INTERPOL establishes unit to fight illegal fishing

In February 2013 INTERPOL launched a new programme, called Project Scale, aims to suppress criminal networks and the ships they run, which, by some estimates, account for one in every five fish caught every year.

David Higgins, head of the environmental-crime programme at INTERPOL, says that there are various indicators to suggest that organized crime is involved in illegal fishing. “It’s like an unlawful business that’s operating. Wherever money is to be made there will be criminals looking to exploit that industry.”

Officially launched in Lyons, France, and falling under the auspices of INTERPOL’s environmental-crime programme, Project Scale is backed by funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, a charity organization, and will work in tandem with a working group on fisheries crime. The main purpose of the programme will be to collect data on what is a very murky area and provide a forum in which those responsible for enforcing maritime laws across the globe can exchange intelligence.

It is unclear at present exactly how much fishing falls into the overlapping categories of illegal, unreported and unregulated — known in the business as IUU. A widely cited 2009 study puts it at between US$10 billion and $23.5 billion, and between 11 million and 26 million tonnes of fish.

Illegal fishing has been blamed for devastating not just fish populations but also local economies in developing nations. Somalia’s recent outbreak of piracy has been attributed at least in part to fishermen seeking alternative incomes after their former livelihoods were destroyed by IUU ships.

Some IUU activity is likely to be small-scale unreported fishing done by otherwise legal vessels. At the other end of the spectrum, there are thought to be completely illegal fishing vessels run by large-scale criminal organizations.

“It’s a complex problem and a global problem. The importance of INTERPOL is it brings together 190 countries and their experience of environmental crime,” says Anthony Long, who runs Pew’s campaign against IUU fishing. “The most important thing is they get countries starting to share information. INTERPOL is the first step in getting back into the battle.”

More here

Machine Perfectly Fillets and De-Bones Fish with X-Rays and Water

Machines that can accurately and efficiently fillet a fish have been used for years to speed up processing plants—though only with farmed fish that are all the same size and weight. Fish caught in the wild usually have to be processed by hand given the variaton in size, but a new machine that employs x-ray vision and precise water jets can finally automate the filleting process.

Developed through a joint venture between several companies involved in the Norwegian fishing industry, the machine uses x-ray technology to locate the small pin-bones found in white fish like cod which usually have to be manually removed during the filleting process. And that usually results in three to seven per cent of the fish's most valuable meat being lost in the process.

So instead of a knife, the new machine uses an incredibly precise high-pressure water jet to remove bones and fillet each fish, maximising the portions while speeding up the process. And while it will eliminate jobs, it should help improve Norway's fishing industry which has been dramatically shrinking over the past 40 years

Korean fish-dumping trawler likely to be seized

New Zealand could end up owning a controversial South Korean fishing boat after a court judgment.

At stake is the Oyang 75, a 68-metre stern trawler worth about $9 million that was involved in fisheries and environmental offences.

The owners were found guilty of the largest case of fish dumping prosecuted in New Zealand, with the finding at the hearing that 355 tonnes of fish had been discarded.

Legal processes were complex, with four of the South Korean officers refusing to return to New Zealand for trial.

The trawler was arrested in 2012 and officers were accused of dumping low-value catch to replace it with fish that was more worthwhile.

In the Christchurch District Court, Judge David Saunders fined four South Korean officers more than $420,000 for trawling activities described in court as "arrogant" and "incompetent".

He found that the officers ruled the Indonesian crew "with an iron fist". One officer, factory manager Tae Won Jo, has asked for special consideration before the sentencing.

The Oyang 75 owners were later heavily fined for dumping waste at sea after inspectors found the boat had hidden piping controlled by a secret switch that allowed it to secretly dump bilge, including oil, into the sea unnoticed.

In the two cases, Sajo Oyang and Southern Storm did not take part in the court process, but after the forfeiture was raised, they sought to be heard by the court.

The district court declined their application and it ended up in the Court of Appeal.

In a decision this week, the three-man panel said the district court was correct to deny Sajo Oyang party status.

The ship was allowed to leave New Zealand and has since operated out of the Seychelles. Ship-tracking websites show it is now in the South Atlantic.

A Ministry for Primary Industries spokesman said the forfeiture would not yet be enforced, as aspects of the case were still before the courts. The ministry knew where the ship was, he said.

The judgment says forfeiture had a "long history in New Zealand fisheries legislation".

From 1908, the law "provided that ships, boats and other property used in any unlawful fishing were forfeited to the Crown and were to be disposed of as the minister [of fisheries] thought fit".

