Free Workshop on the Implementation of Port State Measures by APEC

I have done work for APEC in the past… they are a very unique organisation in the membership and scope, i like the fact that their Ocean Fisheries Working Group (OFWG) has beee alwasy quite active and keeping up with what is happening.

It is NZ turn to host the meeting this year… but COVID got on the way, so NZ is hosting it on line… which as most things in life has advantages and disadvantages…. to be on the positive side the advantage is that it can now be open to everyone… member or not, as there is no cap on attendance.

The workshop will feature a wide range of speakers (including me) covering a range of topics associated with Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, with a specific focus on port state measures as a tool to combat IUU.

This workshop aims to build capacity to implement port state measures through sharing experiences and how challenges associated with their implementation can be overcome. This is a significant event, as it is the first step in the APEC Roadmap to Combating IUU Fishing.

Below is the workshop agenda for your reference.

The work will be held across two days (21 and 22 July) from 14:00-17:30 NZT! Even if you can only join for a small portion of the workshop, you are most welcome!

To register for this workshop, please: 

1) complete this online form; and then 

2) compete the attached ‘Consent Form for NMP’ spreadsheet and send it to caleb.blackbeard@mpi.gov.nz [please note that there are two tabs/sheets in the spreadsheet, both need to be completed]

Please complete both of these steps before COB Tuesday 13 July and I “see” you there

AIS-based profiling of fishing vessels falls short as a “proof of concept” for identifying forced labor at sea

Back in December I was quite critical of a paper that correlated IAS, vessels characteristics and labour abuses. Of course, my criticism was based on my understanding and experience and the fact that did din not seem to have ground-truthed their assumptions and indicators with fisherman, as they could have immediately picked up the issues I picked up.… but then I’m just an ex fisherman and a couple of masters, while the authors are all PhDs and academics… so my criticism was just on this blog.

Not bad for vessels with a big engine

Now interestingly a letter to the authors was sent by some heavyweights scientists and published over a month ago. The authors say is way more elegant English (and without needing too many details) things around the line of what I wrote, further adding that it fails a “proof of concept”

Not that it really matters at the end, but it made me feel well. Maybe one day I’ll give PhD a go.

In the meantime, I paste the letter below, original here.

McDonald et al. argue that labor conditions in fisheries can be discerned from the movement and characteristics of fishing vessels. We recognize the authors’ effort, yet have strong reservations regarding their 1) limited dataset, 2) assumptions, and 3) model validation. Forced labor is a serious human rights violation, and any scientific claims potentially informing policy must be considered with particular care to best promote efforts toward ending human terror and supporting survivors. We, therefore, urge that the authors consider how their efforts may misinform policy.

The authors create profiles from vessels reported to have committed labor abuses, search for similar profiles in a database of 16,000 vessels with available positioning (automatic identification system [AIS]) and associated data, and conclude that up to 4,200 vessels in “global” fishing fleets are “high risk” for labor abuse. First, of 193 labor abuse vessels identified by McDonald et al., only 58 used AIS and just 21 yield AIS profiles suitable for their analysis, implying that nearly 90% of their known cases are undetectable by AIS-based profiling as proposed.

Second, the 27 features used in their profiles are not causally linked to labor conditions onboard. The four features identified as most predictive of labor abuse “risk” (engine power, maximum distance from port, yearly voyages, average daily fishing hours), describe large distant-water vessels and are therefore likely correlated. Third, there is no testing of vessels with similar profiles that have not engaged in labor abuse. Existing evaluation methods for positive-undefined learning systems require some positive/negative-class knowledge of unlabeled cases in the training or test datasets, and their performance given unbalanced data (with many more “undefined” than “positive” cases) is questionable (2⇓–4). The authors fail to accomplish the former and display problems of the latter. The use of the 21 positive cases to both train and validate the model violates the golden rule of machine learning in that the test data cannot influence the training phase. Additionally, risk as presented is not likelihood or probability of labor abuse and statistical findings are not ground-truthed; thus, the data offer no evidence that forced labor is more prevalent in vessels identified as high risk.

Given the suggestion that their model provides “new opportunities for unique market, enforcement, and policy interventions,” we believe the authors must address the potential ethical implications of their approach. Statistical profiling risks being reductive, especially given limited understanding of the modeled system, and there are real concerns over its use leading to unfair decisions or discriminatory practices (5⇓–7). McDonald et al. emphasize that model limitations may underestimate high-risk cases; given their limited sample and lack of model validation on data not used for training, even this statement remains speculative. We appreciate that their model is exploratory, but it remains largely untested and these crucial limitations should have been at the fore of the analysis. In conclusion, McDonald et al. falls short as a “proof of concept,” and therefore, the capacity of remote sensing as a tool for detecting fishing vessels engaged in labor abuses remains unsubstantiated.

And to be correct, I also acknowledge the response to the above letter by the authors of the original here. Yet for me personally their answer does not really address the obvious problems with the paper

Do FADs Contravene International Marine Pollution Law?

A couple of days ago I blogged about the complexities of estimating how many FADs are added every year to the WCPO fishery, and more generally ho FAD fishing changed the fishery from the days I was fishing.

If I was to go back I would have to learn how to find fish again… literally. I don’t think Purse Seine tuna fishery would be economically viable at the present catch rates without FADs… you just have to see the catch rates during the next 3 months (FAD closure on the WCPFC area) to see that most of the fleet would be losing money at the present tuna prices.

I’m actually made for you to find me.

In any case, there is an aspect of FADs that can’t be argued, they contribute to Marine Pollution (MARPOL), and this a paper Just a Harmless Fishing Fad—or Does the Use of FADs Contravene International Marine Pollution Law? analysis that fact from a legal perspective., which is always interesting.

I have no sufficient knowledge on the topic to make a value judgement on the paper, yet the fact that the author, Dr Robin Churchil, is an Emeritus Professor of International Law, University of Dundee, should be a guarantee, as Plastic from FV is a topic I worked working recently, I make an effort of learning by reading.

I quote the conclusions below, but as always I recommend you read the original from the link above.

Conclusions

A large number of FADs are lost or abandoned every year, with many eventually washing up on beaches as litter, stranding in sensitive marine habitats, such as coral reefs and seagrass beds, or sinking and causing damage to seabed habitats. That raises the question of whether international marine pollution law, in particular the international dumping regime (the London Convention, London Protocol, and UNCLOS) and MARPOL, could be used to regulate and mitigate such loss and abandonment. As far as the international dumping regime is concerned, the abandonment (but not the loss) of a FAD probably constitutes “dumping.”

From that it follows that where the London Convention is the applicable law, the state of loading or the flag state, as the case may be, must prohibit the abandonment of FADs made of persistent plastics or other persistent synthetic materials and issue permits for all FADs made of other materials that a fishing vessel intends to abandon. Where the London Protocol is the applicable law, the state of loading or flag state must prohibit the abandonment of FADs made of materials other than “organic material of natural origin,” and must issue permits for the deliberate abandonment of FADs that are made of such materials.

Under UNCLOS, where a fishing vessel intends to abandon a FAD in the territorial sea, EEZ, or continental shelf of a state other than the state of loading or the flag state, it must obtain the express prior approval of that state. There is a due diligence obligation on the state of loading and the flag state to enforce the prohibitions and permit systems of the London Convention and Protocol. Where those states fail to do so, they may be made subject to the dispute settlement processes of the London Protocol and UNCLOS, and to the noncompliance procedure of the London Protocol.

In the case of MARPOL, the nonaccidental loss of a FAD constitutes a breach of Annex V. That is also the case with the abandonment of a FAD, should the conclusion that abandonment falls within the scope of the international dumping regime not be correct. Flag states are under a due diligence obligation to enforce Annex V. Action against states that fail to do so may be taken under the dispute settlement procedures of MARPOL or UNCLOS. Alternatively, such failure could be drawn to the attention of the IMO when the flag state concerned was next due for audit under the IMO’s mandatory audit scheme.

