The European Commission is seeking views on measures to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems (VME) from the negative effects of bottom gear in the high seas.
A call for ideas and a public consultation are open until February 5, 2024.
EMVs are fragile and sensitive areas that support a wide variety of marine life, including slow-growing, long-lived deep-sea species.
Through the "EU Blue Champions" initiative, the Advisory Services of the European Investment Bank (EIB or EIB), in collaboration with the EIB Project Directorate, will provide financial advice to selected EU projects. blue economy. The objective is to identify 20 innovative projects that have the potential to be of interest to public or private finance providers and may possibly be eligible for EIB financing.
Each selected project must show the potential to contribute to the EU mission "Restore our oceans and waters" and its three objectives: restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, eliminate pollution, and decarbonize the blue economy.
Source: IndustriasPesqueras | Read the full articlehere
A meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping has resulted in a handshake agreement that will see China review its ban on Japanese seafood.
China initiated a complete ban on seafood from Japan in August 2023, after it approved the release of treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Russia followed with its own ban, and South Korea has maintained an earlier ban on seafood products from eight Japanese prefectures.
Author: Cliff White / SeafoodSource | read the full articlehere
Animal welfare campaign group Compassion in World Farming has published a “scorecard” rating the major salmon farmers on their performance – and it argues there is still “a long way to go”.
The Scorecard has evaluated the public policies of eight salmon producers, representing more than 50% of worldwide salmon production, in terms of their transparent reporting of key welfare issues. These are based on assessments made from publicly available company information, rated across 13 welfare parameters including stocking density, humane slaughter, sea lice infestations and mortality. Each parameter is marked independently with the resultant comparison table being based on a five-colour scale, from red to green.
Salmon is the most popular fish among UK consumers, with new figures showing sales are up 3.2 per cent in a year. With Scottish salmon taking centre stage in this year’s St Andrew’s Day celebrations – including receptions in Holyrood and in the British Embassy in Paris – data shows that sales reached £1.25 billion in the 12 months to September, making up nearly 30 per cent of all fish bought in the UK. The coming weeks are also expected to see an uptick in sales as families buy Scottish salmon for Christmas festivities.
Kirk Havercoft, managing director of Sustainable Blue, says new deliveries from the RAS facility will be halted for about seven months, as all remaining fish have not yet reached harvestable size.
The incident happened on 4 November, and is said to be due to a construction fault.
Source: LandbasedAQ (translated from original in norwegian)
Jala, an Indonesia-based aquatech startup, has raised US$13.1 million in a series A round led by Intudo Ventures, with participation from Sinar Mas Digital Ventures as well as existing investors Mirova and Meloy Fund.
The funding will help Jala improve its platform with more in-depth predictions for cultivation performance, water quality, and shrimp disease. It also aims to boost its automated data input capabilities for shrimp weight and feed data.
Founded in 2017 by Aryo Wiryawan and Liris Maduningtyas, Jala’s app enables farmers to record, monitor, and analyze their shrimp farm activities in real time. The firm said that so far, it has helped monitor shrimp across more than 35,000 water bodies for its nearly 20,000 users
The company also offers a credit scoring service, Jala Smartfarm, which gives farmers access to financing options. Meanwhile, its Jala Harvest offering helps farmers bring their products to market.[...]
The general secretary of theSpanish Fisheries Confederation (CEPESCA), Javier Garat, has been appointed president of the Spanish Maritime Cluster, an organization that represents all economic activities, institutions, associations and companies that have a relationship with the sea, and whose objective is extend and improve the so-called blue economy, acting as a communication vehicle for the sector with the Government and public administrations.
Garat has a degree in Law and a diploma in Community Law from the Complutense University of Madrid (C.E.U. San Pablo) and a Master's degree in International and European Law from the Catholic University of Leuven (U.C.L. Belgium). The new president of the Spanish Maritime Cluster, a full academician of the Royal Academy of the Sea, has an extensive career in the field of fishing that began in 1996 when he joined the team of the Legal Service of the European Commission and as assistant to the Fisheries Counselor of the Permanent Representation of Spain to the European Union.
Call to enhance blue finance for innovations in aquaculture
In view of a range of critical threats posed by climate change and increasing demand for food and nutritional security, Simon Feunge-Smith, Senior Fishery Officer of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) has called for enhancing blue finance for innovations and developments in the aquaculture sector.
He was speaking at a technical session on ‘Emerging Challenges and Opportunities in Inland Aquaculture’ at the Global Fisheries Conference India 2023.
According to him, global aquaculture will provide 59% of fish for human consumption by 2030. He emphasised the need to prioritise low carbon footprint aquaculture systems with high value nutrition, saying that technological advancements and investments are required for a sustainable growth of the sector.
Global blue sector has changed over the past 25 years, with 37% higher per capita fish consumption and 250% higher aquaculture production, the FAO expert said [...]
A study carried out by a research team from the University of Santiago de Compostela, commissioned by the Xunta de Galicia, has calculated that the reduction of VAT from 10 to 5% on fishing products sold directly to the final consumer would generate an increase of 28 .5 million euros in added value, the creation of 5,575 jobs, and a decrease of 17.8 million euros in tax collection.
The study transfers the VAT reduction demanded by the Xunta to several assumptions to project what impact the measure would have if put into practice through the analysis of the behavior of the Galician economy at a macro and micro level.