A new report from the European Commission provides the latest evidence that marine protected areas (MPAs) not only encourage rejuvenation of depleted fish stocks, they can encourage economic activity and new jobs as well. The report, "Economic Benefits of Marine Protected Areas and Spatial Protection Measures", examines ten case studies among the dozens of MPAs that have been created in EU waters. There are numerous examples of business activities in fishing, tourism, passenger shipping, and the blue economy itself, all spurred by, or even dependent upon, the existence of MPAs.
Direct benefits of MPAs on fishing activities include increased abundance of larger, healthier fish, which leads to higher prices. Greater stock abundance reduces fishing costs and improves efficiency. Fish from an MPA can often receive an eco-certification, also leading to higher prices.
Benefits to the tourism sector arise from increased numbers of visitors and their length of stay, as well as extension of the tourism season, all of which mean higher incomes to sectors providing goods and services to tourists. MPAs encourage recreational activities such as SCUBA diving and sport fishing, further adding to local financial benefits.
Between 13-14 November 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and International Organization for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Europe (EUROFISH), in cooperation with the European Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Advisory Commission (EIFAAC), the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Romanian Ministry of Waters and Forests, the Danube Sturgeon Task Force and the International Association for Danube Research, organize in Bucharest a Regional Conference on river habitat restoration in the Danube Basin and Black Sea area.
The aim of this conference is to contribute to the revival of fish populations, inland and recreational fisheries, food security, and livelihoods of riparian communities. A particular focus will be placed on sturgeons as the flagship species of the Danube River Basin, long distance migratory species currently under recovery, but who still require special protection measures against illegal fishery. To support sturgeon recovery in the Danube River, Romania, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, restricted the commercial fishery of these valuable species since 2006 for a period of 15 years. The conservation of Danube sturgeons is supported by the European Commission, the EU Strategy for the Danube Region and numerous Danube stakeholders implementing the program Sturgeon 2020.
This conference marks the beginning of a closer dialogue between the environmental and fishery/aquaculture authorities from the Danube countries, aiming to reduce the current decline of freshwater fish species and identify constructive solutions for the revival of endangered species and fish populations with high economic value, bringing benefits to the riverine communities along the Danube River. With this occasion, besides discussing urgent measures that need to be implemented, successful examples and good practices applied in other European states will be presented to foster their adaptation at regional level.
Fishery and aquaculture provide valuable food and income resources for approximately 820 million people worldwide, starting with recreational and commercial fishery, and ending with processing, marketing and distribution of different fish products. For many communities, they represent part of the local tradition and cultural identity.
For more information visit danube-conference.eurofish.dk.
The 2nd Global Fishery Forum & Seafood Expo Russia, the Russian fishery sector’s key event, has concluded in St. Petersburg. Leading businesspersons, members of fisheries organizations, heads of sectoral agencies from around the world have assembled at the Forum that has become a crucial venue for discussions in the professional community.
For the second year running, Russian and foreign experts demonstrated their high interest in the Global Fishery Forum. Over 1,100 Forum delegates and over 3,000 exhibitors and Expo visitors attended GFF 2018. Participants from 42 foreign countries came to the Forum from, among other countries, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Mauritania, Morocco, Norway, the Republic if Guinea, South Korea, the US. Over 150 Russian and foreign journalists were accredited to the event.
“The Global Fishery Forum has become a truly key event for both the Russian fishery industry and the global sectoral community. I am confident that the Forum’s dialog between members of the authorities, businesses, and fishery experts will make it possible to take the discussion of topical issues in the global fish market to the level of making key decisions in the sector,” said Anton Kobyakov, Russian Presidential Adviser.
Deputy Prime Minister and Fisheries Minister of the Faroe Islands Høgni Hoydal, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Development, Water and Forests of the Kingdom of Morocco Aziz Akhannouch, Minister of Fisheries of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Song Chun Sop, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture and Marine Economy of the Republic of Guinea Fredéric Loua, Deputy Minister of Jihad-e Agriculture and the Head of Iran Fisheries Organization (SHILAT) Hassan Salehi, Deputy Director for Policies in Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Resources of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Audun Lem, Emeritus Scientist at the Pacific Biological Station Dr. Richard Beamish, General Secretary of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Anne Christine Brusendorff, President of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) Suam Kim, President of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) Jóannes Hansen, President of the EU Fish Processors and Traders Association and the European Federation of National Organizations of Importers and Exporters of Fish Guus Pastoor were among the foreign dignitaries attending the Forum.
