Several years ago, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission adopted a measure ostensibly aimed at banning shark finning, a practice that has helped drive several shark species worldwide toward extinction. But at last month\u2019s annual commission meeting, as the European Union (EU) proposed ways to more effectively implement the ban, China surprised the EU when it announced it believes shark finning \u2014 where fishers cut off a shark\u2019s fins and toss the rest of the animal, which is often still alive, overboard \u2014 is perfectly acceptable under the measure.<\/p>\n
Conservation and Management Measure (CMM) 2010-07, a revision of a measure adopted in 2009, calls on commission member states to require their fishers to \u201cfully utilize\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 that is, keep all parts except the head, guts, and skins \u2014 any retained shark carcasses to the point of first landing or transshipment. The measure also requires members to \u201ctake measures necessary to prohibit their fishing vessels from retaining on board, transshipping, landing, or trading any fins harvested in contravention of this [CMM].\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than including language requiring that sharks be landed with their fins attached \u2014 which would be the most effective way to end shark finning \u2014 the CMM merely requires vessels to carry fins totaling less than five percent of the weight of sharks on board up to the first point of landing.<\/p>\n
Member states that don\u2019t require fins and carcasses to be offloaded together at first landing must ensure compliance with the five percent ratio through certification, observer monitoring, or other appropriate measures, the CMM states. \u201c[Commission members] may alternatively require that their vessels land sharks with fins attached to the carcass or that fins not be landed without the corresponding carcass,\u201d it adds.<\/p>\n
Such loose language, which allows detached fins to be stored and transshipped separately from carcasses, confounds efforts to enforce the five percent ratio, according to testimony from Greenpeace, which urged the commission to strengthen the measure by requiring sharks to be retained with their fins naturally attached \u201cin accordance with best practices established by the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis loophole compromises other CMMs including those for oceanic whitetip and silky sharks,\u201d the organization stated. (WCPFC measures prohibit the landing of both of those species.) Allowing the transshipment of sharks and fins separately, Greenpeace continued,\u00a0 \u201ccompounds the difficulty in enforcing the relevant shark measures. This further reiterates the call by Greenpeace to ban all transshipment at sea (of all species including sharks) to close this loophole and support strong fisheries management, good data reporting and science and enforcement of the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greenpeace pointed to its bust last September of the Shuen De Ching 888<\/i>, a Taiwanese longliner that was caught illegally fishing and shark finning on the high seas.<\/p>\n
Observer reports confirm that shark finning is still occurring in both the longline and purse seine fisheries in the Western Pacific. And the commission\u2019s Scientific Committee (SC) reported last year that it was unable to evaluate the validity of the five percent ratio \u201cdue to insufficient information for all but one of the major fleets implementing these ratios.\u201d As a result, the commission\u2019s Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC) was unable to assess whether the fleets were adhering to CMM 2010-07.<\/p>\n
Before the commission\u2019s meeting in December, the TCC recommended that the commission \u201cconsider means to strengthen the CMM 2010-07 with respect to ensuring compliance with the obligation in paragraph 6,\u201d which requires fishers to fully utilize any retained catches of sharks.<\/p>\n
The EU\u2019s Angela Martini, who initially proposed that the measure be amended to require sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached, recommended that the SC and TCC investigate ways to improve the measure. She also urged member states that use the five percent ratio to provide detailed information to those committees on how they implement that condition. Finally, she urged the commission, following the committees\u2019 recommendations, to revise CMM 2010-07 \u201cto ensure its effective enforcement in view of the implementation of the finning ban.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray Clarke of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service suggested it would be redundant to ask the SC and TCC to evaluate the measure when they\u2019ve already said they can\u2019t. He added that he would have preferred a stronger recommendation \u2013 specifically, a requirement that carcasses and fins be made available if they are caught in the high seas.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Takashi Koya added that Japan could not accept the recommendation that the commission revise the measure. When he suggested that the commission merely commit to reviewing it, representatives from China and Indonesia added their support.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Liu Xiaobing also took issue with the EU\u2019s referral to a \u201cfinning ban.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Finning ban\u2019 is too much for us. \u2026 There is nothing wrong [with finning]. It\u2019s consistent with management measures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To this, Martini replied, \u201cWhat do you mean there is no finning ban in the convention area? There is a finning ban. \u2026 I\u2019m pretty surprised by these comments.\u201d Although she agreed to soften the language of her recommendation to remove references to a finning ban, the commission still failed to adopt the EU\u2019s overall proposal.<\/p>\n
