 79-102).

Erik J Molenaar, Participation in Regional Fisheries Management Organizations in Strengthening International Fisheries Law in an Era of Changing Oceans (Richard Caddell and Erik J Molenaar ed., Hart Publishing, 2019), (ap. 103-130).

Andrew Serdy, Pacta Tertiis and Regional Fisheries Management Mechanisms: The IUU Fishing Concept as an Illegitimate Short-Cut to a Legitimate Goal 48 Ocean Dev. and Int’l L. 345 (2017).

FFA's new Photo Manual for Fisheries Air Patrols / April 14, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

Back in 2017, I wrote about a good photo manual for fisheries enforcement that my friends Per Erik Bergh from the Stop Illegal Fishing team and Duncan Copeland from Trigg Mat Tracking (TMT) produced as part of their support to FISH-i Africa and West Africa Task Force.

So I was more than happy when TMO enlisted my friend, Gilles Hosch, to work on a complement of that document for my friends at FFA, to support FFA/PMSP Aerial Surveillance Standard Operating Procedures.

This killer picture is from FFA’s LinkedIn page and shows as US Navy P-8 Poseidon conducting inflight refuelling in support of surveillance operations during FFA regional operation Rai Balang.

Needless to say, the importance of aerial surveillance was rump up during these COVID times! So this manual is a great addition! I wasn’t directly involved (other than providing some pictures), yet I’m working with TMT on a bigger set of publications that I will talk about once they are done. I like working for them… professional… yet relaxed!

The manual is intended to support evidence collection efforts in fisheries law enforcement, with a focus on photography and the understanding and the skills needed to handle camera equipment confidently. The aim is to foster the ability of inspectors to consistently snap photographs that can fulfil their purpose.

Photographs taken from patrol aircraft can have several purposes. Two key uses are to assist in the visual identification of fishing vessels when remote identification through AIS, VMS or radar is not possible, and to collect evidence of illegal activities and operations in support of legal proceedings.

Since the advent of mobile phones equipped with photo camera functions, photography has come into reach of a very wide cross-section of the population.

As a result, many people today have a better sense of how to snap a picture – and how to avoid common pitfalls messing up shots – but it can leave people with a false sense of knowing enough about photography to do a professional photographer’s job.

The world of fishery law enforcement abounds with shockingly poor photographs snapped from aircraft, that – even though shot from a distance of a hundred meters or less – have led to material that was insufficient to identify the vessel, much less able to be used in a court of law as evidence to support a prosecution. This manual sets out to minimize those instances, ensuring that money invested in air patrols is not wasted on substandard camera handling skills resulting in poor photos.

Check it out and download it from here

Ideas for studies/jobs I like to be involved that would be useful for my other jobs / April 8, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

Since COVID… I’m a desk consultant (something I never thought I will be), so turned my work to policy analysis, research and “ground-truthing”. So I get e-mails emails from academia, NGOs and philanthropic orgs in regards to plans and jobs they want to do, and ask for my appraisal. This is something I’m fully thankful for (as some of those gigs are paid) … it occurred to me that I could put a couple of ideas “out there” of studies that could help a lot my “operational” work (if it was to resume one day).

planning and improvising are key in fisheries

Is all based on my experience working in the field and dealing now with the policy side… not that I need more work thankfully… yet is stuff that I’m quite passionate about and we don't have the research needed to justify many operational decisions that need to be made.

So If anyone has funding to work on any of these potential studies? Happy to be involved… yet unfortunately I cannot do it for free as I’m self-employed and sell my time to eat…

Now if some of you is going to pursue any of these ideas as part of your academic work… Then on an “honesty box” type approach… let me know and have me as a co-author at least, please…

The role of port agents in the WCPO PSM process
Very little information has been captured so far on Vessel Agents in the WCPO on the whole, which is perplexing especially for a group that is so influential in the movement and vessels and product. In some situations, MCS staff from fisheries administrations are dependent on vessel agents for facilitating access (both literally in terms of getting to the vessel and operationally in terms of timings) to vessels for inspection, thereby removing the independence and autonomy of the administration and their regulation of the industry.

Agents across the region vary in their backgrounds and associations with the vessels, some are independent, others relate to the traders, some to vessel operators or business conglomerates onshore. Most agents are foreign nationals and not Pacific Islanders, but this is not the rule.

In some cases, agents are quite close and familiar to the fisheries administrators, since they interact with them on a constant basis. Yet they can be quite opaque in their accessibility, even if they have fundamental information that can be of benefit for the authorities and fisheries economists.

Currently, in the Pacific, these vessel agents fill a need, but it is a self-perpetuating need, and more work needs to be done to formalise the role through licensing, or remove these agents from the vessel reporting requirements that are so pivotal to CDS and PSM.

I do believe there is a substantial need to investigate the options for an ideal structure to close the gaps around vessel agents which would be potentially based on two options: either their formalisation or the removal of the use of vessel agents as a reporting intermediary.

The policy-related operational and policy implications of both scenarios have not been explored

This an area I love to investigate…

Fisher’s labour rights baseline risk evaluation in DWFN
Everyone is rightfully working on the labour area… and I just finished co-writing a paper with some heavyweights for marine policy in fundamental human rights protections in fisheries operations from land to sea by clarifying what is legally established in international law and what is not and the obligation to demonstrate human rights due diligence is a legal and operational one and not aspirational. As well as presetting the example of the labour conditions on FFA’s HMTCs

So that job is on “what should be done corner”, and then on the other, you have some like the one I recently wrote about that relate to using AIS to determine the risks for about based on some indicators (I was a bit critical of that one)… Yet I’m not opposed to the use of “indirect” assessments (to give them a name) yet we need to start from “flag state based risk-weighted” baseline.

In my opinion, there are a couple of very basic indicators that are directly linked to labour abuses and are attached to flag state requirements

The basic responsibilities of flag States are those set out in Article 94 of the 1982 Convention, which requires a flag State to effectively exercise jurisdiction and control over ships flying its flag and to take measures to ensure safety at sea. Measures to ensure safety at sea must be taken with respect to construction, equipment and seaworthiness of ships; manning of ships, labour conditions and the training of crews; and the use of signals, maintenance of communication and prevention of collisions.

So one that I would like to do is to a risk matrix associated with that give us a “ranking” of “permeability” to labour abuses by the flag state. And for that, I would start with distant water fishing nations that operate in the High seas (aka ABNJ) since what happens there is the ultimate responsibility of the flags state (coastal state have some, yet limited powers, on the issue)

So my idea is to:

Identify the Flag states operating in more than 1 RFMO/HS basin
Determine if these flag states:
1. Are the crewing agents regulated by the flag state? all private crewing agencies must be regulated and provide an efficient, adequate, and accountable system that protects and promotes crew employment rights.
2. Requires working visas for foreign crew? since working visas are associated to a series of conditions, of which a contract and some minimal qualification are fundamentals. Countries like Vanuatu or the US would require a business visa if you go there as a consultant to help their government, yet somehow they allow crew to be working board their vessels (who are extensions of their territory) without Immigration and labour even knowing who they are?. Same with CN, Korea and Taiwan to a certain extent. Even 20 years ago, I got a working visa for a friend to specifically come and work on NZ flagged fishing boast here in NZ. He was this way cover by NZ legislation even if he was fishing in the High Seas.
3. Does the flag state have legislation covering labour conditions for fishers and or a fishers union?
  In many countries, you cannot work on a fishing vessel if you don’t have access to the Union, which has a say on payments conditions and minimal requirements on board or even a minimum number of nationals on board (i.e. Japan, Philippines, Argentina). Yet the US, for example, requires only one (the paper captain to be a US citizen, everyone else working on US-flagged Purse Seiner do not even have work visas for the USA, therefore is not covered by the Unions
Determine the number of references to crew labour abuses in the media, news, government investigations, etc associated with vessels from that flag

Working all this data in a matrix, with the appropriate statistical analysis can give a great starting point to assess baseline risk, being all other variables equal…. So “indirect measures” can start from somewhere.

The assumption of linearity and a fisher’s “vision” incentives filter for policy and research
This one is not on the practical side…. And relates more to the other career I would love to have studied (if I didn't have to worry about what to eat while studying it) Philosophy and Epistemology

The assumption of linearity… I know that in science cause and effect are part of the cloth in which we think.

As said I’ve been doing a lot of “ground-truthing” for different organizations, where well-intended scientists try to figure with stuff in fisheries happen or not happen, by assuming linearity around vessels behaviours for example… yet is not the vessel that behaves in certain ways, is the skipper, or various skippers over the fishing year…. And each trip has a massive set of variables that may justify a vessel doing scenario A or scenario B for a not particularly preconceived reason, rather than that was it then…

Happened very often that I get sent some question for a scenario and I send 17 back so I can adjust in my head all the variables that are associated to the decision that I will take as a skipper.

The thing is that if you want to build a model to predict behaviour with a certain amount of precision… you’ll need to build a model so big and so complex that would not be too different from reality…

So instead why we don't focus on researching incentives for the trigger certain behaviours?

I always said, that the easiest way to predict behaviours in fishers is the same as in anyone else, and is by critically asking “what is in there for me?” Before any option and way before making any assumptions.

Fisherman are natural risk managers… because your life LITERALLY depends on being good ta that (and even so more fishers die every year than in all other primary production industries combined – estimated 35000… one every 15 minutes) as such my key motivators are to: “earn more money or to spend less”.

I wish we could study “hypothetically for now” what fisheries-related policy and research would look like if we were to apply that initial “filter” prior to embark on work that applies to fishers

So If anyone has any good idea on how to tackle this one… I’ll love to be involved in any study doing this (even for free or to get another post-grad)

you always looking ahead as a fisherman… where the next feed will come up

The global network of ports “supporting” high seas fishing / April 5, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

As a fisherman you have a natural interest in ports… they mean coming home or getting to new country, furthermore, they imply unloading (i.e. getting paid) or that we will start fishing soon (will start making money). Post fishing and from my work in MCS, PSM and transhipment in port controls I see them as unique opportunities to gather data and extend compliance (hence my personal interest in better managing transhipment at sea).

Off to “support” the HS fishery during the 100% inspections we do in Kiribati.

A while ago I wrote the decision-making factors that skippers use to “choose a transhipment port” in the WCPO

So when I so this paper “The global network of ports supporting high seas fishing” (by Spanish and Basque researchers) came out a few weeks ago I was interested in their methodology, but also their choice of words… particularly since I’m not a native English speaker… I guess “supporting” comes into my head as ”I’m a supporter of” a rugby team for example… i.e. I get the t-shirts, provides money, actively support their action, positions and so on…

Yet if I have a supermarket that is one of the roads to the stadium and the supporters of a team come there to buy stuff, and some of that stuff gets used in a riot… Am I supporting the riot?

And on that note to “support” vessels can have wide scope… from offering some sort of semiprotected anchorage and no much else (i.e. Kiritimati - Korobati or Funafuti - Tuvalu) to pretty much everything you need, from cheap fuel, food, repairs, custom bonded areas, telecommunications, entertainment, health services, and the lot) like Las Palmas _ Spain or Montevideo - Uruguay)

Don't get me wrong the paper make a lot of good points… but I was wondering if a geographically weighted element was part of their decision-making

For countries that I work with a lot here in the WCPO (and have friends there) like Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Fiji, that are all named as supporters of HS fishing, this may be unfair.

Let’s use the case of Kiribati, with the 12th biggest EEZ in the world…. So big that it has HS in between them, and all around them… 2 ports at each end of their EEZ and member of the WCPFC and IATTC

So basically if you going unload there, yes or yes you went through the HS, and if you are in the middle of the pacific, fishing tuna you are a member of one or both of the RFMOs and you fish in the high seas… but under all the controls of an RFMO (how good they are, is for discussion, but not their existence and regulatory impact)

Figure 4 from the discussed paper. Distribution of fishing effort in high seas among the countries supporting it. Source: Science Advances 26 Feb 2021: Vol. 7, no. 9, eabe3470DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe3470 — Figure 4 from the discussed paper. Distribution of fishing effort in high seas among the countries supporting it.
*Source: Science Advances 26 Feb 2021: Vol. 7, no. 9, eabe3470DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe3470*

The paper listed it Kiribati as #9 of countries with at least 1 harbour supporting the fishing effort at the high seas, ahead of Uruguay (#10)

Montevideo is the key port for one of the last Unregulated ocean basins in the world (the South-East Atlantic)… and as such is without any form of regional controls on the HS (and base of frequent excursions of its vessels to the EEZ of neighbouring countries like Argentina)… yet Kiribati provides more support?

Particularly (as we discussed with Daniel Calvo Buron), Kiribati only allows fishing vessels in national ports that hold a valid Kiribati fishing license that is renewed on a yearly basis. This means that Kiribati fisheries control and decide about each fishing vessel that is authorised to call Kirimati or Tarawa to offload. Therefore, Kiribati force operators to get a legal local license to catch within its EEZ if a boat wants to call local ports. So Kiribati promotes their national EEZ catches instead of high seas catches while being able to apply regionally established PSM controls on them, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands have the same system, for example.

And that absolutely not the case with Uruguay… all the opposite one could argue.

Source: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00596

So yes… you can argue that the paper is a global overview, which gives a fair representation of reality (and I have no issues with that!), and it would be too difficult to address the particular cases of many minor countries in the world and their particular circumstances… yet this is easy to assume… when you are not from that country, or as in my case, work quite hard with them as to clear the perceptions of these assumptions!

Furthermore, as someone that has to endure massively boring semantic discussion at regional meetings where English is the common language, yet not the mother language of 80% of the people in the meeting… words like “support” may need to be revised.

And I’m saying this as the nobody I am, just an ex fisherman (yeah ok I have 2 masters in different subjects) but my opinions are personal and don't represent at all the ones of my contractors.

On plastic waste on FV, CTEs/KDEs+GDST+GRSF, Deep-Sea Fishing Tech, eFAD management, PSM/CDs and death by 1000 Zoom meetings / March 19, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

Almost 4 weeks since the last time I blogged, but I’ve been quite crazy times with deadlines left, right and centre. I’ve been dealing with 4 big jobs and a few small ones… as one was reported here, and a lot of people asked about it. I thought I put out there what I’ve been doing.

FFA Plastic Waste generation on Fishing boats
As I mention a while ago, I was interested to put team for a FFA tender, we won it with my friends Robert Lee and Alice Leney. Even if it did not included fishing gear to identify, assess volumes produced and potentially dumped, and then come up with practical and policy based alternatives that are aligned to the regional framework (a WCPFC CMM) and the international one (MARPOL convention) while thinking laterally around how to do under limited enforcement opportunities… was a much bigger job we all anticipated

I’ll be reporting on it once cleared by FFA.

Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) and Key Data Elements (KDEs) along the wild capture and aquaculture value chains
This study seeks to provide technical advice to FAO member states in the development, enforcement and adequate verification of traceability in seafood value chains (both wild capture and aquaculture origins) through the identification Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) and Key Data Elements (KDEs) along the seafood value chain.

It discusses the role of traceability for official assurances, yet it also leans on the efforts and learning from private-led initiatives implementing traceability throughout seafood value chain, and where possible the identification of supporting standards based on the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) Standards and Guidelines.

The study analyses the interrelation of traceability along the value chain based on country-specific traceability mechanisms that are often essential for verifying and corroborating submitted data,

In the case of couture fisheries, based on the ‘state” types involved in fishing, landing, processing and trading of fisheries products along the supply chain (i.e. flag, coastal, port, processing and end-market States). And while in the case of aquaculture, the “state type” concept is not as clear, we aim to identify a producer state (for feed, hatcheries and farms), as well a processing state(s) and market state(s).

In both cases, it is important to recognise that a single nation can act as all of the state types, as is the case of many developing states that focus on capture/production and processing, while many developed economies are the market state for their products. Under this reality, there are specific regulatory requirements that apply to the different CTEs along the value chain and are validated by the collection and verification of KDEs, whose identification is central to the objective of this study.

As a critical initial step, there is the need to establish common global expectations and practices regarding two fundamental areas: 1) the nature of the information to be routinely associated with seafood products (i.e., the KDEs); and 2) the technical design specifications allowing diverse digital traceability systems to communicate with one another.

As the GDST are the newest standards available and in line with GS1, has substantial industry input and support and includes KDEs present in mayor market access requirements, the study uses many of the KDEs there identified and referenced in the in the analysis tables, and adds supplementary ones that relate to regulatory aspects. In regards the standards per se, the logic and language proposed by the GDST can be adapted to use for all of the KDEs identified.

By compiling and analysing the CTEs and KDEs from the regulatory realm while incorporating the applicable ones from the non-regulatory realm, this study hopes to facilitate the development of traceability systems that extend over the whole value chain.

The study also presents a potential opportunity offered by the Global Record of Stocks and Fisheries (GRSF) to align and support linkages to stock and fishery records and related status information as part of standardised traceability in capture fisheries.

The authors are very aware that no “one size fits all” solution is possible, and that the views, CTEs and KDEs here presented are guidance only, and may not be applicable in their entirety for some products, or even for the same product in different jurisdictions.

The overall recommendation of this study for FAO members is to: 1) identify and define standardized KDEs and CTEs for commercial and regulatory traceability, and 2) to follow strict due diligence (using a holistic and integrated approach) involving all stakeholders at legal, commercial and operational level prior to commitment.

The study is up for comments here

Identification and uptake analysis of new and innovative technologies by Deep Sea Fisheries
Based on a blog entry I wrote on the “back end” of EM. FAO asked me to do a small study to support deep-sea Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (dsRFMOs), the private sector and other partners towards more sustainable Deep Sea Fishing in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ)

This job was challenging because it took me away from tuna and back to trawler days…

DSF in the ABNJ occur at depths of 200 – 2000 m and are typically an extension of DSF within national waters, but with some important differences. They are undertaken far from home ports and often land their catch in countries other than their home port where markets exist. Fishing at great depths in the ABNJ requires large vessels and long times at sea, and a product that must have sufficient value to offset the costs of steaming to distant waters and the time taken to set the towed nets and lines at depth. In general, and especially compared to small pelagic species, catches are relatively low in line with the species reduced productivity and the precautionary approach now adopted after heavy initial exploitation in the 1970s-2000s. DSF therefore cater to specialist markets that can afford high prices for quality products.

This baseline study aims to provide information on the identification and uptake of new and innovative technologies by dsRFMOs for improved monitoring, reporting and information sharing piloted and introduced. These can be hardware or software related and aimed at supporting compliance monitoring or scientific data collection. This baseline study is to review the current technologies used on board commercial fishing vessels to provide information to dsRFMO compliance and scientific committees. Technologies to improve efficiency and reliability will also be considered.

The project will not itself develop new technologies, but its role will be to identify and advertise newly developed technologies and, as appropriate, arrange for testing and uptake by project partners.

The study was undertaken by a combination of desktop studies and remote interviews to document technologies currently used by dsRFMOs from both the industry and regulatory interphase, and to develop a network of practitioners in both realms that will be able to assist in the identification and uptake of new technologies once the DSF project is underway.

Registration and Management of eFADS
As the region moves into better eFAD management, with the new PNA reporting requirements that include five major changes to current FAD-related reporting requirements for vessel operators:

Adding a trip buoy inventory
Adding Buoy ID to FAD set data
Increasing the detail on FAD activities
Adding information on FAD design and construction
Linking the FAD Buoys to the PNA FAD Buoy Register

By doing this, we get to deal better with eFAD issues like Effort Creep, but on the other side there would be incentives for FV to do not add eFADs to the declared inventory of boys IS that can be linked to FAD Buoy Register, particularly considering all the horse-trading that goes on around who owns the eFADs and who fishes it, and if that FAD is registered and emitting.

So basically I been asked to put my ex fisherman hat and find potential ways to go around the potential forthcoming rules, and then put my compliance hat and propose direct control measures and indirect surveillance methods to assess compliance.

Is a total can of worms… I’ll write an eFAD blog one of these days!

——-

Furthermore, I had in consecutive weeks been presented and facilitator at the 3 days each PSM and CDS workshops for FFA membership…

plus the slow death of 1000 Zoom meeting a week…

I miss the operational work!

“interesting” issues in the WCPO Longline fishery 2019 / February 25, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

While doing some fleet data validation doing a study on generated volumes by fishing vessels in the region (more to come when finished) I dived a bit on a publication I wrote about recently: the western and central Pacific tuna fishery: 2019 overview and status of stocks, and a couple of stats caught my attention.

guess i you duplicate the number of hooks?

The commercial longline fleet (excluding Vietnamese and Indonesian domestic and Japanese coastal longliners) peaked in size in 1994 at a total of 5,068 vessels. The fleet has steadily declined since then, and totalled 1,669 vessels in 2019. The percentage of longliners flagged to Pacific Island countries has steadily increased from 0 in the mid-1970s to around 30% in 2017-2019. While the number of longline vessels has declined over the history of the fishery, a more direct measure of effort -hooks fished- has shown a different trend. Total hooks fished in the WCPFC-CA varied around a level of 400 million from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Starting in 2001, hooks fished doubled to the 800 million level with the peak occurring in 2012 at 885 million hooks; 2019 was the second-highest level on record at 838 million hooks.

Then, I also read here “overview of the tuna fisheries in the WCPO including economic conditions-2019”, the following:

The estimated delivered value of the longline tuna catch in the WCPFC area for 2019 is $1.61 billion. This represents a decline of $125 million (7%) on the estimated value of the catch in 2018. The value of all target species except albacore saw a significant decline with the yellowfin and bigeye catch value declined by $116 million (14%) and $73 million (11%) respectively, while the albacore catch value rose by $63 million (22%).

These declines were driven primarily by lower longline caught tuna prices for yellowfin and bigeye in 2019 relative to 2018. In the southern longline fishery after recent improvements in the economic conditions have again deteriorated, as catch rates decline, despite relatively high fish prices and average costs. Economic conditions for the tropical longline fishery continue to remain below the 20-year average with CPUE and fish prices below their 20-year averages. Prices for longline caught yellowfin were mixed with prices for fresh imports into the US and Japan declining while the Japan fresh price at selected ports was marginally higher. Prices for longline caught bigeye in 2019 declined across the selected markets.

By no means I’m a fisheries economist at all, nor I even pretend to understand the macroeconomics of the tuna trade, in particular as most of these vessels are from DWFN. I just used to be a guy that caught tuna for a living.

So I’m abut puzzled by the fact that we over duplicated the number of hooks in the water from over the last 25 years (400 million in 1997 to 885 million in 2019) while at the same time we have MASSIVE reduction of the fleet (5068 FV in 1994 to 1669 in 2019), while the economic conditions index (LHS) for the tropical longline fishery has been below average levels since 2011 driven primarily by below-average catch rates.

So how does this happen? let’s go by parts a) 1/4 of the vessels, soak over twice the amount of hooks while at the same time b) they have not been making a lot of money for over 10 years.

And here I do get a bit pissed off… I was working on tuna longliners in the 90s and the last time I boarded one was in December 2019… deck and gear setting technology are the same. So the only way to duplicate the number of hooks you are soaking is by duplicating the workload of your crew… you fuc*ing assholes! on top of that, you are recruiting crew from by exploitation of the worsening economic condition and high population density of many SE Asian countries and so pay them every time shittier wages as to keep your numbers above the floating line.

On top of it, you stay afloat by the ridiculous amount of subsidies you flag and beneficial ownership states give you, while at the same time conduct most of your business on the high seas and do not incur any port expenses.

I wrote already about the 165% increase in the HS transhipment in the last 5 years by Taiwan, China, Vanuatu & Korea, from 554 in 2014 to 1472 in 2019 and as of 2 Nov 2020, 61% of vessels on the record were authorised to tranship in the High Seas by their flag State, based on the "impracticability" to go to port.

And when you transship you also do providing, crew changes, maintenance parts, repairs, etc. and then go and bunker fuel (tax-free) for the big bunker fleet!

So the reason you still there longlining, is not because is good business, is because you pay shit wages, overwork your crew, milk state subsidies, and avoid all port expenses under the complicit support of your flag and beneficial ownership state.

And then people get surprised why there is reticence to sign up to international agreements! just look at the hypocrisy developing countries perceive from countries like Korea, Japan, Vanuatu for example are signatories to FAO PSMA, the DG of FAO is a Chinese national and there is strong speculation that China will announce their ratification of PSMA at some stage. Taiwan has suggested that if they were allowed to be part of FAO they would have ratified.

Yet under article 20 of PSMA (Role of Flag States) numeral 3 it says:

“Each Party shall encourage vessels entitled to fly its flag to land, transship, package and process fish, and use other port services, in ports of States that are acting in accordance with, or in a manner consistent with this Agreement. Parties are encouraged to develop, including through regional fisheries management organizations and FAO, fair, transparent and non-discriminatory procedures for identifying any State that may not be acting in accordance with, or in a manner consistent with, this Agreement”

By allowing their vessels not only to continue to tranship at sea but by supporting it, as it is obvious by the 165% increase of HS transhipments we have seen in the WCPFC over the last 5 years, Korea, Japan and Vanuatu are failing to their obligations under PSMA... and there are no consequences... so what is the point of signing?

Anyway… sort of got it out of my chest…. sorry about that.

An interview: why is say COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting observers / February 1, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

The good people from ATUNA did an interview looking for some of my opinions and 2020 and what is to come in 2021. I’ve written before about my strong views on paying for content, so here I share the interview in case you are interested (as I repeat my position on some topics) and don’t subscribe to ATUNA.

Last year was very unusual, to say the least. The global pandemic hit markets around the world and halted multiple initiatives. As the first month of 2021 ends, we want to look back at some of the challenges in 2020 and those that lay ahead. Atuna talked with Fisheries Specialist Francisco Blaha, who offered his perspective based on his experience in the Pacific.

It is impossible to talk about 2020 without mentioning the COVID-19 crisis. So, we asked Blaha for his opinion on how tuna fisheries managed this situation right off the bat.

"Definitively no one expected (the pandemic] for sure ... how it was handled? That depends wherein on the 'industry' you are," he said.

The fresh tuna trade was one of the most severely impacted sectors as the restaurant's demand crashed. Consequently, the longline industry was terribly affected as its main focus is chilled fish, explained Blaha. "While this segment is small in volume, it is significant in value, and unfortunately is one of the few that have purely Pacific Island domestic investment and employs the biggest number of locals."

The Fisheries Specialist was adamant in highlighting how appalling the year was for observers in the Pacific. In 2019, around 2,000 placements on purse seiners' fishing trips employed the approximately 600 members of the observer program. But this came to an almost full stop "so they, and the monitors who are generally onboard during transhipment, are now out of work and income."

Last July, Atuna reported that it was likely that fisheries observers, who are employed on a trip by trip contract basis, needed to look for temporary jobs during the pandemic. Shortly after, Satlink launched a training program for observers to retrain themselves as Electronic Monitoring (EM) analysts during the crisis. However, in the end, Blaha frankly admits that it is unknown how many observers have found an alternative job and who will be returning to observer duties when boarding resumes. "Obviously this is a worry," especially considering that it will take time to train a sufficient number of new people.

Blaha observed that stopping the observer program impacted the observers more than the fishing companies. Distant water fishing fleets were coping much better. "They continued operations as usual, so much so, that even if some units of certification for eco-labels that rely on observers' oversight, certifications have continued even with no observers on board, so that says a lot." However, it is a social and financial disaster for the observers and those who depend on them for income, without any social security or safety net in place.

The fact that the people in the coastal countries and those onboard the vessels are taking the hardest punch is not surprising. He mentioned that this is not exclusive of the pandemic but it usually happens with any storm that hits the tuna industry. During the ongoing crisis, a lot of attention has been given to logistics, supply, demand, and corporate difficulties. But for Blaha "the biggest impact has been on the people at the frontline - fishers, local fishing companies, observers and operational officers."

Longline Transshipment Exception Has Been Abused

One of the reasons for the distant water fishing companies to keep going with minimal impact is that the purse seine fleet's transshipments have continued in the lagoon or outer sectors around some of the islands. This was to avoid the chance of infecting the local population with COVI0-19, but there are also has been a notable increase in at-sea transshipments in the high seas longline fleet.

Blaha observed that while under WCPFC CMM 2009-06 at-sea transshipments are not allowed in the area, there is an 'impracticability' exception, which has been highly abused. This is because impracticability is not defined nor explained, so many boat owners have been able to take advantage of this loophole (and they are not keen to remediate it). "As a consequence, the number of at-sea longline transshipments within the WCPFC area increased by 166 %; from 554 transfers in 2014 to 1,472 in 2019. Furthermore, as of 13 November 2020, 62%t of vessels on the WCPFC Record of Fishing Vessels were authorized to transship in the high seas. High seas transshipments are now the norm, rather than the exception."

A 2020 analysis on the issue by the Pew Charitable Trusts presented to the WCPFC shows that the fishing vessels allowed to transship at sea are mainly flagged to Taiwan, China, Vanuatu, and the Republic of Korea. The carriers receiving that fish carry are flagged to Taiwan, Panama, Korea, Liberia, China, and Vanuatu. With very few exceptions, all these operations happened without observer coverage during normal years, and it increased even more last year due to the pandemic

Looking Ahead

"Personally, I think the biggest challenge will be to make the decisions that weren't made in 2020, on top of the ones we should be making in 2021," said Blaha.