The FAO, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Romania, EUROFISH, DSTF, and EIFAAC are arranging a conference in Bucharest, Romania on 13-15 November titled Regional Conference on River habitat restoration for inland fisheries in the Danube River basin and adjacent Black Sea areas. The event will hold sessions on valuing inland fisheries resources, conservation and management, regulatory framework, along with shared country experiences from the region. The event will not only attract participants from the involved countries but is also expected to be visited with representatives from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Speakers and programme information is available at danube-conference.eurofish.dk
Fishery enterprises will present united national booths for the first time at the Seafood Expo during the second Global Fishery Forum in September 2018. Companies from Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Turkey, Iran, Morocco, and Mauritius, among other countries, are expected to display their expositions in this format, marking a three-and-a-half fold increase in the number of foreign organizations represented at the Expo compared with last year.
Fishery, fish-breeding, and processing companies, shipbuilding enterprises, manufacturers of equipment and related materials, and traders will make up the main pool of participants at the Expo. They will present the most advanced fish processing equipment as well as shipbuilding components, technologies, and services.
Issues related to the promotion of fish and seafood are expected to generate special attention. The Expo will include a tasting programme, while enterprises from different regions will present their fish products, including new brands and stock keeping units.
More than 300 companies are expected to take part in the event. In addition, the exhibition area will increase this year and cover an area of 13,000 square metres, a 60% increase from last year.
The Global Fishery Forum and Seafood Expo will be held on 13–15 September in St. Petersburg at the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre.
APROMAR, the Spanish aquaculture producers association, has published the 2018 edition of its annual report on the development of the aquaculture sector in Spain and Europe. The figures are the most current available to date and in addition to the information gathered by the association and its members, information has been used from the European Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA), the European Federation of Aquaculture Producers (FEAP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Among its main conclusions, the following stand out:
- The harvest of aquaculture seabass in Spain in 2017 was 21.269 tonnes. The Region of Murcia has led the production with 6.990 tonnes, followed by Canarias (5.900 tonnes), Comunidad Valenciana (4.972 tonnes) Andalucía (3.261 tonnes) and Cataluña (146 tonnes).
- The production of rainbow trout in Spain in 2017 is estimated at 17.984 tonnes. The main producing regions are Castilla y León, Galicia, and Andalucía.
- The harvest of seabream from aquaculture in Spain in 2017 was 13.643 tonnes. Comunidad Valenciana has led the production with 5.590 tonnes, followed by Murcia (4.356 tonnes), Canarias (2.063 tonnes), Andalucía (980 tonnes), and Cataluña (654 tonnes).
- The harvest of turbot from aquaculture in Spain in 2017 was 8.546 tonnes. Galicia is the main autonomous producer of turbot in Spain (99%); the rest is produced in Cantabria.
- The production of croaker by aquaculture in Spain in 2017 was 1.932 tonnes. The bulk of Spanish croaker production comes from Comunidad Valenciana.
- In 2017, 129.200 tonnes of aquaculture feed were used in Spain. 83,1% of these were administered to marine fish and the remaining 16,9% to freshwater species.
- Employment in aquaculture in Spain in 2016 was 6.534 work-year units, although this figure was distributed among 17.811 people.
- In 2016, a total of 5.105 aquaculture establishments were in operation and producing in Spain. Of these, 4.782 were marine molluscs aquaculture farms, 200 were freshwater fish aquaculture farms, 82 farms were on the coast, beaches, intertidal zones and estuaries, and 41 were nurseries (cages) in the sea.
The report (in Spanish) can be viewed here:
The Sustainable Eel Group (SEG) is calling for EU action to prevent illegal fishing and trafficking of European eel before it is too late. The European eel is critically endangered; key measures for its protection are limiting of fishing and enforcing existing trade control measures. Within these restrictions it is forbidden to export eel outside the EU. Enforcement agencies estimate, however, that at least 110m juvenile glass eels have already been trafficked from Europe to Asia’s eel farms this season. Trafficking has to stop, because this wildlife trade undermines the measures for the protection of the eel. Andrew Kerr, Chairman of SEG stated: “The failure to control the selling and distribution of European Eel is threatening the whole recovery effort – for every eel legally eaten, 3 to 5 are being trafficked”.