Martini was clearly disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe TCC asked for guidance. Now we have no guidance. \u2026 We haven\u2019t addressed a very serious issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Transshipment<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
At last month\u2019s WCPFC meeting, not only did members debate whether or not the commission ever intended to ban shark finning, they also seemed unable to agree on whether a measure adopted almost a decade ago was, indeed, aimed at banning transshipment \u2014 which occurs when a fishing vessel offloads its catch to another vessel \u2014 on the high seas.<\/p>\n
NGOs, including Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature, and the small island countries that make up the Pacific Forum Fishers Agency (FFA) have long argued that the commission should adopt a ban on at-sea transshipment, which by all accounts facilitates Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing, especially on the high seas.<\/p>\n
\u201cTransshipment and the use of motherships to resupply fishing vessels at sea also facilitates forced labor and human rights abuse at sea, by allowing fishing vessels to stay at sea for months and even years, making escape impossible for fishing crews. It also exacerbates the extremely low level of observer coverage on longline vessels by making observer trips difficult to implement and allowing longline vessels to avoid port inspection from landing catches in port or transshipping in authorized transshipment ports where inspection is possible,\u201d Greenpeace stated in testimony to the commission.<\/p>\n
In 2009, the commission established regulations on transshipment in CMM 2009-06. The measure banned transshipment on the high seas, except where a commission member state has determined \u2014 in accordance with commission-established guidelines \u2014 that it is impracticable for its vessels to operate without being able to transship on the high seas. The measure directed the commission\u2019s executive director to draft guidelines to determine those \u201cimpracticable\u201d circumstances. Those guidelines would then be vetted by the WCPFC\u2019s Technical and Compliance Committee and adopted by the commission.<\/p>\n
Because those guidelines have never been adopted, some have argued, vessels transshipping on the high seas have failed to properly report their activities.<\/p>\n
In the absence of guidelines, the Marshall Islands\u2019 Glen Joseph proposed a complete ban on high seas transshipment for longline vessels. (The CMM already bans transshipment for purse seine vessels.)<\/p>\n
The European Union echoed the Marshall Islands\u2019 recommendation, noting that high seas transshipment is \u201csupposed to be an exception, but it is actually the rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
A representative from Nauru noted that the 2009 measure was a compromise following the FFA\u2019s repeated efforts to adopt a complete ban on high seas transshipment. The measure\u2019s exception to the transshipment ban has been not been used in good faith by some flag states, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is possible for high seas longline vessels to not transship,\u201d he said, noting that the EU conducts all of its transshipments in port.<\/p>\n
Although Japan\u2019s Takashi Koya acknowledged that high seas transshipping is used in IUU fishing, he pointed out that 2009-06 recognizes that transshipment at sea \u201cis a common global practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJapan cannot go along with just a simple request of total high seas transshipment ban,\u201d he said. Representatives from Korea and China echoed his feelings.<\/p>\n
Joseph pointed out that the measure, as it\u2019s currently written, already bans high seas transshipments. The exception to that ban would only come into play when impracticability standards are met.<\/p>\n
According to WCPFC\u2019s legal advisor, in the absence of commission-adopted\u00a0guidelines, the measure requires a vessel wanting to transship on the high seas to prove 1) significant economic hardship would be incurred without transshipment, and 2) it would have to make significant and substantial changes to its historical mode of operation. The member states managing those vessels would also have to submit a plan detailing what steps they are taking to encourage transshipment in port in the future.<\/p>\n
That, apparently, isn\u2019t being done. Even so, Martini said, some 3,000 to 4,000 longline vessels have reported that they are transshipping at sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis measure \u2026 is being used to allow transshipment [at sea] as the rule and that is very worrying,\u201d she said, adding that it is, indeed, a hardship to transship at port, but the EU does it because the measure sets a very high threshold for at-sea transshipment.<\/p>\n
China countered that it also tries its best to encourage its fleet to offload at port, but, \u201cpractically speaking, we have difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many small island developing states (SIDS) ban the harvest or transportation of sharks, but China fishes for blue shark on the high seas. \u201cThat is something our fleet hesitates to go to the port [with],\u201d he said. He added that another reason his country\u2019s boats can\u2019t offload in SIDS ports is because China freezes most of its catch and SIDS ports lack the capability to handle that.<\/p>\n
WCPFC chair Rhea Moss-Christian ended the discussion with a call for the commission to review at its next meeting the impracticability guidelines that have been drafted.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several years ago, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission adopted a measure ostensibly aimed at banning shark finning, a practice that has helped drive several shark species worldwide toward extinction. But at last month’s annual commission meeting, as the … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-8605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-january-2016","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}