Over the past few years, tropical tuna RFMOs have adopted a number of measures designed to alleviate some of the environmental problems caused by lost or abandoned FADs. All four RFMOs prohibit the use of entangling material suspended beneath FADs in order to prevent sharks, turtles, and other non-target species from becoming entrapped, and “encourage,” but do not (yet) require, FADs to be constructed of biodegradable materials apart from the satellite buoy.

The ICCAT and WCPFC encourage the recovery of lost and abandoned FADs.80 Both RFMOs also prohibit the use of FADs in certain areas at certain times of the year81; it is not clear whether that leads to a reduction in the use (and therefore the loss and abandonment) of FADs or simply leads to greater concentrations when their use is permitted. It remains to be seen how well the mandatory measures will be observed, and whether the hortatory measures eventually become mandatory.

In the meantime, there is a real need for the international dumping regime and MARPOL to be properly implemented and effectively enforced so that the significant pollution caused by lost and abandoned FADs may be reduced and eventually eliminated.

Quantifying FADs use by the world's largest tuna fishery

As most of you know the issue of dFADs (I call them eFADs, because of their e-capabilities) is of real interest to me, they touch pretty much every aspect of fisheries I’m interested in. Harvest technology, policy, management, bycatch, MCS, science, operations, subsidies and so on. No doubt (and by far) there the biggest impacting development in Purse seine fisheries in the last decade.

just a small sample

They are controversial and polarising, while some focus on their elimination (which is something I personally doubt would be possible), I like to know as much as I can about it… and with that understanding try to manage their negative impacts (plenty written about them) and see if they are positives from them… 

What do I mean with positives? Back in the last century when working in fisheries research and stock assessment (differentiation of reproductive stocks in hake was my thing) we started harnessing the power of biomass determinations by using sonars… monstrous things at the time… that required regular calibration… the number of times that we had with a colleague to walk the vessel sides on fair weather holding marked lines with a copper ball at the mid-distance to find the transducer and calibrate that thing at different depths was pathetic… anyway… it was a game-changer.

Today we have at any time 20 to 40000 of these mini sonars deployed every year in the WCPO… if there was a way to harness all that data we could (to a certain extent only) almost have a version of real-time biomass assessment which could hugely beneficial for stock assessments and therefore management and policy. 

I know… perhaps unsurmountable issues around the property of data (its all own by the buoy owner) and well as the capacity to harness and make productive use of that data… 

But then… as I said in a recent interview… “If I wasn’t obstinately optimistic… I don’t think I’ll be alive today. I cling to any positive news I can, and see if the model that got us to that positive news can be adapted somewhere elsewhere we have a problem"

(Don't worry I’m tacking eFAD as MARPOL in the next blog)

Anyway…. 20 to 40000 deployments a year is a huge range (and add to the ones there are already!) but how we know that number?

Here is where my really clever colleagues from SPC come in… as part of their work as science providers for stock assessment, the “effort creep” associated with eFADs is a key part. 

Their latest efforts have been published in this very interesting and innovative paper, where they explain how they estimated the use of dFADs in the WCPO through a novel combination of four fisheries datasets over the 2011–2019 period: at-sea observers’ data, vessel logbook reports, Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data, and trajectories from the satellite buoys on dFADs. 

I can only imagine the hurdles and complications around using these data, which are often privacy and commercially sensitive and confidential, but kudos to them as they are seen as secure partners by all players in the fishery.

The key finding is that between 20,000 and 40,000 dFADs are deployed per year. This corresponds to every purse seine vessel monitoring on average between 45 and 75 dFADs each day. A striking result was also the relatively stable trend in terms of dFAD deployment detected over the last decade, which is different from the increasing trends seen in other oceans that rely more heavily on dFADs.

I recommend you read the original I just going to quote the Recommendations for improved dFAD monitoring they propose, which are key to my interest. 

While current levels of dFAD use remain challenging to determine with high certainty worldwide, the long-term management of dFADs could benefit from a better understanding of the optimum number of dFADs to maximize profitability while limiting impacts on tuna stocks and ecosystems. Results from this study could provide baseline data to monitor dFAD use and impact in the WCPO, with application of these methods in other oceans. 

However, to improve the ability to estimate potential dFAD levels (e.g. deployments, dFAD density, active buoys), the collection of additional information is suggested. For example, to better understand the total number of dFADs in the water and the number of dFADs used per vessel, the provision of: (i) the number of new dFADs deployed per year per vessel or fleet; (ii) the average daily or total number of active dFADs per vessel per month; and iii) the number of deactivated dFADs per month, would enhance these efforts. Some of these data are already being collected by some Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (Báez et al., 2020). This could also be achieved through complete submission of dFAD trajectories, which in turn will be a key addition to scientific studies on dFAD density (Restrepo and Justel-Rubio, 2018); impacts on catch rates, and tuna behaviour (Scutt Phillips et al., 2019b). 

The PNA FAD tracking database, through the compilation of local dFAD density will allow for such additional studies on the impacts of dFADs on tuna ecology to be performed. New FAD logsheets have been launched in 2020 in the WCPO by the PNA and will require captains to fill in any dFAD related information, including the unique buoy identification number, which will improve some of the issues with the data currently collected. In addition, given the connectivity between the WCPO and the EPO and the general westward trend in currents, collaboration between scientists working in both these Pacific regions should be encouraged. Additional data sources could also be considered (e.g. dFAD marking with fishery-independent autonomous satellite devices; data collection of dFADs reaching coastal areas).

This could help to better assess other environmental impacts, such as dFAD loss, marine pollution, and beaching, or to follow individual dFADs instead of the satellite buoy attached to it which may be swapped several times. Overall, the compilation of these data would allow better scientific analyses and advice on the optimum management strategies for sustainable use of dFADs by the purse seine fleets in the WCPO and other ocean basins.

Who does what on the Tuna fisheries management, science and controls in the WCPO?

Is not the easiest topic to explain, and I have written about it in the past… but now there is a video for that! Via the good people from SPC

here is a further good explanation for those that like reading http://www.franciscoblaha.info/blog/2018/12/24/management-of-tuna-fisheries-for-sustainable-development-in-the-pacific-islands

The other one, the one called Francisco, is the one things happen to

I was looking for something today and came across an old short story/rose by one of my favourite writers ever Jorge Luis Borges. it’s a great little piece called “Borges y yo”, that always resonated with me and as time passes by and I get older and more defined by my work, my age, my COVID constrained present in front of a screen instead of being out there, the echo is even bigger. So I decided to adapt to English his words and apply them to my path in this life… knowing very well I don’t even get to the level of his feet.

Gracias Maestro Borges, y por favor no se ofenda por mi pobre uso de sus palabras (thanks master and please don’t get offended by my poor use of your words)

—-

The other one, the one called Francisco, is the one things happen to. 

I close my eyes and I stop, perhaps mechanically now, to remember a sunset at sea, tiredness in my body after a day on the deck, the happiness to know we heading back to port to unload…

I know of Francisco from the emails and see his name on a list of speakers for a seminar or in a report about some obscure aspects of fisheries. 

I like sextants, maps, the names of the pacific islands, the taste of coffee and the feel of warm seawater in my skin; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of a consultant. 

It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living so that Francisco may contrive his work and this work justifies me. 

It is no effort for me to confess that he has done some good work in fisheries, but that work cannot save me, perhaps because what is good in fisheries belongs to no one, but rather to the ocean and to the tradition or fishers. 

Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things. 

Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the catching of fish to writing and working on the controls in fisheries and capturing with my camera images that most never see because they happen at sea. 

But those jobs and images belong to Francisco now and I shall have to imagine other things. 