It is a well-established reality that COVID-19 will be around for a big part of this year, so this will continue to affect fisheries management bodies' decision-making processes. He explained that many of the meetings where policies are formulated take place along culturally established events, particularly in the Pacific where "all is well framed by sharing cultural norms along with conversations, food, drinks, and stories." Online gatherings have really put a stop to all these long-lasting forms of negotiations.

"The simple fact is that we all have learned a new 'way to do things' but without much preparation and the variable quality of the internet makes some of these meetings very frustrating."

While he is optimistic that advances will be made - albeit not without struggles - he was clear that at this point we do not know whether the COVID-19 measures will disseminate during 2021.

Blaha concluded that if he were ever to find the "fisheries genie," he would have three very straightforward wishes for 2021 and the decade:

increased transparency and less geopolitics;
elimination of subsidies both for vessels and for land-based premises by the main DWFN, and;
an income structure for fishers, observers, and fisheries officers that reflect the expectations we put on their roles and money accrued from their work.

But he doubts if he will receive any of these wishes this year.

The philanthropic, environmental and media organisations driven criminalization of the fisherman / January 30, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

During my life in fisheries (1986 to the present) I have been a direct witness of the criminalization of the fisherman. Yes, we always have had a dodgy image, I agree… but you have to understand that it requires a particular kind of person to be commercial fisherman… it is after all the most dangerous job in the world, and I’m convinced, (it definitively was my case), that attracts very independent people, and as such you’ll always have a bit of an issue with authority… particularly if it is just based on bureaucracy.

Some of the kindest, most resilient, pious and friendliest criminals you’ll ever meet.

And I want to stress how dangerous is to be a fisher, FAO estimated 32000 deaths on fishing boats a year, that is one fisher dies every 15 minutes worldwide. Being on board is VERY dangerous, doesn't matter what job you are doing.

And while back then we were seen as “unruly” we were also seen as hard-working people, and I been always very proud that my job feed people, which I think is something that has been forgotten… I didn’t catch fish for fun, or to brag on social media, I caught fish so others can eat and that way I made a living… my work feeds people.

And yes, anyone working on feeding people does impact the environments in one way or another, we are talking about how much, no about if… and you’ll be surprised how little environmental impact some forms of fisheries have (I wrote about this here)

Yet over the years, the discourse moved fisherman into the only culprits of IUU and pretty much being environmental rapists… I remember feeling so ashamed when my daughter, who was 7 at the time, introduced me to one of her school friends: my dad is fisherman… but he is nice one. She was embarrassed and apologetic about what I was.

So I have been aware of the discourse of “transnational crime” get IUU fishing, smuggling drugs, weapons and people all in one act… But it really got me, was when we had the unfortunate deaths of observers in the last years, the immediate assumption is that because the death happens on a fishing boat, it can only be murder! So on top of everything else, we are de facto assassins?.

I also believe that assuming by default that fishing boats are a de facto vector for environmental crimes, drugs, weapons, people, murder, and so on, just based on the fact that you have fishermen on board, has profound racial and class overtones. Imagine inferring any assumption like that on any other profession? You’ll be crucified… yet for fishers is ok?

I spend my life in boats and the crew nationalities we see today (Indonesians, Philippines, Myanmarians) are normally very pious people ... I worked with Indonesians and I've seen how harsh they can be to colleagues that drink alcohol for example... Philippino and Vietnamese crew prayed during dinner and gave me their deepest and heartfelt condolences for my grandmother when I was told she died while I was with them at sea... Perhaps I'm biased by my fishing origins, but I will never accept that we are all criminals just by being fisherman.

So when, when this paper came my way “The Intersection Between Illegal Fishing, Crimes at Sea, and Social Well-Being’ by a crew out of Tasmania, I was totally taken… read it from the link above.

The paper is solid, and I got to correspond with one of the authors, Chris Wilcox, for a collaboration that did not prospered, and was well impressed. I also reported on work of Jessica Ford, who also collaborated with them for an article on their paper on The Conversation website

Basically, they scrutinise the message by many philanthropic and environmental organisations think of illegal fishing as a “transnational crime”, involving organised criminals operating vessels on the high seas, smuggling drugs, weapons and people, and their research found this discourse is, by and large, bullshit.

They looked at more than 300 events of illegal fishing reported in the media across the Asia-Pacific region over the last years. And they found only six events involved additional associated crimes like drug possession.

Ergo, I totally agree with them that when illegal fishing is falsely represented like this, it can lead to ineffective investments and misguided policies, such as the requirement of over-the-top transparency and the criminalisation of fishers.

Yes, serious crimes do occur on fishing vessels, such as human rights abuses linked to reducing labour costs, the use of illegal gear to increase catches and revenue, misreporting, abusing of the “Impracticability” exemption in high seas transhipments and so on…. However, these fall within a fishing business model where, ultimately, a lack of profitability or just maximizing fishing returns drives illegal behaviour.

Most crimes associated with fishing are actually related to increasing fishing revenues or decreasing operating costs — not human, weapons and drug trafficking.

While many illegal activities take place on the ocean, there are distinctions and differences between them. These activities can be conceptualized through their underlying business models.

They propose a very interesting comparative analysis between three basic business models: harvesting, moving cargo, and provision of a venue. The three models are distinct based on key components of a business model. There are some consistencies, notably that they are all based on a physical asset. Perhaps this is why these different business models are sometimes incorrectly conflated. However, they differ in key activities and value proposition.

*The crimes associated with fisheries at sea. There are separate business models linked to different crimes with minimal evidence of mixing across them*

So they suggest that integrated criminal activities where multiple business models are operating simultaneously are uncommon.

In their data analysis, harvesting, and cargo endeavours are more often associated such as trafficking drugs via a fishing vessel, compared with venue based crimes. This may be because harvesting and cargo associated activities are more likely to be based on movements between ports, whereas venue based crimes could be stationed offshore. Most likely, cargo based crimes are mimicking harvesting based activities, such as fishing, and therefore are more likely and incorrectly combined as one activity.

There is a logical differentiation between business models from the perspective of the criminal organization. For instance, for a business moving illegal drugs between countries the key value proposition is the movement of the material in a clandestine manner over a short period. The time the cargo spends in transit is an opportunity cost, as the sunk assets of production cannot be recovered until the onward sale occurs.

In contrast, illegal harvesting is constrained by the rate of discovery and harvest of the species of interest. For instance, vessels harvesting giant clams must find appropriate habitat, deploy divers, and then recover the clams. In this case, the transit out and back from the fishing grounds is purely a cost, while the operation on the fishing ground is likely less costly in fuel, but generates increasing revenue per time. Given this, vessels using a harvesting model should be expected to maximize their returns by staying at sea as long as possible –constrained by the volume of catch the vessel can hold, and its fuel and food supplies.

Thus, the harvesting and cargo business models are in some sense fundamentally at odds in terms of their likely operating model. As such, one might expect vessels engaged in one business, such as harvesting, to occasionally move cargo as a minor activity in the context of their harvesting business, but it is unlikely that vessels would simultaneously engage in a mixed model.

This is supported by the evidence that for certain crimes, such as drug and weapon smuggling being related to IUU fishing. The predominant crimes identified both in the literature and media data were forced labour and workers' rights violations

Quite “radically”, they discuss that while every time more popular proposal for addressing IUU fishing has been increasing the transparency of fisheries. For example, environmental NGOs are pressing countries to share vessel tracking data and, in some cases, making this data publicly available.

While no doubts, transparency can help reduce illegal fishing, the key question is: transparency at what cost? Public ship-tracking data reveals fishing locations to competitors. For fishers, knowledge of these locations informs their business and being forced to share it undermines their competitive advantage. Likewise, the use of surveillance also comes with big caveats.

Some of the organizations I work within the IUU fishing domain use AIS (a positioning system that vessels send each other to avoid collision) quite successfully to analyse vessels and fleet patterns. Yet is a conundrum when you re-purpose a safety system for the surveillance of fishing vessels, as it may undermine its effectiveness for increasing safety at sea. Even vessels operating legally may not want their positions posted on publicly available websites.

Yes, data sharing and oversight is necessary among consumers, the supply chain and the regulators. But it’s unclear why outside parties, indeed the public, need access to this data?

Compare this to online fraud: web servers aren’t required to make all data on users and content publicly available. Just as e-commerce is a legitimate activity, and those in the system are entitled to protect their commercial advantages, so is fishing a legitimate activity with similar rights, within a well-regulated system.

In the end, oversight is essential for a well-functioning regulatory system, but so-called “radical transparency” could finish being counterproductive.

Is only by disentangling these crimes, we can better focus on solutions to reduce illegal behaviour on the sea and protect those vulnerable to fisheries exploitation, to enhance livelihoods, social well-being and the sustainability of global fisheries.

Finally, The Conversation article on the paper says something that I been insisting for over a decade:

To help government and industries across the world address illegal fishing, we need more investment in better-targeted data analysis and technologies and to build the skills of surveillance officers to improve identification of illegal fishing.

The only other thing that I will add is the income of fishers, observers and fisheries officers... I actually said a couple of weeks ago in an interview: "In my opinion, one of the biggest hurdles that we face in sustainability is that while we want it, we allow the underfunding of official institutions and pay fisheries officers and fishers salaries that are way below mediocrity, but we expect excellence from all of them"

So yeah… you want help, stop criminalising fishers and support those doing fisheries jobs!

Call to Observers On The 2021 update of the Global IUU Fishing Index / January 22, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

Gilles Hosch figures a lot on my blogs, mainly for 2 reasons: he is my friend and I absolutely admire the integrity of his work. To be honest, I don’treally know in which order those two issues relate… but I have known him for over 20 years now… so it doesn’t really matter anymore.

Off for another trip, until 2019 we had over 2000 placements a year in the WCPO

He worked in 2018 on an IUU Fishing Index, that been cited quite substantially (see at the bottom).

I have to admit to a difficult relationship with indexes in general terms… basically, perhaps for personal reasons I never believed that as “one size does not fit all” concept, and is intrinsically hard for Indexes to capture the difficulties that developing countries have in terms of not only implementing MCS measures, how to measure the role of regional organizations like FFA here in the Pacific, but also the complexities of attracting and retaining good officers… one of the best officers I work with, in one of the busiest fisheries ports in the world earns around 21000 USD a year. On the other side, his equivalent in any European country would have less than half its workload, ridiculous amounts of resources, and make 5 to 6 times his income. How does an index capture the impact of this? And I have seen these issues in many indexes.

In any case, if I know about one person in this world that understands those (and the many other) challenges of indexes, and can bring equanimity into them, is Gilles. So I totally support his present work updating it. Furthermore, he is doing this work with Graeme Macfadyen who is another colleague I have also lots of respect for.

Of course, a great (and controversial) source of information are observers, and while the Index is based on more than 40 indicators, 2 of which are sourced directly from fisheries observer feedback – translating into roughly 5% of the Index as a whole.

Observer input into the Index is deemed crucial by my colleagues, in fact, Gilles has noted that “observers are the human eyes and ears of the global fisheries compliance framework, operating directly aboard fishing vessels. Observers see everything that is going on, and after a number of voyages aboard catchers and reefers, and entries into different ports, they start to understand exactly where the “magic” happens. And yet, their knowledge is generally under-leveraged. The Index allows us to overcome these dangers – and the associated code of silence – by eliciting observer feedback anonymously, and in a rather broad manner, in a way that their individual identities and contributions can be 100% shielded and anonymous.”

Seeing the value of observer knowledge, I encourage all observers reading this blog to go to the survey and to provide their anonymous feedback. Basically, it is just about naming the flags and the ports with which they associate most weaknesses – and associated IUU activity. It should not take the average person more than 5 minutes to respond – but it may add a lot of Q-dos to the Index in terms of pointing the searchlights in the right direction.

The link to the survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GBR2NVY.

Here are some examples showing how and where the IUU Index was referenced in the recent past:

My take on: private certification of labour standards in fishing vessels / January 17, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

This week I was sent two different new voluntary labour certification standards for fishers. The Fairness, Integrity, Safety and Health (FISH) Standard for Crew and the Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS).

so you come for a couple of hours and board and then give the vessels owner a piece of paper that says that my worker rights are uphold for the rest of teh year… yeah right.

I’m not going discuss the individual merits of each of them (I have more respect for the FISH one as there are people I know and respect involved in it, while I don't have much respect for the key people behind the other), but rather what my beef is with private certifications

It shouldn’t come as a surprise I have a very dim view on then for many of the same reasons I disagree with ecolabels or the food quality/safety ones

While not a full-time specialist on labour on board issues (very few people are), but I been involved in the issue through my work in the development of the FAO guidelines for social responsibility, and unlike most people doing this, I been a commercial fisherman my self.

Yet in case of the labour certifications, it gets a bit worst for me personally… I see this as the new “gravy train”... for more consultants in rich countries to make money out poor peoples problems without providing real solutions, only just a "service" to fellow rich people. No idea what would be the cost of certification, surely more than the 350 USD a month a deckhand makes on a Purse Seiner… and I’m sure the companies will not recover it from their profit… but as usual from maintenance and crew payments

Yes! flag and coastal states have a problem with labour issues onboard vessels they flag or fish in their waters, and these vessels are normally owned by countries that have enough money to have their vessels fishing in other countries (Distant Water Fishing Nations)... and don't be fooled to the fact that if a vessel flagged to Vanuatu, to Nauru (or even to the USA) is owned and crewed by people from that country.

In any case, if you have labour issues on those vessels as is well documented normally a small group of flag states and concerns usually citizen form cheap labour costs like Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, etc. For me, the most logical, democratic and cost-effective solution is to set up a programme to strengthen the institutions that are legally authorised to do that job in the country, standardise the systems, and controls under auditable standards and reward conformance in some way. In this case, we have an international convention ILO C188, that has obviously not been adopted by the most problematic flag states, even if those states are members of ILO… so the push to incorporate established internationally agreed standards should be at the flag state and support the capacity building and institutional strengthening necessary there.

What I would not do is to create a private parallel system without legal validity on top off (or to replace off) an already existing national system (there are no countries without labour and immigration departments). And that is what in my opinion private certifications do: they create a parallel system instead of supporting the organisations that are supposed to do the job.

As I said before, In my opinion, one of the biggest hurdles that we face in on this issue (as well as in sustainability) is that while we all want it, we don't what to pay for it and allow the underfunding of official institutions, pay labour, fisheries officers and fishers salaries that are way below mediocrity, but we expect excellence from all of them.

