Norway Leads Calls for EU Ban on Fish Discards

By Fiona Harvey

Norway - Giving up the wasteful practice of discarding edible fish at sea is not only possible, but can result in greater profits for fishermen, according to the fisheries minister in Norway, which has banned the practice.

Up to two-thirds of the fish caught in some European waters are thrown back dead because of the way the EU's common fisheries policy works. Proposals to end the waste have faced opposition from fishing groups and some EU member states, several of which attempted to scupper the ban at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. In the end, the attempt to block a ban on discards did not materialise, in part because of strong opposition from the public and high-profile campaigns such as FishFight initiative spearheaded by the TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. But the issue will be discussed by European legislators several times this year before going to a final vote.

It is 25 years since Norway introduced a ban on discards amid the steady decline of the Arctic cod. As a result, stocks of the species have recovered.

The experiences of Norway, which is outside the EU, should be taken as an example to member states, says the country's fisheries minister. Lisbeth Berg-Hansen. She told the Guardian: "I hope the rest of Europe will see this ban can be possible. Fishermen saw it as difficult at first but they have seen the quick results of this ban – the quota got bigger year by year."

Some fishermen, mainly in companies with industrial-scale vessels, want to keep the present discards arrangement because they can maximise their profits by throwing back lower value, though edible, fish.

Berg-Hansen said Norway's discards ban was introduced as part of a package of measures that meant fishermen saw other benefits, and shared in the bigger catches that were allowed as the species recovered. "We looked at the problem as a whole, took scientific advice and used several different methods," she added.

Technology was used extensively: selective gear meant smaller fish slipped through the net, preventing juveniles being caught and helping to avoid by-catch. Some fishing grounds were also closed temporarily to allow stocks to recover, particularly in areas where there was a high proportion of young fish.

The amount of allowable by-catch was also curtailed, with rules brought in which meant that fishermen netting a large amount had to change location to avoid breaking the law. Fishing was more closely monitored, and the value of any fish caught in contravention of the regulations was made forfeit to the state.

One key part of the plan, said Berg-Hansen, was public backing of the ban – there was a growing outcry in Norway over the huge quantities of cod being discarded, particularly at a time when stocks were dwindling. "People saw that discarding fish is an absolute waste and irresponsible resource management," she said.

Illegal Fishing Plunders and Strains West Africa

Sierra Leone - On a recent mission pursuing pirate fishermen off Sierra Leone's coast, the head of the Fisheries Protection Unit found himself adrift on the high seas with six crew after their rented motorboat ran out of fuel.

"We started rationing the food and water," Victor Kargbo said. With no long-range radios to seek help, they improvised a makeshift sail from a tarpaulin, but with only one day's supply of food and water remaining, they feared the worst.

"Even if we should die in the process, we knew we had served the country well," Kargbo said.

Their ordeal, which ended when a U.N. helicopter spotted the stranded boat after two days, underscores the huge challenge facing impoverished West African states seeking to defend their waters from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

West Africa, recognized as one of the world's richest fisheries grounds teeming with snapper, grouper, sardines, mackerel and shrimp, loses up to $1.5 billion worth of fish each year to vessels fishing in protected zones or without proper equipment or licenses.

Widespread corruption and a continuing lack of resources for enforcement mean huge foreign trawlers often venture into areas near the coast that are reserved exclusively for artisanal fishermen, allowing them to drag off tons of catch and putting at risk the livelihoods of millions of local people.

Experts say the annual plunder risks deepening instability in West Africa by driving communities that live off the sea toward crime, in the same way illegal fishing in Somalia in the 1990s encouraged locals there to turn to piracy, now a criminal enterprise that costs the world billions of dollars each year.

"Illegal fishing in West Africa is essentially out of control," said David Doulman, senior fisheries planning officer at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The acts of piracy, particularly in and around the Gulf of Guinea, have spread and become more violent, U.N. officials say, threatening shipping activity from a growing source of oil, metals and agricultural commodities for Western markets.

While there is no clear evidence that local fishermen there are behind recorded hijacks of ships and sea-borne raids on banks in coastal cities, there are fears their declining livelihoods could push them into such activity.

"It would be reasonable to be concerned," Doulman said.

A study by the U.K.-based Environmental Justice Foundation showed that many of the culprits of the illegal fishing off West Africa are Chinese, South Korean and European-flagged vessels.

EJF says fish native to West Africa have shown up in market stalls in London, some in boxes "carrying the logo of CNFC, a state-owned Chinese company that owns many of the IUU (illegal, unreported, and unregulated) vessels operating in Guinea."

