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Ahead of the Council meeting on Fisheries taking place in mid-December, the Commission has adopted its proposal for fishing opportunities, the Total Allowable Catches (TACs), in 2020 for 72 stocks in the Atlantic and the North Sea. Quotas for 32 stocks will increase or remain the same, while 40 stocks will have their quota reduced. The quotas are set for most commercial fish stocks at levels that maintain or restore them to health, while allowing the industry to take the highest amount of fish. The proposal follows advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Sustainable fishing has made substantial progress in the EU: in 2019, 59 stocks are being fished at Maximum Sustainable Yield levels, up from 53 in 2018 and compared to only 5 in 2009, meaning that the fishing pressure on the stocks is limited to a level that will allow a healthy future for the fish stocks' biomass, while taking into account socio-economic factors. As the size of some key fish stocks is increasing – for instance, haddock in the Celtic Sea and sole in the Bristol Channel – so has the European fishing sector’s profitability which will reach an estimated €1.3 billion in 2019.

Serious shortcomings exist in the mechanisms that Ecuador has put in place to ensure compliance with its international fishing obligations according the European Commission. The legal framework in place in the country is outdated and not in line with international and regional rules for the conservation and management of fishing resources, and law enforcement is hampered by this outdated legal framework. In addition, inefficient administrative procedures and a lenient attitude towards infringements means the sanctions regime is neither depriving the offenders from the benefits gained from IUU fishing, nor deterring it. Deficiencies in terms of control, notably over the activity of the tuna fishing and processing industries, undermine the reliability of the traceability system upon which the certification of the legality of the catches is based.

US President Donald Trump has decided to suspend trade preferences for Thailand’s seafood industry following the country’s failure to improve worker rights amid allegations of the use of slave labour and trafficking among its migrant workforce.…

The European Commission has adopted a proposal offering support from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund to fishermen affected by the closure of the Eastern Baltic cod fishery to permanently decommission their fishing vessels. Cod fisheries is important in the Eastern Baltic Sea, but the stock is in very poor shape. At the Council meeting in mid-October, fisheries ministers agreed on a Commission proposal to reduce fishing possibilities in 2020 to almost zero. While this step is necessary to give the stock a chance to recover, it also means severe and unavoidable economic hardship for the fleets and fishing communities traditionally fishing this stock.

A new testing platform, developed by Norway-based Orivo in collaboration with BioMar, makes use of advanced DNA-technology. The test determines the species composition of marine ingredients with a high level of precision, able to detect the presence of even very small amounts of DNA. BioMar believes that DNA-testing of marine ingredients in the aquaculture industry is a natural answer to the demand from customers and stakeholders for improved transparency and traceability throughout the seafood value chain.

A social agenda for the artisanal fishing sector was presented by the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture (SUBPESCA),…

To understand and interpret two distinct and opposing trends in global marine and inland fisheries FAO is organising a symposium on 18-21 November 2019 in Rome.…

Aquaculture in Spain 2019 is the latest edition of APROMAR’s annual report depicting the development of the aquaculture sector in Spain and Europe.…

The use of slave labor to catch fish is an epidemic whose severity needs no elucidation. New technology, however, may hold the key to fighting forced labour in the fishing industry. An estimated 21 million people are trapped in enslaved labor around the world. Many of these slaves are forced to work on fishing vessels, with illegal fishing practices generating over $23 billion each year. The tendency is for men who are seeking work to board ships willingly, but then once they are isolated at sea, their wages are withheld, and they are subjected to violent, bleak working conditions for years.