The private certification model was initially based on the ‘theory of change’, and the belief that a ‘market-based’ approach by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) frustrated with the perceived inability of regulators globally to mitigate problems will affect a change for the better.

Yet even after so many years, there is, in fact, limited empirical evidence that substantial changes in consumer demand for sustainable and ethical seafood have occurred. Producers are also directly affected because they incur the costs of complying with different programmes aligned to different importing retailers and market. Incentives for compliance also remain unclear, given that there is little evidence that price signals are seen by producers, or that any changes in demand have resulted in substantial improvements.

And it gets worse. Even if the origin of this movement is based on the assumption that fisheries and labour administrators (in particular those from developing countries) are not doing a good enough job, many times during my work with many fisheries administrations in the Pacific I have spent 2-3 days responding to the questions of the consultants that have come to ‘assess’ the fishery for certification… and it would be the same for these standards... so in effect, they come for data to the people and institutions that the ‘consumer’ does not trust!

That irony for me is mind-blowing. If you really want to help, why not just support the official institutions in the countries whose job and whole existence is to deal with those issues..

Having said so, I would not mind these standards existence if they were based on a model pushed by consumers that want extra guarantees and are happy to pay for them. In this case, consumer associations donate to standards developers, or the certification companies themselves source funds from consumers. So if a flag state or an operator wants to be certified, they apply and go through the process with absolutely no conflict of interest. The way now is that they are offering a service to a client, and when the client pays, they want the results… this is just too murky for me.

FAO tell us that over 70% of the seafood consumed in developed countries comes from developing countries. Partly this is because the fisheries in developed countries have either collapsed, can’t keep up with local demand and they can’t find fisherman to do the jobs cheaply. Yet all of the ecolabels, private labour certifications, retailers and most of the consumers that require them are based in developed countries. This has led me to say that I see the whole private certification scene as hypocrisy in the best-case scenario, or neo-colonialism in the worst-case scenario.

Furthermore, I have worked in the past with the developer of one of those standards … until recently the company was in charge of whitewashing FIP for the Tunago fleet in Vanuatu that included the infamous Tunago 61… enough said?

At least with the ecolabels, they developed some of the assessments points and standards, but these ones copy and paste the relevant guidelines and normative developed by international bodies (ILO, IMO,) for their own profit (since users of the certification pay to be assessed)… so does the owners of the certification scheme, intends to devolve part of their earnings to the referenced bodies that developed the work they are profiting from? Or at least to support the work of the official bodies at the flag and coastal states where the vessel in the UoC operates, that have statutory responsibility under ILO and IMO issues? Otherwise, the certification competes unfairly with usually the labour and maritime department in developing countries as it creates a separate body, and provides for certification holders to potentially say: why you ask me for that? I already have certification on this!

I recently read in a post from the MSC, with all the fanfare that an Australian Toothfish longliner has been certified to the Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard; “an initiative which aims to improve labour conditions and crew welfare”. I know the vessel operators and they are a good company, the vessels are flagged to Australia, even if Australia is not a signatory of ILO C188 (of which that standard is pretty much a copy and paste) yet. It has strong protections to fishers via the unions, and foreign crew have working visas... If those conditions are not present the vessels wouldn’t leave port, so it’s hard to see the improvement the standard made on the welfare of the crew... flag state responsibility is to be before private certifications.

Then you have the option to impose conditions as coastal state, NZ confronted with Indonesian crew abuse issues on board Korean flagged joint venture vessels fishing in NZ EEZ a few years ago, took the bold decision of only allow NZ flagged vessels that comply with NZ labour contracts, minimal NZ law remunerations and NZ working visas for foreign crew. The members of the Pacific Islands Fisheries Forum Agency included labour conditions based on ILO C188 as part of their harmonised licensing conditions to allow vessels on their waters, I wrote about this here.

Now check the list of countries that have ratified that convention, none of those countries have known issues with labour abuses on board, yet interesting the hypocrisy that most of retailers and consumers of the developed countries that require these private certifications are not signatories! I don't see the USA, Australia, NZ, Germany, etc… so why instead of fostering a parallel industry of lucrative certifications marred in a conflict of interest, demand that the flag sates catching the fish your are going to buy (including your own country) ratifies an agreement that countries as diverse as South Africa, Argentina and Bosnia Herzegovina manage to sign.

I also like to flag the powerful difference between the "human rights due diligence" approach that we worked within last year ("OECD framework") and the old school approach to seafood certification… as my friend Katrina Nakamura wrote

Not to dismiss good work, as it's great to see initiative from industry, but it is pertinent to share here that the concern is that certification old school style is a failed approach for protecting people from forced labour in the workplace -- a right that is universally in force and backed, as you know, by minimum requirements in the workplace. It can be hard to see the difference between a voluntary solely private-sector program to prevent forced labour and "human rights due diligence", which is the only approach outlined in the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, which of course responded to the widespread failure of social audits to prevent forced labour. The reason is a simple one. Old school certification has the effect of de-emphasizing and uncoupling the legal obligation of companies to respect rights in the workplace for all people, in ways that comply with the coupled duty of countries to uphold human rights which are universally in force.

The problem there is awarding a checkmark to large companies for satisfying their legal obligation in high-level policy alone, and for externalizing the surveillance function for working conditions to consultants and away from governments. Both of the 2 new standards out this past week are "old school" that way.

The fact is, human rights due diligence has landed. Europe is making it mandatory for imports and the US Department of Homeland Security is doing the same. DHS has halted trade on 4 seafood products over ties to forced labour so far and there is every reason to expect this will continue. Last week a major set of withhold release orders was issued for cotton goods and tomatoes made or processed in China. China makes 20% of US cotton so it's like halting trade.

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/united-states-bans-cotton-and-tomato-products-xinjiang-citing-human-rights
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/cbp-begins-2021-with-expansive-new-8626788/

This strategy is going to put a fair amount of pressure on US importers and retailers this year over imports from China and, probably, Thailand, Vietnam, Ecuador and others which are cited by the US Departments of Labor and State for significant forced labour or illegal forms of child labour in seafood processing. Importers will need to show they have systems to trace conditions in facilities in regions that called out, and not only a policy and a code of conduct but a working chain of custody and due diligence to track conditions. There are good people involved in NFI's FISH standard and its timely. My hope is they will take up more of the full "human rights due diligence" agenda to release that pressure. That would land them ultimately right where the Hawaii longline fleet has with its crew management system and community-based grievance committee.

A INFOFISH interview on COVID Impacts, EU yellow cards, my disdain for ECOLABELS, subsidies, climate change and how liberating is to be seen as dumb fisherman. / January 13, 2021 by Francisco Blaha

I have collaborated a lot with INFOFISH over the years, most recently on webinar with colleagues and friends in the Pacific. I like the crew there, there are really efficient, work hard, are friendly, and most importantly not pretentious. I consider the director Shirlene Maria Anthonysamy a friend, she knows my family and she has always been very supportive of my views, the same extents to Firoza Buranudeen the magazine editor and Apii Cokanasiga, their Trade Promotion Officer, just name few in their crew.

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So when they asked me for an interview for the magazine industry profiles section, I knew that is was sincere offer and they were after my personal and independent views, since normally they get more corporate oriented people, that have an agenda or try to sell something… and I’m very aware what a privilege it is to be an independent advisor

So if you are interested, wait for the magazine, download the pdf of the article from here, or read the text below that I paste from the original… is quite a varied interview, that I really enjoyed doing.

—

On 25 November, you were the Moderator for an INFOFISH-organised webinar ‘Tuna Fisheries in the Pacific Amidst COVID-19’ – thank you for doing such a great job in creating a warm and lively discourse amongst the speakers, which included frontliners in the industry. Would you like to highlight some of the points raised in that webinar, for the benefit of readers who may not have been able to participate?

That was a great opportunity that INFOFISH provided us, and a great opportunity for my Pacific Island colleagues to be delivering their own messages. Among the many issues raised, the one that struck me the most was the social impact COVID has had. I always insist that “Fisheries is People” and this situation has hit the local industries and economies much harder than the Distant Water Fishing Nations that fish in the Pacific.

The devastation caused in the longline industry that focuses on fresh (chilled) tuna for sashimi is sobering. While this segment is small in volume, it is significant in value, and unfortunately is one of the few that have purely Pacific Island domestic investment and employs the biggest number of locals. As fish is sent fresh via airfreight using in most cases, excess capacity on commercial flights, the abrupt ending of tourism has hit some of the islands very hard; jobs have collapsed, and so did this segment of the industry.

The extensive use of around 600 observers in the over 2000 annual deployments we had came to an almost full stop, so they, and the monitors who are generally on-board during transhipment, are now out of work and income. This is a harsh reality for observers in many countries in the region as it is their main source of income, the observer programme having inserted over US$4 million directly into Pacific Island societies. Furthermore, we are not sure how many may have found other sources of work and may not return to observer duties when boarding resumes. Obviously this is a worry, not just from the observers’ employment perspective, but also considering the level of uncertainty that the lack of data for this year (and perhaps years to come) brings to fisheries science and management decisions.

Yet I guess the message that impacted me the most was just the human side of this pandemic; everyone referred to their struggles around work, health, travels, and so on. Everyone acknowledged too, how tough it is for the crew of fishing vessels who cannot even stretch their legs on the wharves for now almost one year, cannot see their families and embrace loved ones. So, while a lot of focus has been on the logistics, supply, demand and corporate difficulties of COVID-19 in the tuna industry, for me the biggest impact is again on the people at the frontline - fishers, local fishing companies and operational officers.

One of the big problems of this pandemic in the Pacific (and elsewhere) is that fisheries observers are not stationed on vessels. An added problem is the relatively weak internet connectivity in the region. Are there any alternate ways in which harvests in the Pacific have been tracked and traced during this period?

Well, these are big and separated problems. The observers issue is one we can hopefully deal with as soon as flights resume and vaccines become available; yet it is one that affects mostly the purse seiner (PS) fleet in the WCPO (massive in volume but small in the number of vessels).

For the longline (LL) fleet, the usual level of coverage was only 5%, so the lack of observers does not affect it too much. Yet the LL fishery is the biggest one in terms of fleet size; furthermore it is the one which identifies as having the highest incidence of underreporting or misreporting. This is particularly true for the high seas fisheries, which normally is the one with the lesser number of observers. And while in principle the WCPFC CMM 2009-06 Regulation discourages transhipments at sea, it has an ‘impracticability’ exemption… yet how impracticability is determined, is not defined or explored. As a consequence, the number of at-sea longline transhipments within the WCPFC area increased by 165% in five years, from 554 in 2014 to 1472 in 2019 and as 2 November 2020, 61% of vessels on record were authorised to tranship in the high seas by their Flag States.

All these transhipments are authorised based on the ‘impracticability’ of going to port but there is no oversight on how that decision is reached by the Flag States involved. In descending order, these vessels are flagged to Taiwan, China, Vanuatu and Republic of Korea, as well as (also in descending order) carriers are flagged to Taiwan, Panama, Korea, Liberia, China and Vanuatu. With this in consideration, the issue of not having observers has impacted more the observers themselves, rather than the actual fisheries. In fact, some units of certification for ecolabels that rely on observers’ oversight have continued even with no observers on board, so that says a lot.

If we had a functioning Catch Documentation Scheme (CDS) across all the fishing nations, an integrated Electronic Monitoring System (EMS) and an integrated electronic reporting system on top of our already very comprehensive Vessel Monitoring System (VMS, it would be fantastic; but if Flag States would just comply with the commitments they made and live up to the expectations of their best performance, that would be a great start!

In terms of the internet, it is getting better, fibre optic cable is arriving at many of the Islands States so it is a matter of time.

You’ve been instrumental in assisting a number of Pacific Island countries in getting their yellow cards lifted, the latest being Kiribati albeit being the longest process. Can you share with readers a glimpse of what has been involved in this process with the countries? What has been the real challenge?

I would never say I was instrumental!! The officers in all the yellow-carded countries I was fortunate to work with are the instrumental ones, I was just lucky to walk a small part of the road with them and share some lessons learned, but that is all. There were two common components in the EU expectations of the carded countries – one was related to legislation/policy while the other was to do with operational and systems… I worked supporting the latter.

For me, the biggest challenge was for countries to understand what the EU wanted from them, particularly in terms of the EU catch certification scheme. The EU did a couple of interpretative flip-flops during the process over a system that had some intrinsic design failures. It became at the end, an export certificate instead of a catch certificate - this meant that non-EU countries had to validate the information on landings or transhipment events that happened months (or even years) before. Hence, if we wanted to set up something that was more than just signing a piece of paper, countries had to set up a system and structure around the catch certificate system that allowed them to run the equivalent of a business accountancy system (but for fish). For countries that are small developing Island States with very limited IT capacities and operational budgets, this was (and still is) a challenge… one that they gallantly confront every day.

For me, two images of the process will stay forever in my mind. During the first visit of the EU inspectors to Papua New Guinea, the lady heading the delegation was asking all these questions and the local officers were trying to understand what she wanted and were not sure what to say. A year later when she came back the same officers were talking over each other as they all wanted to give her the answers she needed! Later on, she told us that not even in many European countries did they have a system like the one in PNG. I always will be incredibly proud of what they achieved there.

As you know, there is growing international market pressure in developed countries (driven supposedly by ‘what the consumer wants’) on fishers and exporters to have an ecolabel placed on their catches/products. However, in a few of your blog posts you have expressed a strong dislike for ecolabels. If we adopt the position that ecolabels are here to stay, what are some suggestions that you could make for producing countries faced with the dilemma of either working towards making their fisheries sustainable, or investing in acquiring an ecolabel?

This is an interesting and contentious one! My objections on the business of ecolabels (and private certifications in general) arise from various angles that are important to me; some are almost philosophical while others technical.

Let me use a parable to explain: in most countries of the world, to drive a car, you need to go through a process of getting a driver’s license run by an official institution in that country. Once you have that licence, you can legally get on the road and drive a car. How good that system is depends on a varied number of reasons such as human resources, cultural values, the rule of law, transparency, etc. Obviously, there would be countries that are better han others at this. So let’s say that a country has a bad rate of accidents by licensed drivers, in comparison with other countries. So what you do?

For me, the most logical, democratic and cost-effective solution is to set up a programme to strengthen the institution that is legally authorised to do that job in the country, standardise the licensing systems, exams and controls under auditable standards and reward conformance in some way.