Thus my life is like a wave destined to reach the coast and hopefully be surfed, yet so I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him. 

I do not know which of us has written this page. 

Social Responsibility Tools for fisheries by NGOs

I just finished being part of an early zoom meeting organised by the good people of the Conservation Alliance Global Hub they are a great bunch of colleagues I respect and admire.

Today’s zoom call was as around presenting the tools available around the pressing issue of social responsibility and we had beautifully crafted presentations by the IPNLF, Conservation International, RISE, FishChoice, and Montery Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. All presentations very insightful and professional and I’m very lucky to know personally some of the presenters

it was interesting to see that most of the presentations put a lot of focus on being based on basic regulatory frameworks around labour and human rights for each of the initiatives and then sending importers (and industry) to cross-check compliance or offering services around that necessary due diligence.

As I work mostly supporting governments institutions in charge of upholding regulatory frameworks (mostly in fisheries but I’m moving from a professional and personal interest -I was a fisherman- into the social domain)… yet the problems that the tools these NGOs have developed to address labour and social issues, start with the shortcomings from the government institutions in charge of labour and human rights for fishers.

But none of those tools and seems to cater to help or intervene at the government level and I worry we are creating parallel systems that replace those core responsibilities from state institutions.

And not for a moment I’m saying that government institutions would be better than any private initiative, yet in the end upholding regulatory frameworks is their mandate (and reason of existence) and while we like it or not, chances are that government institutions would be (in some way or another) there in 30 years… while industry and NGOs initiatives may not.

I posted a question: Is anyone of your initiatives supporting government institutions in countries with known fisher labour issues? unfortunately, they could not answer it… but is a genuine worry I have.

The other issue that was interesting for me was that almost all of the initiatives were USA based, which seems ironic since the USA delegation at FAO COFI Trade meeting was the most vocal against the proposed voluntary FAO Guidelines on Social Responsibility in Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains

About the future and food (in 2009)

This blog had an embryonic predecessor in 2002 that didn’t last too long, and it was a bot more personal, it was called “Life in Development”, why I’m mentioning this? My friend Andy McKay, linked me with an article of the Guardian where Dr Sylvai Earle says:

“It’s not food security, if’s food choice. Who in the world really needs to eat tuna?” she asked.

“It’s not food security if’s food choice. Who in the world really needs to eat tuna?” she asked. “This is a luxury choice, new for most people on the planet since towards the end of the 20th century when marketing created this appetite for tuna that didn’t exist early in the 20th century. People got along perfectly well and ate well without eating tuna.”

Maybe she needs to come to the pacific… where it is food security and it is the main income earner for many of our countries… so much so that we have world tuna day. Also to imply that can tuna is a luxury seems odd

In any case… it took me back to 2009 and one of my first blogs on that early attempt to put my thoughts in place about fish as food… unfortunately not much has changed other than we became more polarised, way deeper into climate impacts and way more righteous about what people think is right (and their right)

Here is a part of what I wrote then, when I was a senior officer at the UN FAO:

A bit more than a year at the UN, has given me a good inside view of this massive organization and exposed me to the "really big picture". I guess the main impact of this job on my life is to really see things from a “truly” global perspective... I have to deal with technical issues at community, regional and at a maximum country level... but here the job is the world...

And while I can remember there always been “apocalyptic” type challenges that never totally eventuate (a tribute to our environment resilience?), I see through my work here some real challenges...

Without trying to provide a complete account of them, some of the most key challenges in the discussion table are:

The key (for me) is that the world population is projected to grow from 6.5 billion in 2005 to nearly 9.2 billion by 2050... to feed a population of more than 9 billion free from hunger, global food production must nearly double by 2050... today’s figure of people living below 2 USD/day is 58% of the world population...

The entire population growth will take place in developing countries and it will occur wholly in urban areas, which will swell by 3.2 billion people as rural populations contract. That means that a shrinking rural workforce will have to be much more productive and deliver more output from fewer resources.

Higher productivity requires more investment in agriculture, more machinery, more implements, tractors, water pumps, combine harvesters, etc., as well as more skilled and better-trained farmers and better functioning supply chains.

This means that fewer farmers will have to feed a more populous world with fewer resources and minimal access to credit under the present crisis.

One way would be for world agriculture to expand its land basis and use some of the nearly 4.2 billion hectares potentially available for rain-fed crop production (only 1.5 billion ha are currently in use). But that would not be possible without further environmental damage and increased greenhouse gas emission.

Another avenue would be to tap into yet-unused yield-enhancing resources, which could double productivity for many crops in many countries. However, such potential can only be realized if farmers have improved access to inputs, apply better fertilizers in more abundance, make use of better seeds, improve their farming and management skills and expand land under irrigation. These as well are measures that have serious socio-economical and environmental consequences.

In addition to rising resource scarcity, global agriculture will have to cope with the burden of climate change.

The IPCC has documented the likely impact of climate change on agriculture in great detail. If temperatures rise by more than 2C, global food production potential is expected to contract severely and yields of major crops may fall globally. The declines will be particularly pronounced in lower-latitude regions. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, for instance, yields could decline by 20-40%.

In addition, severe weather occurrences such as droughts and floods are likely to intensify and cause greater crop and livestock losses.

Rapidly rising energy prices have created an added challenge for global food supplies. Rising fossil energy prices mean that agriculture will become increasingly important as a supplier to the energy market.

Important here is to understand that the potential demand from the energy market is so large that it has the potential to change the world’s traditional agricultural market systems completely.

However, for me in the short term, even more, critical is likely to be the impact of the financial crisis on the availability of credit, which is widely recognized as one of the major constraints to agriculture development in the developing countries, the rationing of which is likely to be more serious than any interest rate effects.

The combination of falling agricultural prices and reduced access to credit may have a knock off impact on agricultural production, with very serious implications for global food security.

For instance, a cutback in grain plantings against the background of continuing low grain stocks, which have not been rebuilt since the high food price episode, would increase the risk of global food crisis if harvests turn out to be poor, especially if countries cannot access credit for food imports.

As a father, and perhaps just as basically a human... the future kind of scares me... these are not “predictions” of scare far fetched “greenes”... these are people I respect (albeit at different levels).

I guess this basically means that “we all” have a lot of issues to be dealt with ahead of us... but my usual optimism is quite dented... (all the hard data, figures and expansion on these issues can be found here

So yeah… 12 years later… the same problems still stand… not much has happened with the rest of the food productions system, the economic-financial crisis, merged with the COVID one…. the investment needed has not eventuated… and fisheries are relatively stable…. yet they are always evil

An assessment of plastic waste generation from FV in the WCP, and potential measures to improve onboard management

Back in March, I wrote about a study we were working on with my friends Robert Lee (a former longline skipper, fleet manager and FAO officer) and Alice Leney ( a waste management specialist - garbologist, besides a being mechanical and solar power maverick)... Even if it did not include fishing gear, the job was to: 1) identify, then assess volumes produced board and then potentially dumped, and then 2) 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… and I recognised then that was a much bigger job we all anticipated.

Plastic Salt Bags in the wet deck of a purse seiner

We finished it, and was presented at the latest FFA big meeting, and approved… Is a big and unusual document to the ones I normally do… My 1st skipper told me decades ago: either you learning, or you are making money if you do both: Bingo! if you ain’t doing any… move on.

With this job, I did Bingo!

If you want to download the full 86 page report, download it from from here

The SPC Fisheries Bulletin (a fantastic publication) published today has an article based on the executive summary of the study and is a good entry to it, so I quote it below, the very nicely laid out pdf from SPC is here

Otherwise, feel free to take your time and read below

This article is based on the executive summary of a report[2] commissioned by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) to understand the situation regarding plastic waste dumped into the western and central Pacific Ocean from fishing vessels. Given the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, this desktop study reviewed the existing literature on the subject to gain insight about waste management practices on board fishing vessels. Fishing boat officers and/or company personnel were surveyed when possible, and the authors' extensive experience in fishing vessels and waste management were also relied on to make an overall assessment of the current situation regarding waste disposal on vessels in the Pacific. 