The Oyang 75, which had an Indonesia crew, and fished under charter for Lyttelton's Southern Storm Fishing Ltd, was brought to New Zealand by Sajo Oyang in South Korea to replace the Oyang 70, which sank in 2010 off Otago with the loss of six men.

Upset at Cook Islands' timid response to shark finning offences

The leader of the opposition Democratic Party in the Cook Islands says a decision by maritime officials to let go a Chinese-flagged longliner discovered with shark fins onboard reflects badly on the country.

Shark fishing is illegal in the Cook Islands as is the transport and possession of shark or shark parts.

Wilkie Rasmussen says the boat should have been confiscated and brought back into the harbour but that wasn't done.

Mr Rasmussen wants maritime officials and the government to explain why the vessel's owners were not charged.

"We also expect some sort of action to be taken against a vessel that has clearly breached our sanctuary and of course breached the laws that prohibits the finning of sharks in our waters."

Wilkie Rasmussen says the Cook Islands has been declared a shark sanctuary and to not have charged the vessel is a terrible indictment.

The Ministry of Marine Resources says it will talk with Chinese authorities about the eight kilograms of shark fins found onboard the vessel, through the settlement processes within the Tuna Commission.

Not good... particularly since the minister was removed because corruption from Chinese sources....

Beauty in Cyclone

Luci making his way to NZ from Fiji

Come on board! Today in a Purse Seiner

An introduction to Purse Seine Fishing in the Central and Western Pacific Ocean.

Practical Applications of Unique Vessel Identifiers (IMO Numbers) in Supply Chains

If you go to the Boston Seafood Show, FishWise and EJF would like to invite you to a roundtable discussion on International Maritime Organization (IMO) numbers and how they can be leveraged within seafood supply chains to reduce IUU and enhance traceability at the Boston Seafood Show. 

The objective is to have an open and frank discussion on the practical applications of IMO numbers in supply chains. Experts will be on hand to answer questions from the industry and other interested stakeholders. The event will also include an update on the development of the UN FAO Global Record of Fishing Vessels.

Good people with good ideas!

Model Tuna makes loining for sashimi a less messy game

Before..

After...

I sooo want this one!

It turns out that "fish wholesaler" and "toy designer" are not mutually exclusive professions: Kazuyoshi Watanabe, a Tokyo fish wholesaler, created this wooden tuna to teach people how to properly loin the fish.

The model comes with just about everything you need to get the job done—including a cutting board a long knife to do the cutting. The model itself is much like any other anatomical version you've probably seen—each piece comes apart and then stacks back together for easy storage.

get it here in time for my birthday!

How deep can a fish go?

They may look like guts stuffed in cellophane, but five fish hauled up from near-record depths off the coast of New Zealand are providing scientists with new insights into how deep fish can survive.

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the U.S., Britain and New Zealand describe catching translucent hadal snailfish at a depth of 7 kilometers (4.3 miles).

By measuring levels of a compound in the fish that helps offset the effects of pressure, the scientists say they've concluded that fish likely can't survive below about 8,200 meters (5.1 miles). That would mean no fish at all live in the deepest one-quarter of the world's oceans.

The snailfish have little pigmentation due to the lack of light in their environment, hence their translucent appearance.

New Zealand marine ecologist Ashley Rowden, a co-author of the paper, said nobody had caught a snailfish in nearly 60 years and so he wasn't overly hopeful when they sent down a box-like trap into the Kermadec Trench near New Zealand in late 2011.

He said they used mackerel as bait to attract the small sandhopper-like creatures the snailfish feed upon.

"When it came up, it was just amazing to see. It was 'Oh my God, we've got the fish, and we've got more than one,'" Rowden said.

Rowden said he put on gloves and carefully picked up one of the fish.

"It was like a water-filled condom," he said. "A sloppy, gelatinous mass that moves between your hands. It was very cool, and very strange to see its organs and everything."

Rowden, who works at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said scientists had previously speculated fish couldn't live below certain depths but that catching the fish and studying them helped provide more scientific certainty.

The fish are the second-deepest recorded catch. In 1970, a boat off the coast of Chile reported catching a cusk eel at a depth of 8,370 meters in a trawl net, although questions remain whether that fish was caught at the ocean floor or higher up as the net was hauled in.

The paper's lead author, Paul Yancey of Whitman College in Washington state, said they were able to measure the levels in the fish of trimethylamine oxide, a molecule that protects proteins from pressure. He said there appears to be a natural limit to the amount of the molecule a fish can contain.