What I would not do is to create a private parallel system on top of the already existing national system. Hence I, as a driver need to get through the hurdles of the official systems, and then contract a foreign private assessor and go over a whole set of new exams and tests (at my cost) to prove to people in rich countries that I know how to drive in a way they consider ‘safe’. And that is what in my opinion private certifications do: they create a parallel system instead of supporting the organisations that are supposed to do the job.

In my opinion, one of the biggest hurdles that we face in sustainability is that while we want it, we allow the underfunding of official institutions and pay fisheries officers and fishers salaries that are way below mediocrity, but we expect excellence from all of them.

The ecolabels model was initially based on the ‘theory of change’, and the belief that a ‘market-based’ approach by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) frustrated with the perceived inability of fisheries regulators globally to mitigate overfishing, will effect a change for the better. Yet even after so many years, there is, in fact, limited empirical evidence that substantial changes in consumer demand for sustainable seafood have occurred. Producers are also directly affected because they incur the costs of complying with different seafood programmes aligned to different importing markets. Incentives for compliance also remain unclear, given that there is little evidence that price signals are seen by producers, or that any changes in demand have resulted in substantial environmental improvements.

And it gets worse. Even if the origin of this movement is based on the assumption that fisheries administrators in particular those from developing countries) are not doing a good enough job, during my work with many fisheries administrations in the Pacific I have spent 2-3 days responding to the questions of the consultants that have come to ‘assess’ the fishery for certification…so in effect, they come for data to the people and institutions that the ‘consumer’ does not trust! That irony for me is mind-blowing. If you really want to help, why not just support the official institutions in the countries whose job and whole existence is to manage fisheries in a sustainable way?.

The idea that a certified product may get a price premium is not a golden rule; furthermore, the logic of that assumption is flawed. In New Zealand we have argued that the industry should not even expect a price premium for certification noting that: “No plausible case can be made for a premium for ‘sustainable seafood’. If anything, a well-managed fishery should also be a cheaper fishery to harvest as the fish should be more abundant and easier to catch!”

As per the alleged consumer preference, when I was working with FAO GLOBEFISH in 2009, I already had the feeling that we were being told about ‘consumer’ requirements, when it actually seemed that it was more a retailer imposition to create a ‘firewall’ around them by saying that “we sell fish with ecolabels so it should be good!” Personally I see it as a model for retailers offloading ‘due diligence’ to an ecolabel brand their decision-making capacity and expecting producers to pay the bill.

For example, I work a lot in the transhipment hub of Majuro, and I have been many times in situations where I see very similar purse seiners transhipping to the same carrier - both fishing vessels catch the same tuna species, using the same methods, under the same management system, from stocks evaluated by the same institutions, with the same regional controls over the activities, yet fish from vessel ‘A’ that does not pay for the ecolabel process, therefore as the narrative goes, is not sustainable? While fish from vessel ‘B’ that pays, is?

Having said so, I would not mind their existence if they were based on a model pushed by consumers that want extra guarantees and are happy to pay for them. In this case, consumer associations donate to ecolabels, or ecolabels themselves source funds from consumers. So if a fishery or an operator wants to be certified, they apply and go through the process with absolutely no conflict of interest. The way now is that they (ecolabels) are offering a service to a client, and when the client pays, they want the results… this is just too murky for me.

Furthermore, and coming back to the consumer principle, the reality is that 71% of the world’s population live below US$10 a day, of which 45% exist on below US$2 dollars a day. So it is the rich consumer that can afford to have a choice. I work very close to countries where for example, a locally based and owned industry was developed by using their own funds, and they have successfully achieved an ecolabel certification at the cost of almost US$180 000, yet the government budget for malaria and dengue in the province where their operations are, is around US$60 000. I find that shocking - imagine the difference that money could have made at the local hospital! Yet the local company has been almost forced by corporate clients and distributors in developed countries that buy their products, to go through the certification process in order to maintain their supply preference and price.

FAO tell us that over 70% of the seafood consumed in developed countries comes from developing countries. Partly this is because the fisheries in developed countries have either collapsed or can’t keep up with local demand. Yet all of the ecolabels, private certifications, retailers and most of the consumers that require them are based in developed countries. This has led me to say that I see the whole private certification scene as hypocrisy in the best-case scenario, or neo-colonialism in the worst-case scenario.

I also have a lot of technical issues which I have problems with, such as compartmentalisation of catches, the use of observers for commercial interest, their ignorance of subsidies, the reliance on compliance data offered only by the clients, and so on … that would also take a while, and you can read about them in my blog (www.franciscoblaha.info).

This is perhaps another contentious question. The debate on subsidies for fishing has been raging for many years, and there are also many nations (both developing and developed) which have sent their fleets out to the EEZs of other countries where they operate under various agreements. What is your position on subsidies (or programmes which have the same impact as subsidies), their effect on fishery resources, markets, and fishing communities?

Yeah… I always said that if I find the fisheries genie, I’ll ask him for three fisheries wishes: increased transparency, elimination of subsidies, and an income structure for fishers and fisheries officers that reflect the money accrued from their work! But yeah, I doubt I will get to do it!

Of the three wishes, subsidies should be the easier one to fix and even so, there have been negotiations on them at the WTO for over 20 years! This is beyond ridiculous. There has been well-documented evidence for years now that fisheries subsidies contribute to economic losses in the fisheries sector, create serious distortions in global fish markets and push fisheries beyond their realistic economic (and biological) models. They also have serious impacts on food security and livelihoods, particularly in developing countries.

While I’m really against fisheries subsidies, I am aware that their disappearance will not be the magic panacea that will fix all fisheries issues, but at least it would even out the economic playfield, and that would be of massive help.

I always believe that the key redeeming factor of commercial fishing is in the fact that it should be commercial, hence if you don’t make money from fishing, you should not fish... end of story…. subsidies don’t allow that process of natural selection to exist. I also know that there are some so-called ‘beneficial subsidies’ around enhancing management capabilities, R&D, surveillance and enforcement, small scale fisheries support, etc.… I see all that as part of what government responsibilities re, and to be covered by national taxes. Yet, so far the ‘harmful’ subsidies (fuel, fleet support, capacity enhancement, shore operations, etc.) get way more money than the ‘beneficial’ ones… so it is just hypocrisy to promote the belief that the’ beneficial’ subsidies justify the existence of the ‘harmful’ ones.

Even if you think only a little bit about it, is ridiculous that while FAO tells us that 60% of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited and 33% overfished, governments still pay out an estimated US$35 billion (2018 estimate) on fisheries subsidies, of which an estimated US$20 billion contribute directly to overfishing by allowing fleets to continue fishing beyond the break-even point.

But it also upsets me that they are used for geopolitical issues beyond just fishing – noticeably the biggest subsidisers are the Distant Water Fishing Nations (i.e. China, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, Japan, USA, EU, etc.). These subsidies are not only used for supporting vessels but also many joint ventures including shore-based operations that were never planned to make money, but for foreign companies to have the excuse of being a ‘domestic’ operator. While these companies provide promises on job creation, they gain major tax concessions and cheap fishing rights. After catching the fish, they find some initial excuses such as low labour productivity, high cost of services, etc. Then over time, these become permanent excuses, and they send the raw materials for processing back home or somewhere else.

So there is absolutely nothing good coming from subsidies for those that are not direct beneficiaries of the schemes… and that is most of us.

On to another issue which is of deep (and very real) concern to islands, let’s talk about climate change and its effect on tuna resources in the Pacific Islands region. If, as many studies have suggested, there may be an eastern redistribution in the biomass of skipjack and yellowfin tuna by 2050, most of the islands will see significant decreases in the tuna stocks in their waters. What are your thoughts on how the islands could reduce their vulnerability to climate change? What role could the WCPFC play in this process?

That is a real big one, and the hardest issue we face. Last year the Pacific Island Fisheries Forum Agency introduced a resolution to the WCPFC urging the Commission to:

Fully recognise the impacts of climate change; in particular on the fisheries, food security, and livelihoods of small islands developing states and territories
Take into account in its deliberations - including in the development of conservation and management measures - the impacts of climate change on target stocks, non-target species, and species belonging to the same ecosystem or dependent or associated with the target stocks
Estimate the carbon footprint of fishing and related activities in the Convention area for fish stocks managed by the Commission, and develop appropriate measures to reduce such footprint
Develop options such as carbon offsets to decrease the collective carbon footprint associated with meetings of the Commission and its subsidiary bodies.

Which is all very good but this does not stop the impacts we already see. When you read a scientific paper by the leading scientists in the region that the combined catch of skipjack and yellowfin is projected to decrease by 10–40% by 2050 in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu… this is hard to swallow... I spend half my years in those countries working there with friends. Tuna is the lifeline for these countries, but the balance of benefits is entirely skewed, in a way that has not moved far from the era of colonialism which is still very recent in this region. A giant country like PNG is ten years younger than me!

And this is an issue of overarching importance for the region since competing interests are impacting tuna sustainability. Also, there is a fundamental (and perhaps unbridgeable) difference; as clearly expressed to me by a friend a few years ago: “for non-PICs and DWFNs the issue of sustainability of catches is one of long-term financial benefit. However, for Pacific Islands Countries (PICs) it is also an identity and food security issue, one that DWFNs have less trouble with as they can leave…but we in the PICs cannot”.

Personally, the issue infuriates me a lot - the Pacific and its tuna gave me a new and good life when I came here in the early 90s, escaping far from my origins and my struggles. The Pacific gave me more opportunities than my own country of birth without expecting from me anything other than honesty and respect. But most importantly it gave me many good friends and an extended family in places that barely figure on maps, yet there is more ‘humanity’ here than in countries whose ‘empires’ cover the earth. So for me it is heart-breaking… the Pacific Islands are the least contributing region to climate change, yet are the ones receiving with full force its impacts, and that is so unfair.

And on a final note, you have had an interesting career in fisheries, from your beginnings in the industry as a crew member on a fishing trawler in your native Argentina; and now as an international fisheries consultant, a trainer in areas such as regulatory compliance, and a well-known operator in the Pacific Islands. What are some lessons you have learned from all the experiences you have had through the years?

That is kind of deep… and I’m not sure I have an answer… I’ve been in fishing for most of my life, started at 18 and I’m 55 now, and I am still learning every day from my (and others’) mistakes, on things that I see working and those that don’t.

I grew up under difficult family circumstances, during turbulent times of social unrest, political violence and war, these it made my relationship with authority a challenging one. Also, being dyslexic, which at the time was seen as being dumb, didn’t help either. And even if I had grown up in a farming area, I always loved the ocean, so while fisheries felt natural to me, I was also an outsider to it. Therefore, in reality, no one had any expectations about my life (nor even me!), so failure seemed inevitable. Yet on the other hand, this was totally liberating as it opened me up to trying new things without pretending to be anything else other than whom and whatever I am.

I have always been very fortunate and thankful to have found people along my way that were kind enough to offer me the one thing I could not get by myself... an opportunity. So I always try to stick to three principles in life: don’t be pretentious, be grateful, and provide people with opportunities if you can.

I’m also very aware and conscious of the privileges I have by being the almost stereotypical looking man for fisheries - a big, bulky and bearded man with skin looking like leather - , of partly European ancestry and the chance to have had an education… surely these factors influenced many of the opportunities given to me. But then this also makes me very adamant in terms of providing for equality and equity in fishing. If my gender, age and background represent the only way to do things, then how come we are facing the problems we have? How hypocritical would it be of me to not bring new voices, new perspectives, new ways to do things! The fact that we have more diversity now than ever before (even if we have a long way to go) is what keeps me optimistic.

So I don’t know if I have lessons to share! Other than to try to do your best and don’t let others be the limit to your hopes, whomever and wherever you are.

Finally, I always quote Noam Chomsky’s words: “We have two choices: to abandon hope and ensure that the worst will happen; or to make use of the opportunities that exist and contribute to a better world. It is not a very difficult choice.”

AIS and labour abuses on board / December 24, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

A recent paper was done by a group of academics in the University of Santa Barbara and people I know from Global Fishing Watch publish (and promoted quite substantially) a paper named “Satellites can reveal the global extent of forced labour in the world’s fishing fleet”.

realities on bard ain’t like what you think at university sometimes

Let start with the name hat quite “eye-catching” I guess… I find it always difficult to digest generalizations based on extrapolations.

Don’t get me wrong, the paper has some very good points and I like that explore a different take on the issue of labour rights on board… which is a very complex area to deal with as I wrote many times before.

I was quite keen to see the methodology and how they got their “indicators” both from the ILO definition of forced labour and vessels behaviours, which is the only thing you can assess from satellite data in reality.

The bit that disappointed me from start is that, as usual with my former colleagues in academia (yes I’m also a proud scientist with 2 Masters in different sciences 10 years apart) is that they did not seem to speak to fisherman or to inspectors directly… which to me would be the logic first point of call: you start with the stakeholders… yet they seem to only have contacted opinion holders. The methodology says:

“We next conducted informal phone interviews with experts from several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in this field, during which we asked interviewees what observable vessel behaviours they would look for if they wanted to identify suspicious activity…”
“NGO experts and investigative journalism suggest that gaps in AIS transmission, port avoidance, transshipment, and extended time at sea may indicate the presence of forced labor…”

Fisherman will tell you things from the inside, so I will take that role and provide some humble constructive criticism on features and descriptions they use for the model features used for training data (is in the supplementary information annexe)

Average daily fishing hours on days when fishing.

Has to be related to the gear…

Longline is the most time-consuming gear and is directly related to the length of the set and weather.
Squid jiggers fish only at night, so it needs to be weighed against latitude and season in the winter night in the 40-50 S (or N) last over 12 hrs, while in summer is 6 to 8.
Trawlers totally depend if they process onboard, what species which determine depth they are targeting… if you aiming deep-sea species like orange roughie setting at 500m means that you have at least 1500 of cable on the winches, so the trawl with a net during fishing of 1-2 hours setting and hauling may 3-4 hrs either side… and once the net in on sinking and fishing you don't need the whole crew on deck… so are they working? Furthermore, once the net is on deck… the vessels are not fishing…. But then is when you really work! either by processing or just freezing and even in the simplest of cases icing…

There are sooo many variables according to gear… that I don’t know how can you standardize this as to be a useful indicator.

