Fishing for more

Asia dominates global seafood production but environment and labor must be tackled
Asia captures and cultures more fish than any other region in the world, accounting for nearly half of the planet's largest 100 seafood firms while owning around 68 percent of the global fishing fleet. And the region's dominant position is likely to continue in the seafood arena for many decades to come. According to Agricultural Outlook, 2014-2023, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, world fisheries production is expected to reach 186 metric tons by 2023. This is about 17 percent higher than in 2013, and a marked expansion is expected in Asia, with its share of total production rising from 68 to 71 percent.
Ye Yimin, chief of fisheries and aquaculture department at the FAO, says increased income and wealth are allowing people to buy high-quality and nutrition-rich food for health, subsequently driving the development of fish capture and culture industries.
Fishermen offload their catch in Qingdao, Shandong province, on June 1. Asia has over 3 million vessels, accounting for 68 percent of the global fleet, and China leads with about 700,000 vessels. AFP |
Globally, however, expanding aquaculture production will drive the overall growth, and the bulk will come from Asia, which accounts for about 88 percent of world production.
"The fast development of fisheries and aquaculture in the region is also rooted in tradition and culture," Ye says.
"For example, many countries prefer seafood, in particular China, Japan and the Koreas. They like eating fish, and the culinary tradition enables people to eat fish."
In terms of fleet, Asia has over 3 million vessels, accounting for 68 percent of the global fleet, and China spearheads the armada with about 700,000 vessels, more than double the size of its nearest rival, Japan.
China will increasingly influence global fish markets, says a World Bank report titled Fish to 2030.
It says that by 2030, China will account for 37 percent of total fish production (17 percent of capture production and 57 percent of aquaculture production), and account for 38 percent of the global consumption of fish.
In 2013, China's fish and fisheries exports were valued at $19.6 billion (17.7 billion euros), and imports at $8 billion.
According to a Rabobank report, The Dragon's Changing Appetite, China has the potential to become a $20 billion seafood import market by the end of the current decade, with rising incomes increasing the domestic demand for seafood, particularly premium species.
Though China maintains dominance in the seafood production arena, Asian countries including Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and South Korea have shown considerable increases in marine catches in the last 10 years, according to the FAO.
Not only in terms of production, "the fisheries and aquaculture makes significant contributions to people's livelihoods and local economies by generating employment", says Ye.
A 2014 FAO report, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture: Opportunities and Challenges, says in 2012, 84 percent of all people employed in the fisheries and aquaculture sector were in Asia, followed by Africa (more than 10 percent), and Latin America and the Caribbean (3.9 percent).
"About 18.9 million (more than 32 percent of all people employed in the sector) were engaged in fish farming, concentrated primarily in Asia (more than 96 percent)," adds the report by FAO, also referring to statistics from 2012.
Ye points out that employment opportunities are created by "upstream and downstream industries, such as vessel (maintenance), gear making, processing, marketing and retail sectors along the value chain".
Simon Wilkinson, communications manager at the Bangkok-based Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific, says traditional labor-intensive methods provide livelihood support to large numbers of people in coastal areas in many developing countries, and they are likely to remain important components in rural development and poverty alleviation.
"The importance of the industry extends beyond jobs and dollars, it is very important from a social perspective," Wilkinson says.
In the developing world, more than 1 billion people living in poverty obtain most of their animal protein from fish and 250 million depend on fishing and aquaculture for their livelihoods.
The FAO says fish has been a central element in local economies for many centuries, and the contribution from fish as a source of protein is also significant in Indonesia (54 percent), Bangladesh (56 percent), Sri Lanka (57 percent) Cambodia (65 percent) and the Maldives (71 percent).
"Providing inexpensive nutritional food and employment for the poor in developing Asia is more important than foreign exchange," says Stephen Hall, director general at Penang-based WorldFish, a research organization focused on reducing poverty in developing countries through fisheries and aquaculture.
Nevertheless, overfishing has serious environmental as well as social and economic consequences. Ye of the FAO says that the current fishing capacity is far beyond the level that fish resources can stand, which leads to overfishing of many fish stocks.
"Overcapacity of fishing fleets is a huge challenge. The stock abundance was fished down below the level that can produce maximum sustainable yield," Ye says.
However, several Asian countries including China have established targets to tackle the national overcapacity of fishing fleets and have implemented restrictions on larger vessels.
"Governance is the key," Ye says. "It is often seen in Asia and the Pacific that legislation was not designed with the participation of all relevant stakeholders and they are only partially or not implemented in practice."
He points out that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, a common phenomenon in the region, costs significant amounts in lost revenue and is resulting in overexploited fisheries.
"Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region do not have adequate resources or enforcement capacity to deal with these illegal activities," Ye adds.
A research paper on regional fisheries by the Stimson Center, a US-based think tank, says marine biodiversity is threatened both by overexploitation of commercial species and by physical damage to ecosystems by certain destructive fishing practices.
The process of "fishing down the marine food web" - that is, depleting higher-value fish species, thus making less valuable species dominant in the ecosystem - contributes heavily to loss of marine biodiversity, the paper says.
For instance, overfishing and the use of illegal and undocumented trawlers have ravaged Thailand's marine ecosystems and depleted fish stocks, according to a report by the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation.
Boats are now catching about 85 percent less than what they brought in 50 years ago, making it one of the most overfished regions on the planet, the report says.
Besides environmental damage, overfishing is leading to the widespread use of slavery throughout the fishing industry.
In March, the Associated Press published a story about slavery in the seafood industry, exposing the appalling conditions fishermen endured in an Indonesian-registered company operating 90 trawlers.
"One rogue producer can give a whole industry a bad name," says Chris Kennedy, aquaculture risk manager at Melbourne-based insurance firm Sunderland Marine.
Recently, the European Union warned Thailand that the country risks sanctions, including an import ban, if it fails to put a halt to illegal fishing. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has given the Southeast Asian nation six months to curb illegal and unregulated fishing.
"The seafood sector in Asia follows lower environmental and labor norms though the industry contributes significantly to huge employment generation, export earnings and food security in region," says Patrick Hone, executive director at the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, a research organization co-funded by the Australian government and the country's fishing industry.
Thailand is the world's third-largest exporter of seafood, with yearly revenues worth more than $5 billion and the EU as a major market for the country's exports. A ban could severely dent the country's seafood industry.
The EU has lifted previous warnings issued against South Korea and the Philippines, pointing out that both countries had implemented appropriate reforms and are now capable of tackling illegal fishing. It currently has bans in place on fisheries products caught by vessels from Cambodia and Sri Lanka.
Wilkinson of the Network of Aquaculture Centres says the industry needs to pay careful attention to food safety and environmental issues.
"Trading partners can literally close their market to exports from a country overnight if food safety concerns arise," he says.
Local consumers can also boycott entire classes of products if there is a food safety scare, he points out, adding that environmental and labor rights issues too are becoming increasingly important trade issues.
"It is important for farmers, processors and everyone in the supply chain to follow good practices and regulations. This is necessary to protect consumers of their products and also to protect the reputation of their business and the industry as a whole," Wilkinson adds.
Yvonne Sadovy from the school of biological sciences at The University of Hong Kong says there is an urgent need for rational and sustainable management of fishing.
"Each country is responsible for sustainable use of its own resources. This principle, however, is largely ignored in Asian fisheries. If natural resources are not managed, they will decline, losing livelihood and important food resources," warns Sadovy.
krishna@chinadailyapac.com
(China Daily European Weekly 07/03/2015 page16)
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