The European Union says it is working on the problem. An EU official said it seeks to curb illegal fishing as well as the sale of illegally caught fish in EU markets through a system of certification and a blacklist for violators.

China's Ministry of Agriculture, which oversees the fishing industry, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

OFFSHORE "REEFERS", INSHORE CANOES

In an ironic twist, Sierra Leone's Kargbo and his colleagues ended up being rescued by the same trawler suspected of illegal fishing that they had seized earlier in their troubled mission, the Marampa 803.

The 61-meter (200-foot) trawler, boarded by Kargbo's unit before the group raced off to intercept another suspect vessel, was one of several owned by local firm Sierra Fishing Company (SFC). Its management had been outsourced to a Canary Islands-registered company, Taerim Ltd, according to private equity firm ManoCap, which owns 40 percent of SFC.

"We took the decision to outsource management, and then didn't spend time looking at what the vessel was doing," ManoCap founder Tom Cairnes said, adding management of Marampa 803 would be changed.

A Sierra Leone patrol had spotted the ship twice in inshore waters reserved for artisanal fishermen before it was seized.

The illegal trawlers typically catch fish in off-limits waters near shore and 'launder' their catches by offloading far out at sea onto refrigerated vessels, sometimes European- or Chinese-owned, called "reefers".

Illicit fish catches off West Africa are part of a global problem straining world stocks. The United States and the European Union estimate illegal fishing yields as much as $23 billion worth of seafood worldwide annually.

But the ocean off West Africa presents a special case: it has the world's highest proportion of illegal catch at about 37 percent of the region's total, according to researchers, and as a result is at risk of collapse.

Lack of money to buy patrol boats, or even the fuel to run them, has crippled West African governments' efforts to crack down on the illegal fleets.

"At the end of the day we, the local fishermen, suffer a lot," said Philip Gabbidon, a 32-year-old from Sierra Leone's John Obey beach, where brightly painted canoes are drawn up on the sand and women stack freshly caught fish in wicker baskets.

Other forms of illegal fishing in the region include the use of a single license for multiple vessels or small-mesh nets - nets whose holes are smaller than regulations stipulate and which end up catching even the smallest fish.

Sometimes local fishermen become part of the illegal fishing enterprises. The interlopers employ them with their canoes to access the off-limits near-shore zones along the vast stretch of coast without triggering suspicion.

On the cliff-lined beach at Ouakam just outside Senegal's capital Dakar, Mamadou Seck rests among the wooden pirogues - canoes hand-built from local timbers - after months working for South Korean ships.

He said a typical sortie involves several large pirogues and their crews leaving from Senegal's northern port of St. Louis, being picked up by a South Korean-flagged trawler at sea, and then travelling thousands of km (miles) south to fishing grounds as far away as Gabon near the equator.

"In the mornings, we are lowered and in the evening we return to the ship and sell them our catch at a discount," he said, adding the pirogues often venture close to shore to catch grouper. "It is hard work, but it used to pay well. Now it is more difficult because the sea has fewer fish."

LOCAL AUTHORITIES STRUGGLE

Like Sierra Leone, other regional countries like Liberia, Ivory Coast and Guinea are also losing the fight to what their officials call "pirate fishing". Guinea alone loses some $100 million per year in catches, according to the EJF.

In Ivory Coast, authorities have seized only four vessels found fishing illegally since 2007, even though local fishermen say run-ins with foreign ships are a near daily occurrence. Captured ships are typically held at port until their owners pay a fine to release them.

"When we go out, we see Chinese vessels and they take everything in their path," said local Ivorian fisherman Balima Hyacinthe, 29, who lives in a coastal village on the outskirts of the commercial capital Abidjan.

Ivory Coast, which is trying to recover from a 2011 civil war, is being deprived of some 55,116 tons of fish by illegal fishing every year, fisheries minister Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumanil told Reuters.

The country is in talks with a French aerospace firm, Thales SA, about using satellite technology to monitor its territorial waters, and is also seeking more high-speed patrol boats to intercept suspect vessels.

"A big problem is access to resources to patrol zones and to do the things you need to do," said the FAO's Doulman.

"There is also often very outdated fisheries legislation, so if you get caught in some countries you pay $100, and off you go. And thirdly, you have this endemic problem in the region, what we used to call 'unprofessional behavior', but which we now call corruption," he said.

CASH BRIBES

When suspect vessels are intercepted by local patrol boats, their captains and crews often offer West African soldiers and fisheries officers bribes to look the other way, local officials and fishermen say.

