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Norpac Fisheries Latest News

Archive for July, 2011

Kobe III – Day 3

Posted on July 15th, 2011 by Heather Ingersoll Environmental Responsibility Sustainability

On the final day of the Kobe III workshop there is increased focus on developing guidance for the way forward regarding the world wide registry of fishing vessels 10 meters or greater in length. For the tuna RFMO’s this discussion centered upon harmonizing data for listing registered vessels, and even upon the difficulty of determining what makes up an IUU vessel. Illegal fishing is easier to identify than unregulated or unreported fishing, and as such creates an issue for identifying such vessels from one tuna RFMO to another.
The effort to freeze capacity of developed nations and the eventual redistribution of capacity to developing nations remained a topic of interest, and the definition of capacity as it relates to “flagged vessels” of any one country, as opposed to capacity related to vessels being reflagged, which may then escape being included in the capacity of any one particular developed nation.

Much effort put into developing the wording for the initiative to establish these vessel registrations, or more accurately vessel records, and making the nexus of these records between the tuna RFMO’s.

Update 1 from Kobe III

Posted on July 13th, 2011 by Heather Ingersoll Community Support Environmental Responsibility Sustainability

Our founder, Thomas Kraft, has sent us some interesting updates from his seat at Kobe III

“Late in the day, the US delegation, addressing allocation and capacity issues has stated they will seek to support a “Rights Based” fisheries and a worldwide registry of all fishing vessels to combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. This is supporting the ISSF recommendations heard yesterday. Japan has expressed their concern that all developed nations wish to retain all available fishing allocations, but that over capacity will make that difficult for maintaining existing stocks. Recommendation for considering a freeze and then potential reduction in allocation to developed countries. Japan’s comments were directed toward purse seine fishing efforts, as Longline fishing efforts have been reduced annually for many years. This seems a rational approach, as the purse seine fishery requires much larger catch to support their operations, due to the large investment required to build a single vessel.

The Joint Technical Bycatch working committee met yesterday to discuss management of the 91% of the world’s oceans they manage, and reported their meeting today at the Kobe III Workshop. They developed 6 recommendations which includes harmonization of measures between the 5 Tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations (tRFMO’s) and developing mechanisms for cooperation and information sharing. This is extremely important as some tRFMO’s have overlapping geographical and fish stock management responsibilities. There was a general agreement for more cooperation between the 5 and to establish a new Working Group.“

Stay tuned for more updated as the conference continues

Kobe III Event

Posted on July 12th, 2011 by Heather Ingersoll Environmental Responsibility Sustainability

Norpac Fisheries Export is excited to be attending the Third Joint Meeting of the Tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations “Kobe III”.

Our founder is currently attending the three daylong meeting in La Jolla. The joint meeting got underway this morning with an optimistic call to action by Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere. Dr. Lubchenco confirmed the US commitment to Eco System based fisheries management based upon Scientific Support, Management, Reduction to By-Catch, elimination of IUU Fishing, and international cooperation. Dr. Lubchenco stated that by the end of 2011 the US will have measures in place for the management of the 528 federally managed stocks.
Further, Dr. Lubchnko stated that rebuilding all US fishery stocks is a priority which when achieved, will add $31 Billion dollars to the US economy, as well as 500,000 jobs, as well as increase dockside revenue to fishermen by 50%.

To learn more visit www.iattc.org