Last week, I traveled to Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam to learn about the Vietnamese blue swimming crab fishery. Since 2009 a cross-sector partnership of government agencies, exporters, and WWF-Vietnam have been dealing with contentious issues related to the sustainability of this stock. In discussions with this coalition, I was struck by the contrast...
As a seafood lover and a conscientious consumer, I try to know where my tuna comes from. I want to know that the fish I buy is not only good for me but also being caught in a way that keeps the ocean healthy, too. When fishing vessels use a registration number to identify themselves,...
Statistically, fishing is one of the world’s most dangerous professions and it is hard to imagine what could be worse than scuba diving for lobster along the remote and impoverished Miskito Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua (see Building a Sustainable Lobster Fishery Off Honduras). The dangers of this profession have been graphically documented by NBC News and...
In November, representatives of over 50 countries gathered in the coastal city of Agadir, Morocco, to determine the fate of one of the ocean’s most iconic species—the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Every year, the governments that are members of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) struggle to jointly manage this highly migratory...
There are two things I know for sure: 1) we all love the beach; and 2), we all want to help out when others are in need. Here’s the data: According to the U.S. government, American coastal businesses dependent on clean oceans and beaches (mostly fishing and tourism) generated $225 billion in 2008. The...
Bubba Cochrane always knew he wanted to be a fisherman. So, despite concerns from his family, he began his career as a deck-hand and eventually saved enough to buy a permit and boat of his own. He’s 43 years old now and owns a commercial fishing business out of Galveston, Texas. Business is good –...
Some 1.2 million people asked the 25 member governments of the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, composed of 24 countries and the EU) to take action during their annual meeting this week to conserve Antarctic marine ecosystems. Most of them answered this call and were prepared to work on proposals...
Where do you go to foster dialogue and partnerships leading to an environmentally, socially sustainable seafood marketplace? Why, Hong Kong of course – the epicenter of demand-driven ocean destruction! A strange location for the 10th International Seafood Summit? No, actually it’s a brilliant and timely move on the part of SeaWeb, the conference organizers....
The race for the moral high ground in sustainable fishing is heating up here in the US. Things started getting hot back in April when supermarket chain Whole Foods announced it would stop selling seafood not certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council or red-listed by either the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program...
As the US presidential election cycle heats up, I’m always fascinated and a bit frustrated by how complex issues needing real solutions get dumbed down into slogans. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given the success of twitter. People love simplistic one-liner solutions. Curiously, in the world of tuna there is a long history of...
By Claire Christian The Ross Sea in the Antarctic brings to mind visions of icebergs, penguins, seals and whales. Yet, increasingly, the Ross Sea – with its harsh environment of sub-zero temperatures and iceberg-riddled waters – is being visited by fishing vessels from around the world. Unfortunately, many of these vessels are not equipped...
A North Pacific Bluefin tuna fetched 56.49m yen/$736,000 at Tsukiji fish market’s first tuna auction of the year. Bluefin stocks in the Atlantic and South Pacific are depleted to fractions of their original size thanks to overfishing driven primarily by the Japanese sushi market. Many of us, who may love sushi as much as the...
The new year is a time for celebration and looking towards the future with hope and anticipation. We often hear about the dire state of the ocean – serious overfishing, pollution, acidification – it would seem there is not much to be hopeful about. But that is not the whole story. Fishing communities are...
By Miguel Jorge Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit countless fishing communities around the world and in almost every case it’s been a situation where there is overfishing that leads to economic hardship. Too many fishermen catching too few fish and not enough money in the fisherman’s pocket. But there have been...