The ultimate aim of the study was to provide possible strategies and actions that could be taken at both the national and regional level to eliminate all plastic waste disposal at sea. The authors have endeavoured to address this central point through a thorough and careful analysis of the information available. It is essential to bear in mind from the outset, the reason why an attempt was being made to determine the amount of waste that is dumped in the ocean: to prevent it.

Estimates of waste generation by fishing vessels

Estimates of waste generation by fishing vessels is only ever amenable to broad estimates, as the amount changes every day and there are many variables, including vessel size, crew numbers, type of fishing, length of voyage, vessel condition and operating standards on board.

Similarly, given that waste management practises onboard vessels vary widely, it is not realistic to make any meaningful estimate of the amount of waste being dumped unless an extensive, real-time study of several vessels duration is conducted. To make a broad sweeping claim regarding the amount of waste dumped from all fishing vessels might discourage those operators who are doing their best to deal with waste problems onboard, while making those – if any – who dump everything over the side, actually look better.

Faced with this conundrum, and mindful of the ultimate purpose of this study, the authors have taken the approach of trying to estimate the amount of waste that certain vessels might generate. 

The full report differentiates between: 1) operational and maintenance waste that is related to crew and vessel size and condition, and days at sea; and 2) fishing operations waste that is directly related to the type of fishing and total fishing effort. Using existing literature, observer reports and the authors’ varied experience, some broad estimates have been made that might allow a determination of a vessel’s expected waste generation. These estimates are of a conservative nature and are applicable to a broad range of vessels.

The study did not look at the issue of lost and discarded fishing gear, as this was not part of the terms of reference. The issue could, however, be addressed through recommendations and standards that are already in place, such as of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL)[3] and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).[4] The strategies and actions proposed below take account lost or discarded fishing gear and allow for the integration of measures to combat this problem into the proposals, through the marking of fishing gear. 

Our estimate of waste generated by the different tuna fishing fleets in the western and central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) is as follows.

Longline vessels. For the 1700 active vessels in the WCPO:

·       Plastic lines on bait bags: 402–935 tonnes; median: ~ 670 tonnes per annum.

• Cardboard: 2958–6879 tonnes; median: ~ 4920 tonnes per annum.

• Using 60% as a proxy based on observer reports: between 241 and 560 tonnes of plastic waste from bait alone is being dumped at sea every year, while the figure for cardboard is between 334 and 776 tonnes.

Purse-seine vessels. For the 253 vessels in the FFA register:

•       Salt bags for brine making: 210 tonnes, equivalent to 2,800,000 individual bags.

•       Using a 37% proxy: 77.7 tonnes of woven plastic salt bags (equivalent to 1,036,000 individual bags) are dumped into the ocean every year.

Operational and maintenance waste: 

•       Longline vessels: 1000 tonnes produced, 600 tonnes dumped into the ocean every year. 

•       Purse-seine vessels: 220 tonnes produced, 80 tonnes dumped into the ocean every year.

Existing international frameworks and guidelines

Having determined some idea of the type and scale of the problem regarding the waste generated on fishing vessels, the study then looked at the practicalities of dealing with those quantities and types of waste. The current institutional frameworks that exist – under MARPOL, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) conservation and management measure (CMM) 2017-04,[5] and IMO agreements – are looked at in detail to determine if a good framework and clear guidance already exists. It is clear that all of the institutional frameworks, guidance documents, standards and agreements that might be needed by ship operators to address the issue of onboard waste management are, in fact, already in place.

Waste reception capacity at Pacific ports

The study examined the potential to off-load waste at several Pacific Island ports. The picture is grim: of the five fishing ports in the region that were looked at, only one – Suva in Fiji – has access to a landfill facility that is in any way compliant with any desirable standards. The other four nations – the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands – struggle with their own local waste management to varying degrees, and their landfill facilities are mostly already overwhelmed. Adding foreign commercial waste to existing domestic waste is not a viable solution, where that is avoidable. While some fishing vessels do operate out of Pacific Island ports as a home base (e.g. one company in the Marshall Islands and another in Noro, Solomon Islands) and have to dump their waste in local dumpsites, the majority of fishing vessels are actually foreign-based, and materials that are now waste were once provisioned onto those vessels either at overseas ports or from carrier vessels. 

The waste “management” centre in majuro

Waste disposal for the distant-water fishing nations vessels

Taking a conventional solid waste management approach of investigating “reverse logistics pathways”, and following the internationally accepted principle that the country to which a fishing vessel belongs is also responsible for the waste that vessel produces (in this case, the flag state or de facto home port). The carrier fleet provides an excellent opportunity to improve waste management at sea. Carrier vessels are typically larger than fishing boats, and have adequate deck space for taking waste back to an appropriate port to be dumped. Because the actual waste takes up less space than the products that originally generated that waste, there is clearly an opportunity to involve the carrier fleet in a formal waste management function. 

 It is fully accepted that the carrier fleet fills its holds with fish that take up some of the space of supplies that were carried out. But while longline vessels consume vast numbers of boxes of bait, and purse-seine vessels take on many tonnes of 50-kg sacks of salt, there is space on decks and in dry holds to store carefully managed waste that can be taken back to shore. Carriers have the potential to have small compactor baling machines onboard that can compress waste, increase the density, and thus reduce the stowed volume of waste. And some vessels have IMO-compliant incinerators that are much safer for both ship and crew than rusty oil drums with holes that are common on the decks of many fishing vessels. Oil drum incinerators are undesirable from a ship safety point of view and are a known health hazard to crew as they generate carcinogenic smoke in significant quantities. 

In short, if the waste produced by fishing boats is to be professionally addressed, then it must become part of the everyday operation of running a tight ship, and waste needs to be managed and stowed for off-loading at the appropriate place and time. Good ship operators are already doing this, and all the guidance that is needed to help other operators improve their onboard waste management exists in great detail under the MARPOL and IMO frameworks. The logistical problems are quite easily solved, and there is no shortage of guidance on how to address them; the major challenge at present is the indifferent attitudes toward proper waste management.

On this note, the full report provides some simple and practical advice on onboard waste management that is derived from the direct experience of the authors in this field, one of which spent several years at sea during which one of his tasks was to manage the waste onboard, ensuring that nothing went over the side except food waste.

Economic incentives for improved waste management

Having determined that, for the carrier-supplied fleet at least, there is a clear alternative to dumping waste in the ports of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and that commercial and financial considerations are a significant driver in how waste is managed onboard. The report takes a brief look at the economic incentives that currently exist and may drive how waste is managed on fishing vessels. It can be clearly seen that the economic incentives are entirely aligned to encourage poor waste management and ocean dumping. This is an important insight, and one recognised by the IMO, and several MARPOL documents call for the creation of incentives to improve waste management. The report quotes a ground-breaking recent economic analysis[6] from the British government to support the conclusions reached here. Improved waste management will incur additional costs, but this is simply part of the cost of running a responsible business and cannot be used as a justification to pollute the natural environments of small Pacific Island nations. Currently, the “avoided cost” (i.e. financial benefit) of poor waste management is, de facto, a subsidy from island nations to those businesses that evade their responsibilities under MARPOL. In fact, a “secondary market” in waste may appear whereby carriers charge fishing vessels to take their waste away, thus allowing those vessels to fulfil their waste bond requirements.

Strategy to eliminate the dumping of waste at sea

With all of the above now providing some clarity to the waste management situation onboard fishing vessels, we reach the heart of the matter: How might any dumping of waste from fishing boats cease? From the above, strategic points can be developed and enumerated, and resulting actions that can be taken to implement these strategic points can become clear.

