A lack of funding for government agencies monitoring fish catches is one of the biggest challenges to sustainability of the seafood industry — that’s according to an industry panel at the recent Seafood Expo Asia in Hong Kong, which also called for a refocus on fishermen’s livelihoods as well as education of consumers.
One U.S. seafood veteran said he worries about resourcing of fisheries monitoring authorities in the U.S and elsewhere. “We might have great stock assessment but if there’s no adequate catch monitoring it’s not going to be effective,” Rick Robbins said. “We need adequate resources for that.”
An increasing focus among consumers on transparency and country of origin labeling of seafood goes hand in hand with sustainability.
“The market establishes and dictates priorities,” said Robbins, head of export sales at U.S.-based Chesapeake Bay Packing, which has secured both British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for its scallop business.
Educating seafood consumers about sustainability is important but can only go so far, said David Krebs, president of Florida, U.S.-based Ariel Seafoods and board member of the Gulf Seafood Institute (GSI), a group representing the Gulf of Mexico seafood distribution chain.
“If you don’t have stringent controls you will have overfishing and boom-bust cycles.”
Budgetary curbs in the U.S. can hurt in particular the international cooperation required to monitor fishing stocks, said Krebs. He points to the importance of fisheries management upstream in Canada for U.S. fishing stocks. “An event upstream can dictate how successful you are with quota management downstream thus we need to understand fisheries landings and forage fish. Likewise, a study of shark populations in the Gulf of Mexico requires effective exchange of information between U.S. fisheries and counterparts in Cuba and Mexico.
Traceability is key, stresses professor Yvonne Sadovy, a lecturer in the school of biological sciences at the University of Hong Kong and an expert in the sustainability of wild grouper and humphead wrasse.
“As a territory Hong Kong can do better in documenting imports and docking of vessels” offloading in the territory, a key transit point for imports of seafood into mainland China, according to Sadovy.
The expansion of mainland China’s long-distance fishing fleet meanwhile goes against FAO efforts to reduce the capacity of fishing fleets globally as there is overcapacity in the sector. This, said Sadovy, means governments have to cooperate to ensure vessels have tracking devices that are also being monitored by governments.
The ongoing rise of the Chinese pelagic fleet will have to be monitored, said Robbins. “It matters who’s counting the fish…and these have to be numbers that science can back up.”
Sadovy sees a more hopeful development is increased efforts by Pacific island nations in particular to better monitor and protect their fishing resources, especially for species like tuna. “Island communities are keener than ever to extract more value from their fishery resources through… for example, processing of high value species like sea cucumber.”
The Maldives has been able to combat illegal fishing by sending its fishermen into previously unexplored fishing areas, said Dr. Mohamed Shainee, the island nation’s minister for fisheries and agriculture. The social and economic as well as the ecological aspects of sustainability must be stressed, said the Maldives minister whose own fishing industry is artisanal rather than industrial in nature, with line caught tuna to the fore. Premium payment for sustainable catches as well as tough enforcement are as important as sustainability labeling schemes like MSC, he said.
“We don’t have time to wait for our kids to come and do it…by then there won’t be any fish.”
Those words were echoed by Philippe Moriau, managing director of Belgium Direct, an exporter of Belgian-landed flatfish, who said Belgian and other European fishermen are forced to rely on EU subsidies “because they’re not being paid a realistic price for their fish that will ensure the economic sustainability of their industry.”
Education was the mantra of the sole Chinese member on the panel: Feng Yuming, vice president of China’s scallops leader Zhangzidao said his company was trying to “set an example” for the Chinese seafood sector by seeking MSC certification for its whole global value chain as the firm expands its distribution chains overseas.