That also applies to Vessel Engine Power, which they have a top 5 predictor of human labour abuses… to the same length of a fishing vessel, trawlers need proportionally way more engine power than a squid jigger or a longliner of the same size (or even tonnage). Just think the physics of trawling as an active gear where the boat has to drag a massive and increasing dead weight behind and below, vs LL or Jiggers where the engine is just used to bet the vessel in position and to move fishing grounds and port…. so I assume they would be some sort of correction factor by type of gear (I could not find it)

These next 3 assumptions, unfortunately I see them permeating in many papers these days:

Number of suspected transshipment events with other vessels. Suspected transshipment events are defined by events when two vessels are within 500 meters of each other, traveling less than 2 knots, and for a minimum duration of 2 hours. These suspected transshipment events may represent transshipment, refueling, or transfer of supplies or crew

Average suspected transshipment event duration (hours): Average duration of suspected transshipment events with other vessels. Suspected transshipment events are defined as events when two vessels are within 500 meters of each other, traveling less than 2 knots, and for a minimum duration of 2 hours. These suspected transshipment events may represent transshipment, refueling, or transfer of supplies or crew

Average loitering duration (hours): Average duration of loitering events. Loitering events are defined when a vessel is traveling less than 2 knots, at least 1 kilometer from shore, for at least one hour. These events may represent suspected transshipment events if the second vessel is not broadcasting AIS.

Operationally there are many valid reasons for which a carrier and a Fishing Vessel (or two fishing vessels) can get alongside that do not imply transhipment as defined in the CMM, passing food, gear, crew, parts, salt, oil, etc. name it… it happens! In one case I remember we received the ashes of the captain’s dad who wanted to be spread in the high seas.

Also honestly it takes the best of one hour to tied up securely two vessels at sea, a PS can tranship anything from 700 to 1.3 tons at the time, depending on the made and shape of the hatches (read here if interested) and they could be doing 6 to 10 per hr… so in the best case scenario we are talking 10 tons in one hour… absolutely not worth to use 30 tons as a base…

This logic can be also applied to Jiggers and Trawlers that tranship with nets from the carrier's winches... yet in their case the fish is boxed or frozen in plastic bags so it is transferred over some sort of pallet structure, yet as i said the size of the hatch is the key limiting factors (other than weather)

For longliners never been on transhipment that took less than 10 hours…. I recently peer review over 20 observer reports on longline carriers and the range was 11 to 50 hrs! so really what can you do in two hrs of which one is just getting the vessels next to each other and then away… 4 to 7 hrs (weather dependent) would be my absolute minimum…

So by having such a narrow description of what is suspected as transhipment you are expanding the risk model to genuine interactions that do not reflect at all the issues at hand. Further, I object the assumption that transferring parts or crew is to be categorised as transhipment, that has relatively clear fisheries definition (see here)

As per transferring crew at sea, while we all agree is not the best, yet depending where you want to fly in crew to transfer, you may face the issue of transit visas... for most of the North Pacific they have to go via Honolulu, for the south Australia or NZ, all of them require transit visa (yes even if you don't leave the airport) for Indonesian, Myanmar, Philippines... In the region had some hope that Air Niugini (PNG) and FIJI airways maintain their Asia flights as there more logical visa restrictions was very positive for foreign crew...at least they had a passport and rcords of travel.... Thailand has pot some better condition on passengers on carriers which is the most common way to transfer crew on purseiners... but for Chinese and Vanuatu flagged (that operate from TW or China) carriers is not really an option.

Finally and under loitering: Loitering events are defined when a vessel is travelling less than 2 knots, at least 1 kilometer from shore, for at least one hour. So this will include what happens with vessels coming in with the 2 pilots we have in Majuro o Tarawa entering the vessels to the lagoon

Flies flag of convenience: A boolean for whether or not a vessel flies a flag of convenience

Again… take the usual outs (i.e. Panama. Liberia, Vanuatu, etc) you could argue that in terms of labour CN, TW, Korea and the US, for example, act as FoCs by having a crew on board without the protections of labour conditions that would apply to their own citizens, nor the minimum immigration requirements that will apply to foreign workers coming to work in their land for example… which is the case for vessels flagged on those in principle non-FoCs nations.

Maximum distance from port (km): Maximum distance from any port.

That would be biased against any port in the pacific as it is the biggest ocean and with the lesser # of fishing ports around.

I also have a big issue with the total generalization this one:

Number of visits to ports of convenience: Number of visits to ports in countries that had not ratified the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) at the time of port visit.

There are many reasons why a country may choose not to sign PSMA while still provide for best standards in PSM (for example RMI, PNG, Tuvalu just to name a few) on the other side of the coin. Countries like Uruguay who has been documented receive vessels that have fished illegally in the south Atlantic was one of the 1st ones to sign PSMA, Vanuatu, a country with an abysmal record of labour infringements on board, is a signatory… furthermore, and as I wrote many times as fisheries inspector I can’t do anything in terms of labour, only since this year, and so far as the only place in the world, for the FFA member countries fishing access and labour issues are associated. In the rest of the world… I can refer the vessels to the labour agency of the port state… but unless I can prove any issues related to IUU fishing, I cannot stop the vessel from departing

So yeah, again, I’m not taking a cheap shot to the crew that wrote this paper, as they are ALL so much better qualified than me... I'm absolutely no one... But I like to think their numbers could be way more accurate if they were to adjust some of the assumptions they made. I think the better ground truthing of the methodology, the more reliable the results would be and the better the tool you trying to use.

My point is that while this paper brings very useful points, yet those could be more accurate and provide a much more realistic figures of the issues… facing that between 2,300 and 4,200 unique vessels were high- risk and between 57,000 and 100,000 crew members were working on these boats and thus potential victims of forced labour, can be quite daunting in terms of the scope of the problem to challenge, yet adjusted numbers can be more manageable with the tools and instruments we have now and this is a start on the real size problem we need to work out.

As with the book I wrote for FAO on Blockchain, it worries me when the current media discourse that seems to pin the solution to multifaceted seafood value chain problems on one tool – as AIS is. This risks hyper-inflating expectations on what this technology can offer, with potential users then walking away because it does not deliver on the hype built around it.

I hope the authors and my friends at GFW take any of these comments as nasty criticisms, is absolutely not my intention.

The WCPO tuna fishery: 2019 overview and status of stocks / December 8, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

As every year at this time before the WCPFC meeting, the good people of SPC releases this jewel of a report that present the overview of the tuna fishery of the last years and the status of the stock.

The Pacific Community (SPC) is the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, owned and governed by the 26 country and territory members in the pacific. In pursuit of sustainable development to benefit Pacific people. The Fisheries, Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems (FAME) Division includes the Oceanic Fisheries Programme (OFP) and Coastal Fisheries Programme (CFP). The goal of the OFP is to ensure fisheries that exploit the region’s resources of tuna, billfish and related species are managed for economic and ecological sustainability using the best available scientific information. In pursuing this goal, the OFP provides scientific support for the management of fisheries for tuna and associated species, with a strong focus on stock assessment and modelling, fisheries and ecosystem monitoring and analysis and data management. The OFP works closely with member countries and territories, the WCPFC, FFA and PNA, so it does this work as the science provider for the WCPFC.

So if you want to know what is the situation of the tuna fishery in the region, this report is the ultimate reference, is good, concise, well illustrated, and has many reference to further research. (I wish articles like this one in the otherwise quite reputable “the conversation” website were use it as reference)

Majuro plot stock status summary for the four WCPO target tuna stocks, the grid median value is shown as a large dot, the ellipses closely approximate the distribution of values from grid models

So here is snapshot of the situation

Bigeye and yellowfin tuna stocks were assessed in 2020, the skipjack tuna stock was assessed in 2019, and the South Pacific albacore stock was assessed in 2018. Due to uncertainty in the fisheries data for the most recent year due to COVID, data from the year immediately preceding the assessment year is not included in the bigeye, yellowfin and albacore assessments. Thus, the bigeye and yellowfin tuna assessments include data through 2018, while South Pacific albacore currently includes data through 2016. Skipjack, with its shorter lifespan and importance of young fish to the fishery, includes the most recent year of data; thus the 2019 assessment included fisheries data through 2018.

Summary across target tuna stocks

To summarise the most recent stock assessments for the four target tuna stocks, stock status for all four species are plotted together on a single Majuro plot, along with grid model uncertainties. All four are considered to be in a healthy, sustainable status as none are considered to be overfished. Yellowfin, skipjack and albacore are estimated to have a 0% probability of currently experiencing overfishing, while bigeye is estimated to have a 12.5% probability. To place these results in context, a summary of stock status for these same four stocks assessed in other ocean basins by the three other tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) are illustrated in in the figure below. As most of the other tuna RFMOs report stock status relative to MSY-based reference points (i.e., SB/SBMSY and F/FMSY ), we based the WCPFC status on the same criteria.

comparison of stock status for the same four tuna species in the other major ocean basins

And while the status of the tuna stock os good (the best of all tuna fisheries in the world), the situation for sharks is bad, and particularly for the oceanic whitetip

Catch and status of billfish and sharks

The status of silky and oceanic whitetip sharks is of concern as assessments have shown that stocks are subject to overfishing and, in the case of oceanic whitetip, severely overfished. A WCPFC ban on the use of either shark lines or wire traces in longline sets is in place, which is hoped will reduce the catch of silky and oceanic whitetip sharks. Over the past several years stock assessments have been undertaken for several billfish and shark species, in addition to the main tuna species. The SC recommendations to the WCPFC are broadly outlined below.

Stabilise stock size or catch/ensure no increase in fishing pressure

Southwest Pacific swordfish
Pacific blue marlin

Reduce catch and/or rebuild the stock and/or reduce effort and/or enhance data collection efforts

Pacific bluefin tuna
Southwest Pacific striped marlin
Western and central north Pacific striped marlin
Blue shark
Silky shark
Oceanic whitetip shark

Two shark (oceanic whitetip and sillky) and two billfish (Southwest Pacific striped marlin and Southwest Pacific swordfish) species have been assessed by SPC staff in recent years (Figure 18). Stock status for these species is based on the Kobe plot, where overfished status is judged relative to spawning stock size at MSY3. There is considerable uncertainty in the estimates of F/FMSY and SB/SBMSY for all four species. Based on the assessment model grid medians, Southwest Pacific striped marlin and oceanic whitetip are likely in an overfished state, while overfishing is likely occurring for silky shark as well as oceanic whitetip.

Kobe plot stock status summary for four species of billfishes and sharks assessed at SPC over the past decade and for which stock status has been determined. Note that this plot differs from that presented for the target tuna (the \Majuro" plot), be… — Kobe plot stock status summary for four species of billfishes and sharks assessed at SPC over the past decade and for which stock status has been determined. Note that this plot differs from that presented for the target tuna (the \Majuro" plot), because the WCPFC has not yet decided on LRPs for these species and therefore MSY-based reference points are used as a default.

The other worry is of course climate change…

The historical simulations reflect key features of the ecology and behaviour of the four tunaspecies and match the total historical catch in terms of both weight and size frequency distributions. The projections show an eastern shift in the biomass of skipjack and yellowfin tuna over time, with a large and increasing uncertainty for the second half of the century, especially for skipjack tuna. The impact is weaker for bigeye tuna and albacore, which predicts a wider and warmer range of favorable spawning habitat. For albacore, a strong sensitivity to sub-surface oxygen conditions resulted in a very wide range of projected stock sizes. Historical fishing pressure was estimated to have reduced the adult stocks of all four tuna species by 30-55% by the end of 2010. The effects of fishing on biomass strongly outweighed the decreases attributed to climate change in the short- to medium-term. Thus, fishing pressure is expected to be the dominant driver of tuna population status until the mid-century. The projected changes in abundance and redistribution of these tuna associated with climate change could have significant implications for the economic development of Pacific Island countries and territories, and the management of tuna resources, at basin scale. In particular, larger proportions of the catch of each species is increasingly expected to be made in international waters.

A closer look on... Transhipments: a closer look / December 4, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

I have always been a fan of FAO work, their publications helped me lot trough my fisherman life and later on during my consulting career. I’m immensely proud of having been an FAO Fishery Officer, and having my name as an author for one of their “green books” was one of the proudest days of my life, I have done 2 more since then (and doing another two at the present!). Yet for 1st time in all my life, I find myself at odds with one part of the contents in one of their publications.

Fish should not be unloaded until proven legal by the catcher… simple.

Transhipment: a closer look, is the product of “The In-depth Study on Transshipment” that was been carried out with the assistance of the European Union (and this will become important later on), and while I was aware of the consultation I was not involved (never asked to be involved either). (Full document here)

As someone that works and specialises on the topic, I had an immediate interest on it… nicely produced and illustrated. But then when I started reading their “definition” of transhipment:

“Transshipment” – meaning the transfer of catch (i.e. fish and fish products) from one fishing vessel to another fishing vessel or other vessel either directly or indirectly through other vessels, (so far so good for me! but then…) vehicles, points, containers, installations, facilities or premises used for the carriage, storage or facilitating the transfer or transit of such catch prior to the landing – is a widely practised fishing-related activity in all regions of the world and in various fisheries. I was dismayed…

Furthermore, the publication has an illustrated example of a vessel landing and then loading fish into a container… I just totally disagree with that being called transhipment… Not that it really matters as I’m just an ex fisherman and I’m sure that the people involved in this publication are very well known fisheries administrators and academics.

But just because I was a fisherman… I’ll make a point of my opinion being expressed.

—

Ok, let go by parts… English is not my 1st language… but in these aspects I like it:

Transhipment – in between two ships… easy. Landing: something touches land… simple

But no… the document somehow defines the term “landing” in this context means a process through which a shipment or cargo of catch is documented or declared to have been subjected to the prescribed process of entry into a country or to have been cleared as an import by customs or the competent authority of the port state.

Sorry, but how come a vessel is authorised to unload (either transhipment or landing) without the catch being “documented or declared to have been subjected to the prescribed process of entry into a country”.

You see (in my humble opinion) this is wrong.

Reality is that by definition of most RFMOs (and the EU IUU regulation) transhipment "is the transfer of fish in between two vessels"

points in case:

Transhipment is defined in the WCPFC Convention as meaning “the unloading of all or any of the fish on board a fishing vessel to another fishing vessel at sea or in port"
for the EU 1005/200810:‘transhipment’ means the unloading of all or any fishery products onboard a fishing vessel to another fishing vessel; (the EU IUU reg specifically mention that container vessels don fit into the fishing vessel category!)
IOTC defines around transhipment conditions for donor and carrier vessels, but not for container vessels...
and so on

My take is that when fish is landed as per FAO PSMA (or just PSMA best practices) it falls under the PSM responsibilities of the country that is hosting that landing... even if the fish was just landed to be put in a container. The exporter, in this case, is not the vessel, but the entity that is exporting the containers

We had issue already in the pacific with EU catch certificates because fish landed and put in containers in Kosrae (FSM) was sent to EU as it was transhipped, when in reality it wasn't. Furthermore from the sanitary side, as on as the fish is landed in a country that is not authorised by the EU as equivalent in terms of seafood safety, that fish loses eligibility for the EU (that is the reasons RMI is trying to become an EU authorised country), so fish can be landed, sorted and containerised for export and still eligible for the EU, even if processed in Thailand or Vietnam.