Yancey said the molecule is already being studied for its human applications, including in the treatment of glaucoma.

Meanwhile, he said, if the hadal snailfish look strange enough, they would smell terrible when they decompose. That, he said, is because the molecule has another property — it gives fish their distinctive smell, so the deeper they live, the stronger they stink.

PNA countries argue ways into a better fisheries future at their meeting this week

Honiara (March, 2014) The United States government and its purse seine fishing industry have tripled what they are paying for fishing rights in waters of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA). The PNA’s “vessel day scheme” (VDS) now enforces a minimum payment of US$6,000 per fishing day, providing ever-greater financial benefits to island members. And at the end of 2013, PNA began successfully marketing internationally certified sustainably caught skipjack in Europe, generating a premium price for the product.

PNA’s engagement has brought a paradigm shift to the western Pacific tuna fishery long-dominated by distant water fishing nations. “We’ve been successful in dramatically increasing benefits to our islands because of the unity of the Parties,” said PNA CEO Dr. Transform Aqorau, who is based at PNA headquarters in the Marshall Islands. Success brings new challenges, and the PNA faces key decisions at next month’s annual meeting that will shape the region’s US $7 billion tuna industry in 2014 and beyond, he said.

Representatives from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu will gather in the Solomon Islands March 5-14 for their annual meeting,

Among the PNA’s list of challenges is how to distribute US$93 million resulting from last year’s successful conclusion of negotiations with the U.S. government and its tuna industry. Differing interpretations in 2013 of “non-fishing days” by PNA members turned this into a prominent loophole in PNA’s vessel day scheme, which aims to limit the total number of days to
both create scarcity that drives price and conserve the resource.

Demand for fishing days will only increase with a lineup of foreign fishing fleets beating a path to the lucrative fishing zones of the PNA. “What we do as a group is contingent on what we do individually,” said Marshall Islands fisheries Director Glen Joseph in the lead up to the March
meeting.

   In Honiara, PNA officials aim to resolve these issues:

• Distribution of US$93 million from the US fisheries treaty. Key to this is deciding how many days individual PNA members will provide to satisfy the 8,000 days promised under the new treaty. The U.S. treaty includes provisions for 15 percent of the funding to be distributed equally among all Forum Fisheries Agency members as well as a percentage for administration costs. As a result, actual per day rate of U.S. payments to islands in whose waters tuna is caught will be below the new US$6,000 daily benchmark fee, making it less attractive for PNA members to offer days.  Revenue has been sitting since last July, waiting for PNA members to work out the details. 
•  Defining non-fishing days: Differing definitions of non-fishing days is causing “leakage” in the VDS that is intended to cap fishing days to create scarcity and maintain the price. Allowance for non-fishing days need to be tightened so it is not abused by distant water fishing nations. The terms “transit” and “non-fishing days” need to be standardized. Synchronizing fishing rules at the national level with those at the regional level is crucial to ongoing success of PNA.
•  Domestic fisheries development: PNA members are benefiting by foreign vessels gaining domestic designation by accessing licenses through the FSM Arrangement, which allows vessels to fish in multiple exclusive economic zones on a single license. The number of foreign vessels seeking licenses under the FSM Arrangement jumped last year and there is concern that it could be used as a vehicle for cheap licenses at the expense of domestic fleet development and access to the region. “

One important issue that doesn’t fit easily into a bullet point issue for resolution is the difficulty that fisheries access agreements represent to PNA members maximizing the value of a fishing day. As conceived, the VDS aims to create a sellers market, allowing PNA members to auction their days to the highest bidders. But bilateral fisheries agreements — where fisheries and foreign ministry officials from Asian or other nations negotiate deals with their island counterparts for access to fishing zones — has been a mainstay of Pacific fisheries for more than a generation. PNA is encouraging fisheries officials to move away from bilateral
fisheries access negotiations to selling days through the VDS, allowing the market to dictate the price — which he believes will punch the price well above the current $,6000 a day benchmark.

“The strategic environment created by PNA lends itself to other innovative ways in which the value of days can be maximized,” said Dr. Aqorau. “Reforms that will enable these more innovative means of maximising the value of a day will take some time to institute. Without doubt they will create some major changes to the strategic directions of this fishery and firmly place its control in the hands of the Parties.”

Although enforcement of the VDS has already increased revenue to the islands more than three-fold, Dr. Aqorau said this is a fraction of what the industry is worth to PNA members. “With greater cooperation among the Parties to make the VDS more effective and reduce leakages from allowances being made to vessel operators through the manipulation of non-fishing days, revenues generated from sale of days can be trebled,” he said.