The resulting strategic points are as follows:

1.     Either waste is dumped into the sea, or it is returned to port at some point, and in some form. MARPOL does not allow the dumping of any solid wastes considered in this study to be dumped into the ocean, including incinerator ashes, thus:

 All vessels should return with some quantity of waste to off-loaded at port.

2.     If something is to be managed, then it will need to be measured. Therefore, the questions are: How much? and How do we measure it? There are two separate waste streams to consider: fishing operations waste, and operational and maintenance waste. The first is related to fishing effort while the second is related to crew and vessel size, and the number of days at sea, thus: 

A measure of expected waste generation by vessel is required.

3.     The overall framework of institutional and technical standards and guidelines already exists with MARPOL and IMO. The overall aim must be to ensure that those vessels that do not currently have good waste management practices, must change their current practices, thus:

Under the FFA Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions, all licensed fishing vessels must comply with MARPOL, whether the flag state is a Party or not.

4.     There is actually an economic incentive to operate a vessel with poor waste management; an economic incentive must be created to improve waste management, thus: 

An economic incentive to follow MARPOL requirements must be created.

5.     Measures must be simple to implement where possible for both FFA and fishing companies. Onerous and complex reporting systems that require significant additional effort and cost to report, monitor and enforce are unlikely to be adopted, thus:

Simple metrics must be used, and effort must focus on a small number of key ports and/or locations.

6.     The issue of onboard waste management is fundamentally a logistical challenge; all of the materials that become waste were put on the ship either in port or during a carrier transshipment, thus:

Existing reversed logistical pathways must be used. 

7.     Pacific Island ports already have a domestic waste crisis and are, in very large part, unsuitable places to take foreign waste generated by overseas business operations. Therefore, aside from local-based fishing vessels, vessel waste needs to be returned to originating home ports, thus:  

Wastes from vessels of distant-water fishing nations should not be off-loaded at Pacific Island ports. 

8.     Larger vessels are much better placed to have better waste management systems because they have more space, can operate small compactors to increase waste density, can operate safe and compliant incinerators, and can handle and stow larger waste containers, thus:

Carrier vessels must accept waste from fishing vessels. 

9.     There must be a long-term element to the strategic actions that is aimed at changing, over time, the culture onboard those fishing vessels that do not currently have good waste management systems in place, thus: 

Easy waste management measures should be imposed at the start, and the bar should be raised over time.

10.  Ship owners and operators who can show that they have MARPOL-compliant systems already in place, and already take waste management seriously, must be recognised. Those who do not must be held accountable, thus:

Good businesses should be rewarded, and poor operators should be targeted.

These strategic points rest on two fundamental pillars: 1) simple ways to measure and monitor onboard waste to know that change is occurring; and 2) the development of incentives to reward those already doing the right thing, encourage change in those who need to, and sanction those who resist.  

Proposed actions to take

From this strategic analysis, and a close look at the realities of dealing with waste onboard ships, the report recommends a divergence from the MARPOL method of measuring waste by volume in cubic metres, to that of weight in kilograms. The reasons for this are elaborated on in the report, and the key considerations are provided by strategic points 5 and 9. Measurement must be as simple as possible and consistent with reasonable estimates because reasonable estimates are the bedrock of waste measurement. This approach meets the requirements of the first pillar on which the strategy rests.

For the second pillar, the heart of the proposed actions is the FFA Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions that require demonstrated effort to comply with WCPFC CMM 2017-04 as well as MARPOL requirements. Alongside this, using the widely used waste management principal of extended producer responsibility, a “waste bond” is proposed, whereby a vessel must show that a reasonable quantity of waste is disposed of onshore in an acceptable manner to avoid sanction. 

This waste bond would be held in escrow in some conventional form[7] to ensure that good operator are not penalised, but poor ones are. Greater detail of this proposal is provided in the report, but in essence, the following “action points” are proposed.

A.    Provide, as part of licensing (under the Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions), vessels with a simple electronic template for a Garbage Record logsheet 

Some work will need to be conducted to develop a suitable electronic Garbage Record logsheet template, that will minimise the quantity of information required to be recorded so that it is as simple as possible to fill out and check. This would be similar to vessels that presently do electronic reporting. For example, the garbage categories used in MARPOL can be simplified significantly for the purposes of this action: there is no need to identify so many categories. 

Weight in kilograms should be entered into the Garbage Record logsheet, which could consist of a simple MSExcel spreadsheet. The logsheet should be uploaded regularly to a shared database managed by either the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the Pacfic Community or FFA. Each ship would have a specific identity, just like with electronic catch and effort logsheets. Each uploaded logsheet, with new information added, would replace the previous one, allowing to gather an annual total for each fishing vessel. This is consistent with strategic points 1, 2 and 5 described earlier.

B.    Set up a database for Garbage Record books/logsheets.

An electronic repository for the standardised Garbage Record Books is needed on the servers of SPREP, SPC or FFA, or “in the cloud”, on which vessels can upload their data. This is an electronic reporting task and complements action point A.

C.    Require all FFA-licensed vessels to provide a garbage management plan.

This plan should be as simple as possible and consistent with representing the realities of waste storage on the vessel in question. A concise template plan should be drafted to assist standardisation and encourage simplicity, and to avoid recording any unnecessary information. Carrier vessels should be expected to include provisions in their plans to take waste from fishing vessels during transshipments. Carriers will be expected to show compaction capacity and/or large waste holding capacity.

Standardising plans will help ensure that only the important information is in the plan (e.g. how waste is contained and stowed, any compaction measures, scrap metal separation, description of any incinerator used). There is no needto describe recycling capacity, waste type and separation. A template should be drafted and field tested on a small number of suitable candidate companies and vessels that are prepared to assist in this endeavour, so as to develop the simplest plan but one that fits the purpose. This is consistent with strategic points 3, 5, 6 and 8.

D.    Develop a formula for calculating expected waste generation per vessel.

The goal here is to identify a small number of vessels that have good waste management systems, learn what works best, and use that information to develop a simple formula based on vessel size, number of crew members, days at sea, fishing type and fishing effort. This current report can provide some guidance to for how to go about this, but because it is a desk-top study, it is not ideal. The use of existing observers to collect data for such a study is ideal, and training could be easily provided to them for this purpose.

This action can be combined with action point C so that the same field testing of a management plan can be used to collect data. The study period need not be too long, the intention is to determine a number for a reasonable quantity of expected waste generation, and feed into the development of onboard systems. Good measurements will provide good data to help vessel owners determine waste stowage requirements for an expected voyage length.

Vessel owners could be encouraged to participate in such a study by being given a waiver from having to post an initial waste bond, if that approach was subsequently taken. This is consistent with strategic points 2, 9 and 10.

E.    Require all onboard incinerators to meet IMO standards.

Any waste incineration that takes place onboard should be done so in a proper incinerator that is made for the purpose, and not in a non-compliant device that is a potential health and safety hazard. Incinerators that are IMO-compliant are larger, more complex and expensive. It is expected that these will mainly be used on carrier vessels. This will concentrate monitoring effort on a smaller number of vessels, especially as incinerated waste is harder to measure. 

This action requires that vessels submit pictures and specifications of their installed incinerator, at the same time as – and as part of – their waste management plan. Non-compliant incinerators could cause rejection of the plan. A date should be set as to when a vessel must comply. MARPOL standards for incinerators are extant;[8] this action requires no additional effort to develop standards. This action is consistent with strategic points 3, 4, 8 and 10.