Evidence shows that the trade ban adopted by the EU in 2010, is not being sufficiently implemented by EU Member States. The French Le Comité national des pêches maritimes et des élevages marins recently stated that France’s declared catch alone had reached 140 million glass eels and has another month to run. An instant market survey this week revealed that only some 30 million had been sold to legitimate European markets. The rest had vanished. SEG is calling on the European Commission to enforce existing measures restricting trade of the eel under CITES and the Commission Regulation (EU) no 1320/2014, banning all imports and exports of European eel to and from the EU. Additionally, full traceability of all eel trade is obliged by EU Eel Regulation and in particular its Article 12 on control and enforcement of trade. Insufficient implementation of trade controls and the resulting trafficking frustrates the European Eel Recovery Programme as mandated by the EU Eel Regulation. Consequently, trafficking threatens the survival of the species, by undermining its protection and sustainable use and ultimately some 10,000 jobs.
Even though fishing activities have been monitored for selected fleets using electronic vessel monitoring systems, logbooks, and onboard observers, these efforts only provide very limited evidence of a region’s fishing patterns. A new study published by Science Magazine has made use of global satellite-based observations along with artificial intelligence to train and analyse the 22 billion messages publicly broadcast from marine vessels’ automatic identification system (AIS) from 2012 to 2016. The particularity of movements relating to fishing have led to the identification of more than 70,000 fishing vessels ranging from 6 to 146 m in length, with a 95% accuracy. The movements of these commercial fishing vessels have been tracked hourly and reveal a global ‘heat map’ that covers more than 55% of the ocean’s surface or over four times the area covered by agriculture.
Although the data set includes only a limited proportion of the world’s estimated 2.9 million motorized fishing vessels, it encompasses most of the larger vessels exceeding 24m in length and is estimated to account for between 50 to 70% of the total high seas fishing.
Over the course of 2016, the data set captured 40 million hours of fishing activity by these vessels covering a combined distance of more than 460 million km, the equivalent of traveling to the moon and back 600 times, and consuming 19 billion kWh of energy.
Italy is the world’s fourth largest producer of anchovy with 37,511 tonnes caught in 2015 according to the latest EUMOFA Case Study: Processed Anchovy in Italy. Italian anchovy is consumed fresh or processed as salted anchovy, anchovy in oil, or marinated anchovy. This case study, published in February, focuses on salted anchovy and anchovy in oil. Italian anchovy production is broken into two types; Small-scale production marketed regionally and industrial scale production, based partly on imports from countries like Albania, Morocco, and Tunisia, of which circa three fourths is sold within Italy and the rest is exported. In 2015 imports of anchovy reached a little over 26,000 tonnes while about 20,000 tonnes were exported and some 44,000 tonnes were consumed in Italy. For one kilogram of processed anchovy (preserved in oil or salted) between 1,9 and 2,3 kg of fresh anchovy is needed due to losses during the different production stages. Fish accounts for 9% to 20% of the cost of the final product to consumers which ranges from EUR28/kg to EUR53/kg for small-scale production of anchovy preserved in olive oil in the Ligurian area. Labour costs account for 14%-16% while distribution costs account for the largest share (between 28% and 53%) of the final consumer price. More detailed information is available online at www.eumofa.eu/eumofa-publications.
In October 2017, the European Commission and the Estonian Presidency of the EU Council jointly organised the conference “Beyond 2020: Supporting Europe’s Coastal Communities” in Tallinn, Estonia on the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) both now and beyond 2020. The conference, which had more than 70 speakers and attracted some 300 participants has now presented its conclusions from the event. The main findings are that the EMFF, as the EU’s main funding instrument for the fisheries sector, helps to support the CFP objectives by making fishing and aquaculture more sustainable, competitive and innovative, by increasing the availability of data and strengthening control as well as by enhancing the conservation of the environment and natural resources.
By the end of 2016, nearly 6,500 projects had been selected for financing. More than half of them are designed to help SMEs in fisheries and aquaculture become more competitive. More than a third of them are also designed to preserve and protect the marine environment and to promote resource efficiency. Although the EMFF has helped to mobilise more than 1 billion euros of public and private investment, there was common understanding among participants that efforts need to be stepped up to maximise EMFF achievements.
Looking beyond 2020, the conference examined in detail the challenges and opportunities facing the fisheries and maritime sectors. Although the sector has become more sustainable and competitive, e.g. with the fleet generating nearly 800 billion euros in net profit in 2015 alone, there was widespread agreement that there are still a number of important challenges ahead for which support will be needed. At the same time, participants largely concurred on the need to avoid harmful subsidies which increase fleet capacity, thus leading to over-fishing, and to focus instead on the protection of existing resources and marine ecosystems.