NZ's Fisheries Performance Evaluation

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has now released its 2013 summaries of the Status of New Zealand’s Fisheries which confirms most New Zealand fisheries are performing well. Highlights from the 2013 review show that:

• Both stocks of hoki have now increased for seven consecutive years and both are now well within or above their management targets.  As a result it has been possible to  increase the quota from 90,000 tonnes to 150,000 metric tonnes
• The recent discovery of a new aggregation of Chatham Rise orange roughy has led to a favourable revision of the status of this stock
• The Campbell Island Rise stock of southern blue whiting remains at an historic high
• A new assessment of blue cod in the southern South Island indicates that the stock is performing well
• A number of South Island stocks of gurnard, John dory and elephantfish have increased significantly.

James Stevenson-Wallace, Director Fisheries Management, MPI says the Ministry is committed to sustainable fisheries and that fish are a valuable resource in a number of different ways. He says New Zealand continues to be world-leading in the sustainable management of fishing, and the QMS gives fisheries managers the ability to address problems when they occur.

MPI is continuing to improve its comprehensive fisheries management regime designed to provide sustainable fisheries now and into the future. This regime is based on international best practice and is contained in the Harvest Strategy Standard. The Standard sets fishery and stock targets and limits for fish stocks in New Zealand’s Quota Management System (QMS).

There are currently 638 stocks in the QMS. Of these, 350 stocks are considered to have significant commercial or non-commercial potential. Their status is determined relative to four biological reference points – a ‘soft limit’, a ‘hard limit’, an ‘overfishing threshold’, and a ‘management target’. 

The soft limit is the lower bound on the desirable population size; the hard limit is a population size below which fisheries closures may need to be considered; the overfishing threshold is the maximum percentage of the population that can be removed each year; and the management target is the population size that well-managed fish populations are expected to fluctuate around. 

Dr Pamela Mace, Principal Advisor Fisheries Science, reports that in terms of stocks of known status, 82.0% were above the soft limit, 93.5% were above the hard limit, 82.1% were below the overfishing threshold, and 69.2% were above their management targets.

When considering the tonnage of landings (of known status), 96.2% of the landings was composed of stocks above the soft limit, 99.5% of the landings were above the hard limit, 95.5% were below the overfishing threshold, and 92.8% were above the management target.

Twenty five stocks are considered to be below the soft limit.  In all such cases, corrective management action has been, or is being, put into place to rebuild the stocks.  In 2013, overfishing was documented for 17.9% of stocks, down from 25% four years ago.

To see the full report see the Status of Stocks.  Or to see the evaluations for each fish stock

Truths from the sea

It is a truth known among seafarers and commercial fisherman that life on a boat either forges the strongest of friendships, or breaks them. Some will jump ship, but others will find themselves wondering if it’s just a coincidence that ‘ship’ is tacked onto ‘friend’ to make friendship.

Simple solutions... complex scenarios to apply them.

According to Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2009, to avoid a tragedy of the commons requires giving everyone entitled to use them a say in running them; setting clear boundaries to keep out those who are not entitled; appointing monitors who are trusted by users; and having straightforward mechanisms to resolve conflicts.

Sounds perfect for fisheries... unfortunately we have to create and or strengthen all those elements.  

"Net" Fisheries Solutions

The first target should be fishing subsidies. Fishermen, who often occupy an important place in some country’s self-image, have succeeded in persuading governments to spend other people’s money subsidising an industry that loses billions and does huge environmental damage. Rich nations hand the people who are depleting the high seas $35 billion a year in cheap fuel, insurance and so on. The sum is over a third of the value of the catch. That should stop.

Second, there should be a global register of fishing vessels. These have long been exempt from an international scheme that requires passenger and cargo ships to carry a unique ID number. Last December maritime nations lifted the exemption—a good first step. But it is still up to individual countries to require fishing boats flying their flag to sign up to the ID scheme. Governments should make it mandatory, creating a global record of vessels to help crack down on illegal high-seas fishing. Somalis are not the only pirates out there.

Third, there should be more marine reserves. An eighth of the Earth’s land mass enjoys a measure of legal protection (such as national-park status). Less than 1% of the high seas does. Over the past few years countries have started to set up protected marine areas in their own economic zones. Bodies that regulate fishing in the high seas should copy the idea, giving some space for fish stocks and the environment to recover.