F.     Develop a waste bond system that is payable at the time of licensing.

The action points above will feed into the development of a waste bond. With a reasonable estimate of the amount of waste expected to be generated, consistent with ship operations and size, the amount of waste bond that should be posted can be determined. Many factors that must be considered when setting the bond amount, including practical, economic and political factors. The waste bond would be held in escrow, possibly using a conventional commercial mechanism, and rolled over annually for each license period, or as required. Those vessels that consistently fail to manage their waste may lose their bond. 

Action points A to E could be conducted over the course of a year, so that by the end of the first year the formula for expected waste will have been developed, and templates for Garbage Record books and management plans have been field tested. The study of a select small number of vessels that currently have good waste management systems can be conducted using a cohort of waste-trained observers. At the start of a new licensing period, vessels will be required to post a waste bond that will be fully refundable when, at the end of the period, the expected amount of waste has been off-loaded. Vessels that are being re-licensed can roll-over their waste bonds. Non-compliant vessels will lose their bond and be required to pay another. Fishing vessels that pass their waste on to a carrier vessel can be deemed to have effectively fulfilled their responsibility, thus transfering that liability to the carrier vessel. Carriers will also be required to have waste bonds as part of their licensing conditions, and will acquit those responsibilities at the point of off-loading waste to a port, and recorded in their Garbage Record book. 

The amount of a waste bond to be paid could be set at the end of each permit period, using a sliding scale that rewards good operators, and puts pressure on the worse ones by increasing the level of their bond.

Vessels that can demonstrate full compliance with MARPOL and produce records and plans to support that compliance, including pictures of the current waste management situation on the vessel, may not be required, at the discretion of FFA, to post a waste bond. This rewards businesses that are already making the required effort to manage their waste responsibly. This is consistent with strategic points 4 and 10.

G.    Communicate the new waste regime to FFA stakeholders.

If the above action points are adopted and implemented, then the rationale for following them needs to be communicated to key stakeholders during the development stage. This could be refined and spelled out in at least two briefing papers: one that is more detailed along the lines of an executive summary that might go to key stakeholders, and one that is a factsheet that can be more widely circulated to those who are less interested in the details but need to know about the coming changes to licensing conditions.

Subsidiary actions

Strengthening enforcement and reporting of WCPFC CMM 2017-04

The MARPOL requirements described above must be viewed in the light of WCPFC CMM 2017-04, which expressly addresses waste from fishing vessels. The section of this report that discusses this alignment clearly demonstrates that these proposals to drive as much waste as possible back along the logistical pathway provided by the carrier fleet is the cheapest option for both SIDS and distant-water fishing nations and Flag State operators. 

CMM 2017-04 explicitly recognises that WCPFC members, cooperating non-members and participating territories (collectively referred to as CCMs) should follow MARPOL; it also explicitly recognises that SIDS are challenged through an inability to provide adequate facilities for receiving and managing waste from ships in their ports; and explicitly states that[9]: 

CCMs shall cooperate, consistent with national laws and regulations, directly or through the Commission, and in accordance with their capabilities, to actively support SIDS and territories through the provision of adequate port facilities for receiving and appropriately disposing of waste from fishing vessels. [emphasis added.]

It is incontestable that it will be far cheaper for both SIDS and Flag States to drive waste back through the logistical chain to ports that do have adequate facilities to accept commercial wastes from fishing vessels. The cost of building landfills and other waste management facilities in SIDS is not only immense but a long-term programme of improvement completely unsuited to the vagaries of short-term commercial considerations. 

Through the waste bond system proposed, which would of course also apply to carrier vessels and any other FFA-licensed vessels, the carrier fleet can actively participate in ensuring that waste only goes to ports that have adequate facilities. As carriers take on the waste from fishing vessels – even from vessels belonging to a different Flag State to the carrier – a secondary market will spring up whereby carriers are paid by the fishing vessels to take their waste away – just as vessels would normally pay to have their waste disposed of in port.[10]

The Garbage Record book/logsheet will record transshipment to a carrier as a transfer of ownership just as it does with fish, and so fulfil fishing vessels’ obligations to dispose of their waste correctly under the conditions of the waste bond. The cost will be up to the market and will also be influenced by the amount at which the waste bond is set: if set too low, the market will not function. Carriers will then in turn pay to dispose of the waste at a port with adequate facilities. This proposal is using market mechanisms to enact point 8 of the CMM, and at a far lower cost than that of financing waste management facilities and landfill construction in SIDS. 

Similarly, the action points recommended in this report will help address CMM points 9[11] and 10[12]: the loss and recovery of fishing gear. The proposed Garbage Record book/logsheet to be developed could easily incorporate a lost fishing gear component; if fishing gear were both marked (as required by the Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions) and logged as lost, then this study proposes using a waste bond as an incentive to those vessels that recover lost fishing gear, in line with strategic points 9 and 10 above.

Inclusion of CMM 2017-04 and MARPOL issues as part of electronic monitoring objectives

Electronic monitoring is set to be deployed in the region and already plays a role in pollution monitoring, despite the political, logistical and operational problems discussed. Therefore, the potential of incorporating issues related to waste offloading to the present scope of electronic monitoring is consistent to both areas of compliance. 

Off-loading fish to a carrier vessel or at a home port should be accompanied by off-loading of waste, and thus could be easily verified through video footage. Video observers should not be expected to look through large quantities of footage for incidents of waste being dumped overboard during normal ship operations. This is consistent with strategic points 5 and 6.

Strengthening existing requirements of marking fishing gear and using biodegradable fish aggregating devices 

The IMO Action Plan[13] suggests that fishing gear should be marked with the deploying vessel’s identifiers, and this should also apply to FADs. If this measure was enacted, it would be possible to reward those who collected discarded fishing gear by using the waste bond money of those who lost the gear. 

There is a large area of potential study and policy development to consider when working out a sliding scale to sanction those who lose large amounts of fishing gear at sea. For example, the loss of a FAD that was built with only biodegradable materials, designed to break down over time in the ocean, and not entrap bycatch of any sort might not incur penalties; the loss of a FAD made of plastic components, on the other hand, would. A waste bond could provide the source of funds. Such work would need to be conducted after the effort to develop an initial waste bond level. 

Conclusion 

If the above proposals were to be accepted and acted upon, there are many details to be worked out; but the proposals developed here are offered as a workable way forward to address what has been, until now, somewhat of an intractable problem. These proposals show a clear way forward using the principles of waste management and economic incentives that have been tried and tested, and proven to be successful, albeit in quite different fields. They could, however, well work in this one too.

[2] Leney A., Blaha F. and Lee R. 2021. An assessment of fishing vessel plastic waste generation in the WCPO region – And potential measures to improve waste management in the fleet. Honiara, Solomon Islands: Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency.

[3] https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/International-Convention-for-the-Prevention-of-Pollution-from-Ships-(MARPOL).aspx

[4] https://www.imo.org/en

[5] https://www.wcpfc.int/doc/cmm-2017-04/conservation-and-management-measure-marine-pollution

[6] The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review February 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-the-economics-of-biodiversity-the-dasgupta-review

[7] There are a range of potential financial mechanism by which businesses operate escrow arrangements, for example “trust accounts” and “bank guarantees” to name but two. 

[8] Resolution Mepc.244(66) 2014 Standard Specification for Shipboard Incinerators

[9]WCPFC CMM 2017-04 Adoption Point 8

[10] If a fishing vessel is not already paying to have its waste disposed of in port, then it is clear why the WCPFC states in CMM 2017-04 Preamble: “convinced that certain activities associated with fishing may affect the Western and Central Pacific marine environment … and impacts on marine ecosystems”.

[11] CMM 2017-04 Adoption Point 9: CCMs are encouraged to develop communication frameworks to enable the recording and sharing of information on fishing gear loss in order to reduce loss and facilitate recovery of fishing gear.

[12] Ibid, Point 10: “CCMs are further encouraged to develop frameworks or systems to assist fishing vessels to report the loss of gear to their Flag State, relevant coastal States, and the Commission.”