We get a lot of slack from Chinese and Taiwanese operators for not signing section 7 (transhipment in port) in the EU Catch Certificate since the operation of unloading to the wharf, sorting and containerization does not fit the definition of transhipment in the EU regulation, and we don’t want more yellow cards. So now those operators are pointing to this illustration and saying you guys are wrong…

In fact, since Thailand got hard on PSM the increase of fish arriving in container skyrocketed as a way to go around PSM controls, as that fish fall out of PSMA since it was lander before.

I also interacted with one of the authors on this and he raised the following valid points (in italics, to which I answer in normal text)

Landing is not defined in any the legislations and RFMOs.

But for me, the fact that landing is not defined, while a worry, can be seen as an advantage because transhipment is defined... i.e. vessels to vessels... so any other stuff that happens we can argue what to name it: landing, wharfing, whatever... but is not transhipment... which is exactly my point!

In various regions where the catch is directly offloaded from catching vessels to containers which are then almost immediately loaded onto a container vessel – without oversight or involvement of any authority – fisheries, customs or otherwise, especially when this activity takes place in what is considered “private” ports – where the only documentation of what is going on is potentially only from the vessels themselves or their agents and that this practice continues to grow. There are some that do not consider these instances to be a “landing” and instead just a movement of the catch from one vessel to another while in port.

I've seen that in a few countries, yet those containers are never in a container vessel (you need sorting/handling space which is not available in the deck of a container vessel). Furthermore, container vessels are on very tight port schedules, it can take over 48 hrs -non-stop- to unload a PS based on hatches sizes, for example, a day or more for a Longliner as fish comes out 1 by one… Hence containers are on the wharf and will be moved around by a vehicle and will be kept refrigerated via electricity mains that are powered from the land, not the vessel. So whatever we call that... it is not transhipment as defined in the legislation (and again that is what I'm driving here).

To add to this point… is that those unloading operations from the vessels, the loading of the containers etc is to be authorised and monitored by fisheries and surely customs, otherwise imagine all the "other stuff” you could load in.

The global reefer fleet is really not getting bigger and they are not really building new reefers to take the place of the ageing ones, the world is moving more and more towards containerization – and the movement of goods by container which includes an increasing fleet of container vessels so, the case of the same catcher vessel coming into the same port but this time, instead of a reefer being there, there is a container vessel if the catcher vessel direct offloads to a container which is then directly unloaded to the container vessel, there are some that may view that as a transhipment rather than a landing – the transfer of catch was driven by a logistics choice…i.e. the availability of a container vessel and containers vice an actual reefer.

Interestingly, not long time ago I wrote about this recently. I believe that COVID would encourage refitting of the present fleet and potentially some new vessels. In any case again...the schedule of container vessels is much tighter than the schedule of fishing boats... so the logistics angle may play to the fact that you may unload faster the fishing vessel as to load to a container, and the container will be hoisted to the container vessels and plugged there. yet for container vessel to accept a container it needs the "Bill of Lading" for the consignment, otherwise, it will not accept them for reasons ranging from due diligence to cargo insurance. Different container handlers have variations on the maximum weight of fish in containers (20 to 25 tons) so these need to be weighed in somewhere and crosschecked with the Bill of Lading...

Also, no fisherman on earth will let go of its fish without a document with the weight of the fish he is passing off... at any unloading you'll have a crew representative checking the weights (that is why captains are really keen on the scales we were using during transhipments). Point is that there would be always some sort of paperwork (official or not) going on when fish gets into a container... So from the operational and logistics side is a matter of fisheries and customs to join in, because the paperwork is happening even if purely only from the commercial side

Yet again as per the definition this process is not strictly vessel to vessel... and I don't think that nor WCPFC, IOTC, EU, etc include container vessels in the definition of "fishing or support vessels" definitively PSMA does not either, which also a corollary of the "vessel to vessel" definition.

when various Conventions such as WCPFC and IOTC were agreed, the use of containers for moving catch was not a dominant activity where the activity occurred at a level where there might have been a need to actually define “landing” in the list of definitions so that it could clearly capture the requirements of the activity of a “landing” if and when it occurred, especially through direct offloads to containers.

Yeah, that is true... and containerisation is (as I wrote in the blog above) a really attractive option that needs deeper analysis. Yet for example, our very simple PSM SOPs that I was involved in implementing in RMI, PNG and Noro (Solomons) include the process of authorisation of port use (which includes the unloading of fish) based on the analysis of identity, licensing and operations of the vessels prior arrival, then monitoring of unloading either landing or transhipment, and the if landed irrelevant if goes to a container or to a cool store is all tallied, and then an export authorisation is given either as whole fish or as processed if it went to factory... So is not too hard, can be done and is consistent with PSMA

I guess I agree to disagree with this publication on this aspect… and I worry that if some people associate landing, sorting and containerisation as part of transhipment we going back in the advances we made already.

The whole point of PSM is that if the catching vessels cannot prove that the fish was caught in compliance with the licensing conditions port use is denied… end of the story.

Already Transhipment in the HS is a loophole to this… but at least is more identified. Now I find it weird that we could this way allow a vessel to get their potentially IUU catches into the value chain by calling the landing a transhipment to which you cannot do much until the fish gets to the destination via the realm of the custom oversight (fisheries rarely gets involved with containers)… at least in the specific transhipment definition (vessels to vessels) fisheries is to be involved the same way that fish to land… and again doesn't matter if it gets to a container to be sent away or to the factory to be processed and then send away.

Fish does not become IUU along the value chain, fish Is caught IUU and should not come out of the boat until its proven no IUU.

the abuse of the impracticability exemption for at sea transhipments of the WCPO longline fleet / November 16, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

I have been quite slack with the blogging, lately… in what use to be my “normal” job until February I’ll be all day away doing stuff, getting n baits, working on VMS analysis, and so ion… so to read something and write things other than the end of mission report was great…. Now I’m struggling to get away from a screen!

Actually Mola-mola are quite practical to tranship

But also I feel I keep recycling things like the issues of transhipments in the HS at the WCPFC… In 2018, WCPFC15 recognised the need to review how transhipment is managed and monitored by forming an inter-sessional working group (IWG) to study the effectiveness of CMM 2009-06.

So interested I’m that I was asked by my colleagues in MIMRA (Marshalls) to be their nominee to replace the departing co-chair in the IWG (my friend Sam Lanwi that is now the 2nd in command at the RMI embassy to WTO and UN bodies in Geneva).

Unfortunately, even if I’m operationally a MIMRA “officer” I get paid by the NZ government, and that put me in a weird situation as a rep of another country… anyway… I’m heavily involved as a technical officer in the working group.

The situation is a mess… In principle the CMM discourages transhipments at sea (TS) with an impracticability exemption… yet how impracticability is determined, is not defined or explored… as consequence the number at-sea Longline Transhipments within the WCPFC Area increased 165% in 5 years, from 554 in 2014 to 1472 in 2019 and as 2 Nov 2020, 61% of vessels on the record were authorized to tranship in the High Seas by their flag State.

All these transhipments are authorised based on the "impracticability" to go to port. They correspond in descending order to longliners flagged in Taiwan, China, Vanuatu & Korea, and go (also in descending order) to Carriers flagged in Taiwan, Panama, Korea, Liberia, China & Vanuatu.

obviously long lining is getting way more impractical.

This is just not good enough… on top of that with the COVID situation, the very few observers and at-sea inspections have been cut to limit the potential exposure of fishers, observers, and inspectors to the virus. While these steps are necessary, they also increase the urgency of updating and strengthening WCFPFC’s transhipment measure to ensure proper monitoring and reporting.

And I focus here on Longline only…because is, in my opinion, they are of more risk… I depart substantially of the opinions in this recent paper “Toward transparent governance of transboundary fisheries: The case of Pacific tuna transhipment”, that focuses on Purse Seiner. While their approach is to call (based on a prior paper of 2018) “potential transhipment, is defined as any occurrence in which a reefer and a purse seine vessel are fewer than 500 m from each other for more than 2 h, while located more than 10 km from any port”

Operationally there are many valid reasons for which a carrier and a PS can get alongside that do not imply transhipment as defined in the CMM, passing food, gear, crew, parts, salt, oil, etc. name it… it happens! In one case I remember we received the ashes of the captain’s dad who wanted to be spread in the high seas.

Anything implying transhipment for me is from 4 hrs up, and that is the measure we use in Majuro when we detect vessels proximity while at sea for more than 4 hrs… we go and check the temperature records of the wells and dry lockers to see if they got open (ergo temperature spikes) during the time aside… the only time we found something was that they have received frozen pigs to distribute with other vessels for Chinese new years :-)

Furthermore, it assumes a total silence by the observers… of which PS have 100% coverage, and while I may believe that you can induce the silence of a few, definitively not of all… for what? 100-200 tons in a 1000 tons vessel…. Yeah...Nah. I reckon is good to have a fisherman reviewing the drafts of the papers before setting hard limits.

Anyway… back to operational issues… I’ll like to define over some basic issues like to clarify what “impracticability” really looks like... as to potentially identify a certain number of parameters may need to be accounted as to claim "impracticability"

For example position at the time of requesting authorisation, distance to ports at that moment vs distance to rendezvous place with a carrier, distance travelled by the donor vessels to the carrier in function of the carrier being based at the nearest port... and so on

While on the other side, legitimate impracticability reasons such as weather conditions in a way to closest port, bunkers distribution, fuel consumption - just as some examples are also to be considered.

I believe that an important outcome of the info required is to provide information that facilitates the way to a future agreement for of a standardised procedural process to be followed by flag states and/or coastal states before authorisation to tranship in the HS is given, and that the burden of proof for "impracticability" needs to be demonstrated through due diligence prior to the transhipment to be approved...

Particularly because the crosscutting issues that the "impracticability" exemption needs to be leveraged against... as there are a lot of other WCPFC CMMs that pivot to a different extent on this impracticability.

Under and Misreporting
Observer Coverage
EM
Labour issues
Safety at sea
MARPOL

In the meantime, inside the present framework of the CMM, there are some issues that can be much better of what they are now

Observer reporting forms and submission requirements need to be improved

In 2017, the Secretariat reported at the 13th Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC13) meeting that they had received only one observer report for the 958 high seas transshipping events that were reported to have occurred in the Convention Area in 2016. Since then there have not been any other apparent observer report submissions to the Secretariat, so it appears that the Secretariat has received only one observer report for the 4,931 transhipment events that occurred between 2016 and 2019.

While most other tuna RFMO Secretariats have access to transhipment observer reports, the lack of access for the WCPFC Secretariat undermines its ability to independently verify the information reported by transshipping vessels.

There is insufficient sharing of data on transhipment operations between WCPFC, IATTC, and NPFC

A recent geospatial report published by The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew) cross-referenced satellite AIS data track histories of carrier vessels and movement patterns consistent with transhipment behavior against publicly available information on carrier vessels and transshipments reported by the WCPFC Secretariat and Commission members. The report found that in 2016 there were high concentrations of carrier vessel activity and potential unreported transshipments in two WCPFC overlap areas —the IATTC/ WCPFC overlap area and where the NPFC Convention Area spans part of the WCPFC high seas area off Japan. These three RFMOs all have different reporting and observer carriage requirements, making it difficult to determine which RFMO rules and procedures a carrier vessel is, or should be, operating under in dually managed waters at any given time. As a result, the amount and type of species transshipped by a carrier vessel in such waters may go unreported to the appropriate RFMO authorities.

Discrepancies exist in transhipment reporting within WCPFC

The 2020 WCPFC Annual Report on Transshipment reveals discrepancies in notifications and declarations received from offloading and receiving vessels. For instance, Panama reportedly received 380 transshipments yet provided only 318 notifications and 377 declarations for the 2019 reporting period. Other members and cooperating nonmembers have similar inconsistencies, with only China and Liberia meeting the notification and reporting requirements for all transshipments. In total, 95 notifications and 4 declarations were not submitted by CCM carrier vessels, and 57 advanced notifications and 17 declarations were not submitted by CCM fishing vessels that transshipped in 2019

Additional sources of information are needed to effectively verify reported transhipment operations

According to the 2019 WCPFC Annual Report on Transshipment, the Secretariat undertook an analysis of VMS data to attempt to detect potential transhipment events. The Secretariat specified that an incident would be counted as an event when “…the reported WCPFC VMS positions related to two fishing vessels, are estimated to be within a distance of 250 metres, over a time period of at least 4 hours.” Overall, the VMS system only detected 23%t of the over 3,200 transhipment events that were reported to the Secretariat during the time period of interest. In order to improve the accuracy of the tool, and consider AIS data analysis. This is another useful tool for increasing the transparency of transhipment activity. Given that the VMS polling rate for longliners is once every four hours, supplemental use of AIS data could be used to gain a better understanding of the length of time a transshipment at sea takes place within the WCPFC Convention Area

A review of CMM-2009-06 found key areas that need improvement

WCPFC is one of the only RFMOs that allows at sea transhipment exemptions for small scale purse seine vessels, purse seine vessels operating exclusively in-zone, for troll, longline, pole and line vessels, etc. These exemptions and ambiguity make implementation inconsistent and allow for even more transshipments to occur than initially envisioned when Article 29 of the Convention was drafted. The WCPFC transhipment resolution also differs from those in many other tRFMOs in that it does not apply to the whole Convention Area.

As we discussed earlier… the present system ain working… no is no… so if you don’t like it go fish somewhere else.

Webinar on Tuna Fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific amidst COVID 19 / November 6, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

A while ago the great crew of INFOFISH asked me if I could help to organise and moderate a 2 hr webinar on the impact of COVID in the pacific tuna fishery. As I know them well, I said I will agree with two conditions:

we should only have people from the pacific, front liners, young people and equal gender representation as much as possible if possible, and
no private certifications trying to sell us their products

And I loved when they agreed! In fact, I also wanted to pass the role of moderator to one of my pacific colleagues, but they told me I should keep it as I know everyone involved personally, I been to everyone’s house, many have been to mine and we trust each other… which is a very important thing.

If I could, I'll organise it as if we were around a bowl of Kava on a big traditional canoe floating somewhere, just chatting like the friends we are… I’m not one for the over formality and pomposity of some of these events, you still can be totally professional, without having to be stiff. So join us by registering for free!