But reforming specific policies will not be enough. Countries also need to improve the system of governance. There is a basic law of the sea signed by most nations (though not America, to its discredit). But it contains no mechanisms to enforce its provisions. Instead, dozens of bodies have sprung up to regulate particular activities, such as shipping, fishing and mining, or specific parts of the oceans. The mandates overlap and conflict. Non-members break the rules with impunity. And no one looks after the oceans as a whole.

From  and article in The Economist

Pretty straight forward... more transparent societies, less fisheries mismanagement

Relationship between the amount of illegal and un-reported fishing and an average of four World Bank indices of governance (Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption).... 

Technology for Fisheries Monitoring and Surveillance

Monitoring and surveillance of fisheries is a complex and challenging problem. Traditionally, ships and aircraft have been the mainstay of surveillance efforts, however, the use of satellites and other technologies by fisheries enforcement officials has increased in recent years.

As more technologies are utilized to improve global fisheries monitoring and surveillance methods, it is important to note that no single technology can track and expose all illegal fishing activity. Fisheries monitoring and surveillance systems therefore often require a suite of available technologies.

This graphic identifies several technologies that have emerged to assist authorities worldwide to improve information exchange and enforcement. These technologies fall into two groups:

• Monitoring technologies collect information on fishing activities to verify that they are legal.
• Surveillance technologies identify vessels and observe fishing activities through sightings by inspection vessels, aircraft and other technical means.

Data gathered by monitoring technology are captured for recordkeeping and analysis by experts. Those data can be used with inspection and other surveillance data to prosecute fisheries crimes in national and international courts. The data can also provide the basis for risk-analysis reports and are crucial to developing inspection and surveillance strategies.

No technology on its own is a complete solution to the problem. Each must be part of an overall system that includes trained personnel, infrastructure, and the backing of a strong legal regime.

See the original article here

International organisations chowder... Who is in charge of the Sea?

Governing the high seas...

from a article in The Economist

The high seas are not ungoverned. Almost every country has ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which, in the words of Tommy Koh, president of UNCLOS in the 1980s, is “a constitution for the oceans”. It sets rules for everything from military activities and territorial disputes (like those in the South China Sea) to shipping, deep-sea mining and fishing. Although it came into force only in 1994, it embodies centuries-old customary laws, including the freedom of the seas, which says the high seas are open to all. UNCLOS took decades to negotiate and is sacrosanct. Even America, which refuses to sign it, abides by its provisions.

But UNCLOS has significant faults. It is weak on conservation and the environment, since most of it was negotiated in the 1970s when these topics were barely considered. It has no powers to enforce or punish. America’s refusal to sign makes the problem worse: although it behaves in accordance with UNCLOS, it is reluctant to push others to do likewise.

Specialised bodies have been set up to oversee a few parts of the treaty, such as the International Seabed Authority, which regulates mining beneath the high seas. But for the most part UNCLOS relies on member countries and existing organisations for monitoring and enforcement. The result is a baffling tangle of overlapping authorities (see diagram) that is described by the Global Ocean Commission, a new high-level lobby group, as a “co-ordinated catastrophe”.

Individually, some of the institutions work well enough. The International Maritime Organisation, which regulates global shipping, keeps a register of merchant and passenger vessels, which must carry identification numbers. The result is a reasonably law-abiding global industry. It is also responsible for one of the rare success stories of recent decades, the standards applying to routine and accidental discharges of pollution from ships. But even it is flawed. The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, a German think-tank, rates it as the least transparent international organisation. And it is dominated by insiders: contributions, and therefore influence, are weighted by tonnage. 

Come on Board! From the bridge with bad weather.

While sometimes unpleasant, never boring... nature at its best and humans at their most vulnerable. (Always loved it!)

1 image is better than 1000 words

based on FFA figures

NZ ratifies the Fisheries Port State Measures Agreement. What is it?

The FAO Port State Measures Agreement sets minimum standards for port access by foreign flagged fishing vessels and related support vessels.

Port State Measures (PSM) are requirements established or interventions undertaken by port states which a foreign fishing vessel must comply with or is subjected to as a condition for use of ports within the port state. National PSM would typically include requirements related to prior notification of port entry, use of designated ports, restrictions on port entry and landing/transhipment of fish, restrictions on supplies and services, documentation requirements and port inspections, as well as related measures, such as IUU vessel listing, trade-related measures and sanctions. 

The PSM hence, is a key tool to support mesures design to fight illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing.

This video illustrates the topic:

More on PSM here