[13] Resolution Mepc.310(73) Action Plan to Address Marine Plastic Litter from Ships

A look on the mental health of fisherman

I have been always quite open that I got into fisheries for two main reasons: 1) I always loved the thrilling and open nature of the ocean (particularly after my time in the navy as a cadet), but equally important 2) because I really didn't fit anywhere else…

Let it be your reality for 3 years no going home.

My dyslexia was shown as a sign of being dumb, add to that I’m (and was even more at the time) what we will call today neurodiverse, and definitively had PTSD (still today). At almost 2 mts tall (6’6) and a competitive rower and Rescue swimmer, I was quite imposing, and no one really knew how to deal with me (nor I knew how to deal with them nor my self) 

When I started the main qualifications you needed to go fishing is a hard stomach and to don't give a shit about much really… so was kinda natural fitting. It was rough, but the entry requirement was really low, you made relatively good money and had a strong fisherman union.

Yet you realize very soon that is not a job for “normal” people. If you don't really know if you coming back every time you get out fishing, everyday life looks rather different. Life at sea sorts out people quite fast, either you deal with it, or you don't and you never come back, and that is ok, we respect that.

Also the basis of your relationship with fellow humans changes… when you share living quarters that are barely liveable with people you never meet before, yet you hear ALL their body’s noises less than a meter from you… one develop an open mind and thick skin. I soon realize, I didn’t have to like the bloke next to me… nor he had to like me… but we need to trust each other because our life depends on each other. I fished with awesome people and some real shitheads, whose views about aspects of life I despised… but they were “solid” fisherman and I’ll have them as crew anytime.

In any case, fishing was (and still is) the option for people on the margin of “normal” society, for the “unadapted” (what a concept!), to have a chance to make relatively good money (at least in comparison with the other options available) if one had the guts to deal with it.

That was then… today’s picture is different, while still has some of those guys, but now includes the poorer (and sometimes options-less) citizens of complex countries in SE Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc). I fished with many of them and their angle was different, their options are so much more limited than for westerners (or part Europeans like me) so they get into fishing because is one of the few things they can do and not because they are not really good for anything else (as in my case).

Needless to say, fishing with them was one of the best and more eye-opening experiences I had onboard fishing boats, amazing, resourceful, resilient and truly gentle people coming with a worldview most westerners will never grasp.

Some of the most positive and resourceful people you’ll ever meet

For many of these reasons, I was interested in the title of this paper “Mental health in the commercial fishing industry: Modern uncertainties and traditional risks” and had a read.

On the bridge of the Ocean Breeze south of Tazzie

I liked it, even if I immediately understood that it was a very geographically and socially limited view of fishers… I only fished with a mixed NZ / Australian crew out of Hobart for Hoki in a factory vessel (the Ocean Dawn) in 1997… and it was up with the most comfortable and safe fishing trips I ever had.

So I think these results are equally comparable to those we find in NZ where I worked more extensively in smaller vessels… yet in any case, they were a far cry from some of the shit boats I been working in Argentina and the Pacific.

I did especially like the fact that it separated the ‘stressors” into two “usual” categories: ‘traditional risks’ and ‘modern uncertainties’ and adds a new one “future concerns”

The ‘traditional risks’ of fishing include the physically dangerous nature of the job, the variable weather, long and unsocial hours of work, being self-employed, managing crew dynamics, responding to fluctuating market conditions, and variable catches. While it is impossible to eliminate these risks, fishers do have some day-to-day control over traditional risks through their skills, knowledge, and experience. It is argued that fishers have traditionally faced these stressors with virtuosity, through some combination of a heightened tolerance for risk, a capacity to navigate and mitigate such risks through either learned or inherent characteristics and abilities, and through a willing trade-off between the perceived risks and rewards of the lifestyle … basically is ‘what we signed up for’.

In contrast, ‘modern uncertainties’ is where I see (somehow ironically) the privilege of being a fisherman in rich countries… because we are talking about increasing regulatory surveillance, oversight and compliance requirements, a reduction, removal, or restructuring of access rights (including intergenerational access), negative representation in the media and conflict with other stakeholders (e.g. anglers, energy developments, other commercial fishers). Modern uncertainties tend to emanate from policy decisions that have arisen in recent decades as the regulatory environment has tightened in response to actual and perceived environmental decline. While regulatory agencies purportedly make policy decisions about fisheries access and practices in a manner consistent with scientific evidence, the powerful role of public opinion, political negotiation, and including a sense of public disregard or even demonization, which potentially undermines political support for commercial fisheries, are types of modern uncertainties that have added to the stressors already posed by traditional risks.

This is not to say at all… that these modern ones are not important… I never felt so much like shit when my young daughter was almost apologetic in saying to a friend that I was a fisherman but a nice one… as if I was a criminal or something… still stings my soul.

For the foreign fisherman (normally these from poorer countries) the ‘modern uncertainties’ are a luxury most of them cannot afford… their reality is an amplification of the the “traditional” ones… no money, not being home, in most cases no legal status or protections on board. Needless to say, the “future concerns” are even less than an option, since when you barely have a present… the future is an extravagance. 

Multiculturality in a tuna seiner

Anyways, an interesting paper I just will highlight some elements from the introduction and the conclusion, but as always: read the original!

 Introduction

Commercial fishing poses a range of physical and mental challenges. Levels of physical injury and fatality exceed those of most other peacetime occupations, and labouring in dangerous or demanding environments can put pressure on the mental health of workers. However, research also suggests that overcoming physical challenges and managing calculated risks can contribute to fisher job satisfaction. Many remain in the job long after it would be economically rational to leave because of an emotional attachment to the occupation and lifestyle. Understanding poor mental health that occurs within the fishing industry requires careful atonement to the culturally specific negotiation of risk and harm.

For over twenty years, researchers have suggested that the state of mental health among commercial fishers is cause for concern. In 1998, was reported that 35% of 567 Gulf of Maine shrimp captains interviewed had a diagnosable mental health disorder, roughly double that of the general American male population. Since this alarming discovery, there has been little attention paid to understanding the state of mental health among commercial fishers. While qualitative social science has explored the nature of the problem and considered underlying drivers, few have quantitatively measured the state of fishers’ mental health until very recently.

What drives poor mental health in any individual is complex and multifaceted, and incorporates environmental, biological, cultural and circumstantial factors. Some research links the physically risky nature of working at sea and the accompanying isolation with poor mental health (ITF Seafarers’ Trust, 2017); however, these assumptions remain largely untested. Seafarers also report that long periods of time spent in nature, or among a small group of like-minded colleagues, are an appealing, emotionally uplifting aspect of the occupation.

Conclusion

This study provides robust quantitative evidence supporting the call for greater attention to fishers’ mental health. There has already been significant work done by researchers and practitioners to identify ways to improve mental health in cohorts with which fishers overlap (e.g. ‘men’, ‘primary producers’), and opportunities exist for tailored remedial measures to be modelled on proven techniques. The novelty of this study is that it delineates stressors in a way that allows a clearer understanding of the threats that are specific to fishers— and therefore possible avenues for even more bespoke solutions— to improve mental health in the fishing industry.

This study differentiates between the categories of stressor that are expected to affect the mental well- being of fishers, namely ‘modern uncertainties’, which are largely beyond fishers’ individual control, and ‘traditional risks’, where some individual mitigation actions are possible, and adds the category of ‘future concerns’. The finding that modern uncertainties had a significantly greater im-pact on skippers than crew supports the idea that these stressors are likely to be more detrimental to their mental health than those traditional risks they ‘signed up for’. In contrast, the younger crew cohort was more likely than skippers to experience future concerns about climate change and changing skill requirements.