One of the things I’m excited about is the opportunity of having a small panel chat with front liners in the region, these are the young woman and men at the face of the fishery in the vessels, wharves and factories, in some cases doing the boarding, or remote compliance, dealing with the disruptions in processing, and the logistics of running fishing boats in these strange days

As I insisted many times… Fishing is people, and people in the pacific is families... so I will be trying to make it a relaxed conversation among colleagues on our region, I like to hear not just the "institutional" views but also personal impacts… in fishing people are not part of the jobs, they are their jobs

The keynote speech will be by my good friend Pamela Maru, now the boss at the Ministry of Marine Resources Cook Islands. Pam and I go a long time, when she was still an officer in the Cooks, then she became a powerful engine at FFA, she one of the people that understand the working intricacies of the WCPFC better than anyone. She has been to my place, knows my family (is an honorary godmother to my daughter Kika), I been to her place many times, know her family… shell is one of the people I have the biggest amount of professional and personal respect in the fishing world. I’m totally honoured to have it on board.

Then Dr. Transform Aqorau, will be giving some of his insights… (if you have an interest in Tuna and don't know Transform… then you need to go back to learn bout Tuna in the pacific). I was honoured to illustrate with my pictures his recent book on PNA. Again, we go back a long time. I have been his guest and he is taking good steering on the eNoro project, something that is very close to my heart.

Then is the front liner panel with some of my younger colleagues and friends…

Saurara from Fiji whom I know for over 15 years now since I first trained her and now we are consulting colleagues in many projects, and I have passed her all the opportunities that arrive at my desk on in regards processing, CA. EU market access and so on. She is amazing, we worked together in for a few years in Kiribati, and besides doing a stellar job, she did her MBA, while being a mother two the two great kids she has, I got to also meet her awesome husband that is such a great and supportive guy.
Then is Beau Bigler whom we work a lot in RMI, besides being one the most driven and smarter fisheries officer I work with he is total waterman, so far the only officer I have worked with that we surf, paddle and fish together and also the only one I have cycled to work!
I”m hoping to have also Kikiva “Slota” Tepaia from Rabaul in PNG, one of the few places in the region where boarding still happens, so his insights of working during COVID will be amazing. He is a total character, devoted to his works, and very good photographer, as well.
Finally, I’m hoping to have Cynthia Wickham, who also is family to me! She is part of one of the coolest fishing families in the world, and the fleet manager for NFD In Noro, the place that for me represent what fishing should be in the pacific, she is frontline, right at the wharf while being the mother of a young child. I’m soo looking forwards to her views.

While everyone talks about the lack of observers in the vessels, no many are talking about what is happening to the around 800 observers in the regions that haven’t worked since February! So I wanted to bring that reality to the front… and who better than two former observers that have moved to really senior positions in different institutions

First would be Sifa Fukufuka, Training Coordinator of SPC’s Observer Programme. Sifa was f the 1st generation of observers in the region and a trainer to everyone after him, his view on the observer world, their training and their reality are unique… I’m totally looking forwards to listen to him.
Then is my friend Glen Joseph, who is at the same my boos as the director of the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority and the Chair of the Parties of the Nauru Agreement (PNA). He actually was an observer himself and got to his position based on being trailblazer and someone that is always creating the paths others will follow. He has been a great supporter of my work and my respect for him is up there with Pam and Transform

To finish we have my friend and fellow former fisherman Brett Haywood, that knows harder than anyone the impact that COVID has had in the fresh longline sector… he will be speaking on his role as the Chairman - Pacific Islands Tuna Industry Association, but also the manager of Seaquest a company in Fiji that was ahead of its time with blockchain-based traceability I reported in the past

So yeah a packed agenda to go through, and a time frame that does not make any justice to the capacities and experiences of the people on board

But please join us by clicking here, love to see you having some kava with us.

On being part of the Waiheke Marine Future Search Hui / October 28, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

As I wrote before, it has been weird to be working as I’m working now. The last time I was out of NZ was in February... so these 8 months have been my longest period at home in the last 20 years! And also the longest I have not been on a fishing boat since I was 18 years old!!! At a personal level, I'm missing a bit of “my reality”... my personal and professional life are every intertwined so having some sort of small island routine ( as I live in one!) it gets repetitive sometimes

On the other side... my running, swimming, canoeing, surfing, and cycling km logging have been excellent! and it has been good to be home for the veggie garden and to rebuild stuff with my wife. Work-wise has been also good, lots of small jobs of the type I don't really like much, writing, policy analysis, seminars.

Yet interestingly it gave me the chance to reconnect a bit with NZ fisheries, a part of my life I left partly behind but I always care for.

As part of that relationship (and the fact that I’m here), I’ve been invited to be part of Future Search Hui (Maori term for an assembly) organized by the Waiheke Marine Project among some of its activities.

Future Search is a globally utilised, large scale planning event which brings the ‘whole system’ into the room. It is an action based, facilitated, programme to find common ground across diverse voices.

This multi-day Future Search event is starting this Friday 30 October and will run for 3 days, it will bring together approximately 70+ people to dialogue, reach common ground and agree on action to protect and regenerate the marine environment of Waiheke Island.

The Future Search planning group of diverse voices selected the 70+ Future Search participants after a period of ‘casting the net wide’ for voices from mana whenua, fishers & boaties, scientists, marine commercial operators, land interests, youth, conservationists, agencies & politicians and Waiheke locals.

And I have to say I’m quite impressed with the quality of some of the people coming, I’ve known a few professionally and personally and I’m looking forwards to meet some others I know about, but never meet personally

The outcomes will contribute to an eventual presentation to the Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries and the Ministerial Advisory Committee of Sea Change targeted in December 2020. After that, the Waiheke Marine Project will change form into one that supports the collaborative actions generated by the Waiheke Community to protect and regenerate the seas around Waiheke Island.

What do I bring to the table?

Well… I’m an ocean person, it is my life… and it has been since I was a 12 years old cadet in the navy. My job and my recreation are based there…. I'm a long-distance ocean swimmer, a surfer, a paddler, a sailor, a spear-fisher, and also do some fishing with lures out of my waka -ama (outrigger canoe) either rowing or sailing. I’m quite committed to non-motorized fishing, I’m against the recreational use of combustion engines on land and sea (even if I’m a big visible man I've been run over by a cars while cycling and running and by a boat, while swimming, in all cases recreational users at the wheel, and have some bad scars to prove it, unfortunately)

Professionally, I’ve done the range from a commercial fisher, a fisheries technician/observer, a fisheries scientist, a fisheries officer for the UN FAO, a trainer of fisheries officer, an intelligence analyst for fisheries organisations, and a compliance specialist for quite a few international agencies and governments,

And if that wasn’t enough, I’m an immigrant!…hence I can be everyone’s friend or enemy… depending where you stand.

So yeah… I may have something to collaborate with, and while my position is clear in my head (wrote about it here) I’m going to listen to others over the 3 days.

I’m actually looking forwards… hui and long conversations to achieve consensus are a staple in the guarani culture I grew up, and in the pacific cultures I live and work.

Honestly, I have no idea if it will work and have an impact after... yet I would know even less staying from the outside without listening to what is said.

Are you a specialist on Plastic Waste Disposal Practices? / October 23, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

If you read my blogs, you may be aware of my interest in issues around plastics at sea, particularly when they come from fishing, goes back in time. and here is a potential consulting opportunity for someone with the right background to join me on a tender for a job assessing plastic waste disposal options and practices for FV in the central and western pacific. You bring your experience and I add my one on fishing and the region.

Read below and if you still keen, get in touch!

The adoption of the WCPFC Conservation Management Measure (CMM) 17/04 on Marine Pollution, (championed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands) coming into effect on 1 January 2019m was a big win for the pacific island countries

Clause 2 of the CMM specifically states:

CCMs shall prohibit their fishing vessels operating in the WCPFC Convention area from discharging any plastic (including plastic packaging, items containing plastic and polystyrene) but not including fishing gear.

As of January 1, 2019, all fishing vessels operating in the WCPFC Convention Area are explicitly prohibited from dumping any plastics into the ocean. This is potentially an excellent step towards curbing drastic levels of plastic marine pollution. However, the reality of current plastic disposal methods is in stark contrast to the intention of the measure.

As I wrote before: A typical tuna longline vessel will set around 3000 hooks per set. The hooks are baited via 10-kilogram boxes which contain 100 – 120 pieces of bait. The boxes are waxed cardboard and each has a plastic liner to contain the bait and two plastic straps to seal the box. Therefore, with each set using around 30 boxes of bait for each set of 3000 hooks there are 90 pieces of plastic generated, to make numbers easier let’s assume only 1000 longliners setting every day (in reality there are more than that), that represents conservatively 90,000 pieces of plastic per day or 630,000 pieces of plastic per week and 2,520,000 per month, as well as 30+ pieces of waxed cardboard overboard for each vessel each day!

As far as has currently been ascertained, outside of Australia and New Zealand, only Fiji has licensing provisions that require the retention of plastic waste on board locally based and licensed vessels for disposal onshore.

It can only be concluded that a considerable number of high seas longline vessels dump plastic waste from bait boxes in the ocean every day. Furthermore, plastic pollution from fishing vessels, particularly plastic strapping from bait boxes, is implicated in direct impacts on numerous endangered, threatened, or protected species.

The problem of plastic waste disposal at sea is not limited to just longline vessels. FFA/SPC recently coordinated a focused Observer trip on board a Vanuatu Flagged Taiwanese Carrier vessel undertaking transshipment with longline vessels operating on the high seas. The subsequent trip report noted as follows:

“Unfortunately, pollution incidents were common. MARPOL signage was abundant, but plastics were continuously thrown into the sea. There were properly marked bins on deck, but they were not emptied when we were in port. A poignant moment was watching three juvenile oceanic whitetip sharks chewing on the kitchen waste, which included plastics”.

With the exception of clause 2, the majority of the language in the measure is well-intentioned, but light in the use of directive terminology, using terms such as “CCMs are encouraged” or “shall encourage” and “CCMs are requested.” In addition, the measure lacks a clause to define enforcement of clause 2 such as inclusion in any compliance monitoring scenario beyond flag state reporting.

For pacific island countries, we can potentially utilise license conditions or regulatory inclusion of text in support of clause 2 of the measure or consider the adoption of clause 2 enforcement as an addition to Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions (HMTCs) we all share.

However, this does not account for high seas operations unless DWFN CCMs also move to adopt mechanisms to enforce clause 2. It would be an imbalance to place restrictions on domestic based vessels, which do not apply to the high seas.

The standard argument against this is likely to be that there is just no means for high seas vessels to dispose of plastic bait box waste other than into the ocean. However, in reality, this is potentially not the case.

In the case of domestic-based vessels, waste can possibly either be disposed of on return from sea or prior to departure. Consider the scenario where bait boxes are emptied into bins (such as are standard storage containers on most vessels), then these bins can be stored with 3 boxes of bait per bin and stowed in the freezer to be used as required.

There would also seem to be potential for this to apply to carrier vessels loading bait for delivery to longline vessels, but this could involve the large plastic bins commonly utilised for fish holding on vessels and in ports. Significantly, this could also provide additional leverage to improve observer coverage and reporting on transshipment or carrier vessels as well.

In another scenario, the suppliers of bait boxes could be encouraged to use waxed paper box liners and bind boxes with twine or tape which can be more easily stowed on board with the bait boxes and liners being burnt

The job:

The aims of the study at hand are to undertake research, investigation, and consultation to provide a detailed analysis of the following:

An estimate of the amounts of plastic waste generated on a per vessel basis by vessel type and operation.
A summary of current fishing vessel plastic waste disposal practices in FFA Member Countries and adjacent high seas areas.
An estimate of the volumes of fishing vessel plastic waste that is being directly dumped into the ocean and a review of the potential impacts of this practice.
A summary of the range of mechanisms for plastic waste disposal from fishing vessels other than oceanic dumping and how these could potentially be applied.
Consideration and recommendation of practices that could be adopted to mitigate oceanic plastic waste disposal from fishing vessels, the associated costs, and how these practices might be applied.
In considering mitigation practices, take account of the current and potential impact on port waste disposal infrastructure using three examples of high fishing vessel traffic ports such as Suva, Noro, Majuro or Pohnpei.
Provide consideration as to possible strategies and actions that could be taken at both national and regional levels to eliminate all plastic waste disposal at sea.

The output will be a detailed technical report and associated appendices

We will be required to submit a draft report for comment and review, and take account of comments before compiling the final report.

So yea… if you keen… Let me know

On being a operational fisheries guy stuck behind a computer / October 10, 2020 by Francisco Blaha

I assume I’m not saying anything new around the fact that this has been a very crazy year… that affected everything in my professional and personal life… not as much as on what I do, but also on how I do my job.

a computer based consultant with a outdoor routine

Let’s start by being clear that I’m well, I’m healthy… which is an incredible privilege, as I personally knew quite a few fisheries colleagues outside the Pacific that are not alive anymore.

Personally, I’m incredibly thankful to my clients since I found my self with way more work than I ever expected for someone that is normally involved in operational projects... and this is soo good...

At the moment I’m working on:

An FAO study on the identification Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) and Key Data Elements (KDEs) along the seafood value chain (for both wild capture and aquaculture)
An FAO study on Current technologies for recording information on-board deep-sea fishing vessels
The 2020 update of the FFA IUU quantification study with MRAG
Writing an Inspection manual for officers in west African flag states
Continuing with my role as Offshore Fisheries Advisor for MIMRA (RMI)
Providing technical support to PEW and Stanford University
A transparency enhancement projects with WWF and a major NZ fishing company
Support to FFA on PSM, CDS and IUU NPOAs
A contract with UNPD supporting the potential creation of Joint Management Area in the Indian Ocean
Plus 3 proposals for different jobs on the social side of fishing that are on the pipeline

Working from home, sitting in front of a computer with innumerable zoom calls and writing technical documents… is not what I normally do (nor what I do best). Normally my work plan is calendar-based: 20 days in some country, a couple of weeks home, 1 month on another country, home… and so on… not 10 jobs at once, doing small bits every day.

So I really miss my old reality... my personal and professional life are every intertwined, so my present life with its routine it gets repetitive and lonely sometimes.

Last time I was out of NZ was in February... so these 8 months have been my longest period at home in the last 20 years! And the longest I have not been on a fishing boat since I was 18 years old!!!

On the other side... it was very useful to reset things at home with my family, have my veggie garden very productive, and furthermore, my running, swimming, surfing and cycling distance logging has been excellent!

So yeah… but I’m very conscious on how privileged I am, and that as many in rich countries I can afford to evaluate about how COVID has impacted our lives, yet for an immense (and mostly invisible to us) majority of people in the world, shitty or no jobs and hunger was, is and will continue to be their only reality.

And on that note, I salute with my full respect my colleagues at the World Food Programme for their totally deserved recognition with the Nobel price

Francisco Blaha

Independent Fisheries Adviser