These findings provide strong evidence that changes to factors associated with modern uncertainty stressors - government management techniques, media representation, political support - could significantly improve mental health and well-being in the commercial fishing sector. Possible avenues of change may be streamlined administrative requirements, more explicit support from political representatives, and positive media representation.

STATEMENT BY THE MARSHALL ISLANDS TO THE FAO PSMA MOP3

All this week from 8 to 12 pm I’m attending the Third Meeting of the Parties of the 2009 FAO Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) #PSMAMOP3 being hold virtually. I’m supporting my friend and colleague Sam on some technical issues, yet I’m totally proud of his statement, presented below.

STATEMENT BY SAMUEL K. LANWI, JR.
DEPUTY PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE
PERMANENT MISSION OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS TO THE UN OFFICE & OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN GENEVA

 Third Meeting of the Parties to the 2009 FAO Agreement on Port State Measures

31 May 2021 

Agenda Item 3: Status of the PSMA 

Thank you Chair,

Having the second busiest port in the world in terms of frequency of port calls by foreign fishing vessels, with over 450 tuna transhipments carried out each year prior to the pandemic, the Republic of the Marshall Islands considers efficient fit-for-purpose Port State Measures as fundamental to our obligations as a responsible Coastal State, Port State, and Flag State. 

We continue to support the 2009 FAO Agreement on Port State Measure and have been building our national capacity to ensure that our operational capabilities are aligned with the PSMA to which we are planning to become a party over the next 12 months as we continue to strengthen our reporting capacity. 

Having said that, we look forward to learning more about the capabilities of the PSMA Global Information Exchange System (GIES) and its practical applications across the board. 

Chair, 

In our view, high seas transhipments and Port State Measures are intrinsically linked, so we welcome the ratification of the PSMA by members that have fishing fleets operating in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean and further encourage them to uphold their commitments, under Article 20, Paragraph 3 of the PSMA which states: “Each Party shall encourage vessels entitled to fly its flag to land, tranship, 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.” 

For our part, even though we are not yet a Party to the PSMA at this stage, we have been actively working to build and further strengthen our operational and reporting capacity in a consistent manner in line with the PSMA which has given us the advantage of learning by doing and observing lessons learnt thus far by PSMA Parties. 

The Republic of the Marshall Islands look forward to actively participating in the FAO's planned expert consultation and voluntary guidelines on transhipments over the next 2 years, as we consider standardization of terminology and practices as key to our collective PSMA responsibilities. 

I thank you Chair.  

Seafood and health: What you need to know?

Recently I commented that what I miss from my fishing days, was that a the of my working day, I could look down to the fish hold and see food for thousands… now I just click “save” on my computer, and put it to sleep.

This made me realize, again and again, something that is so easy to forget and seems to be mostly missed in the discourse around fisheries that is overwhelmingly focused on the resource, sustainability side with an overreliance to see people in fishing as greedy environmental (and otherwise) criminals or just pure victims.

We don’t fish to pile it somewhere… we fish because people that do not catch fish do like eating fish… and is really good food!

These aspects of fish as good food seem to be particularly blurred in developed nations (that are the buyers of over 80% of the fish produced by developing nations)

Back when fishing, it was an epiphany for me to realise that once the fish is on deck, isn’t just fish anymore… is food, and as such a whole different regulatory, scientific and operational world opens… and one that wasn’t worked out much on fishing vessels since the people in that world tends to be food scientists, veterinarians, microbiologists and so on… not really fisheries people… even if all starts in a fishing boat.

So during my early years as a consultant, as an immigrant, I had to find a work niche that wasn’t taken by many established consultants… and absolutely no one that knew fishing from the inside was working on the “fish as food” area… particularly when it became a market access issue via food safety, country competent authorities and the lot… so besides getting good work I also did my 2nd MSc.

Anyway… my 1st love was always fishing, so once established… I moved away because also during those years I trained and worked a lot of good people that stayed into that area, and are doing a great job.

S when this little paper came to my attention today in a miserable Wellington sunday while i’m at the airport, is juts to good to not write something about it and promote it.

The main author Catherine (Chengchu) Liu, Ph.D. starts from the challenging presmise that "not eating enough seafood" is the leading seafood problem in the USA (And also asume that it would extend to most developed countries) In order to address this issue, she recently wrote a chapter entitled "Seafood and Health: What You Need to Know" for a book "Advances in Food & Nutrition Research". It was just published online by Elsevier. The publisher provides 50 days' free access to this chapter.

Anyone can access it by clicking on the link below before June 25, 2021. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1d0vi3jGE%7Eq8yo

I personally think that those of us working in the fishing side should actually quote parts of papers like this more often… as it is a fundamental reason of why we fish and we need to get it right.

I just quote the abstract and conclusions, but have a go to the whole paper, even if it is “USA centric”

Abstract

Seafood, including fish and shellfish, provides an ideal package of nutrients and is an important part of a healthy diet. Strong evidence has shown that eating fish and otherseafoods improve brain, eye, and heart health. The new 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recommend that Americans of all ages should eat more seafood—at least twice a week—particularly pregnant women and young children. However, less than one in five Americans heed that advice. About one-third of Americans eat seafood once a week, while nearly half eat fish only occasionally or not at all. This calls for a drastic shift in the American diet to vary protein sources and include more seafood products in order to receive the most health benefits. This chapter covers (1) seafood nutrition and health benefits, (2) seafood’s protective effects against mercury toxicity, (3) selenium health benefit values (HBVs), and (4) challenges and opportunities for seafood production, demand and sustainability. This chapter aims to convey recent advances in science-based information to increase public awareness of seafood safety, nutrition and health benefits of seafood as part of a healthy diet, and to advocate healthy eating with smart food choices by promoting two servings of seafood per week. This will support the healthy eating patterns and promotes a minimum two to three servings of seafood recommended by the current DGA.

Conclusions

The benefits of seafood consumption are observed in improved neurological health and development, as well as in the protection of cardiovascular and ocular health. Increased seafood intakes are associated with reduced cancer incidence and diminished development of neurodegenerative diseases.

While public awareness has previously focused on Hg exposures, advances in understanding emphasize the need for ensuring adequate intakes of seafoods. (My blog posts on Mercury in tuna, are some of the most visited… with over 25000 visits over the years)

Although fish and shellfish may contain microbial or chemical contaminants, evolving scientific understanding has revealed that far greater health risks accompany the nutritional deficits that arise from the inadequate seafood intakes of U.S. consumers. The adverse effects of seafood deficient diet include diminished child neurodevelopment, increased risk of cardiovascular, ocular, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases and disorders.

Previous public health campaigns were successful in urging caution but now that the assumed risks have been found to be largely absent while substantial beneficial effects accompany ocean fish consumption, outreach efforts are required to overcome the mistaken ideas developed from decades of largely inaccurate public assumptions.

Comprehensive communication Public health policy makers and regulatory agencies need to become aware of the environmental significance of multiple concomitant exposures to metallic and organic soft electrophiles and the importance of Selenium rich seafoods in providing far-ranging benefits. There is an urgent need to improve seafood consumption during pregnancy and childhood to ensure future generations receive health benefits and enjoy longer, healthier lives.

World Tuna Day from a professional and personal perspective

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

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%.

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

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.

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

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

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 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. 

Looking to my future with Tuna

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

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.

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

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

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

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:

1. Identify the Flag states operating in more than 1 RFMO/HS basin

2. 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

3. 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

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

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

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.

Which plasti bags are talking about?

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: 

1. Adding a trip buoy inventory 

2. Adding Buoy ID to FAD set data 

3. Increasing the detail on FAD activities 

4. Adding information on FAD design and construction 

5. 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

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

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:

1. increased transparency and less geopolitics;

2. elimination of subsidies both for vessels and for land-based premises by the main DWFN, and;

3. 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.