"In general they pay money in cash and carry on," a military source in Guinea, who asked not to be named, said. He said the bribes offered are typically in the thousands of dollars.

Sierra Leone has faced a similar problem with graft.

"Certainly in the past there have been issues that have taken place that have indicated some corruption," said Soccoh Kabia, Sierra Leone's minister of fisheries. But he added the country was trying to toughen its stance on illegal fishing.

West Africa's fisheries sector accounts directly and indirectly for up to a quarter of the region's employment, according to the FAO. So any deterioration in the livelihoods of coastal communities from Mauritania down to South Africa could have a devastating impact on social conditions in countries already struggling to overcome poverty and unemployment.

West Africa is already a transshipment point for South American narcotics bound for Europe, with traffickers often employing local boats and fishermen to offload and stash their drug cargoes along the unpatrolled jigsaw of mangrove-lined creeks and islands that makes up much of the rugged coast.

"The problem is that when fishing becomes more difficult, people will look for easier ways to make money, maybe piracy, maybe drug trafficking," said Ibrahima Niamadio, West Africa Fisheries program manager at the World Wildlife Fund.

Iceland Will Adopt Euro or Other Currency, Prime Minister Says

By Omar R. Valdimarsson

Iceland - Iceland will either adopt the euro after joining the European Union or drop the krona and unilaterally adopt another currency as “the situation can’t remain unchanged,” said Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir.

“The choice is between surrendering the sovereignty of Iceland in monetary policy by unilaterally adopting the currency of another country or become a member of the EU,” Sigurdardottir said in a speech delivered at a Social Democrat Alliance party convention today in Reykjavik, the capital. EU membership will allow Iceland to “cooperate with EU countries as a sovereign nation, which has a say in the decision and policy making in all fields of cooperation.”

Iceland started EU-entry talks in July 2010 and will probably vote on accession in early 2013. Of a total of 35 negotiating chapters for EU accession, Iceland has opened 11 and completed eight, the EU said in December. The primary challenges facing the talks relate to agriculture, the environment and fisheries, according to EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule.

A Capacent Gallup poll last month showed that about a quarter of the island’s voters support joining the bloc, or 26.3 percent, while 56.2 percent oppose EU membership.

Iceland could fix the krona’s exchange to the euro and be sheltered by the European Central Bank “as early as by the middle of next election term” in 2015, said Sigurdardottir.

Odd Stories: Food Importer Jailed for Not Paying €1.6m in Garlic Taxes

By Conor Pope and Joanne Hunt

Dublin - A Dublin food importer was yesterday jailed for six years for failing to pay €1.6 million in tax due on Chinese garlic, which attracts an “inexplicable” rate of import duty 24 times higher than other fruit and veg.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told Paul Begley (46), of Begley Brothers in Blanchardstown, evaded paying duty on more than 1,000 tonnes of garlic from China by having it mislabelled as apples.

The court heard the duty on garlic imports was up to 232 per cent, compared with just over 9 per cent for other fruits and vegetables.

Imposing the maximum jail sentence of five years on one charge of tax evasion and a further year on a second count, Judge Martin Nolan said it gave him “no joy at all to jail a decent man”. He described Begley, of Woodlock, Redgap, Rathcoole, as a “success story” and an “asset to the country”, but pointed out he had engaged in a “grave” and “huge” tax evasion scheme.

Begley had pleaded guilty to four sample counts of evading customs duty between September 2003 and October 2007. All told, he imported more than 1,000 tonnes of garlic.

The tax evasion was uncovered in October 2007 when a Dublin Port customs officers opened a container said to hold 18 tonnes of apples and two tonnes of garlic. Inside were 21 tonnes of garlic, but no apples.
The duty on garlic is €1,200 per tonne and an additional 9.6 per cent of the total. The outstanding tax on just this consignment was €25,000. Pleading for leniency, defence counsel David Keane highlighted Begley’s charity work, labelling the rate of duty on garlic “inexplicable”.

Judge Nolan said the import tax “may or may not” be excessive, but stressed it was for the Oireachtas to decide, and not individuals.

The garlic tax is not, however, set by the Government, but by the EU. According to a Revenue spokesman, it “emanates from World Trade Agreement rates and it’s to do with industry protection within the EU”.

One reason for the tax is the impact Chinese garlic imports have had on growers in Spain and France.

Producers there have said they cannot compete with the high volume and low production costs in China.

Spain is the largest grower of garlic in Europe, producing more than 100,000 tonnes annually. Farmers there have warned Chinese imports were killing their business.

The problem of garlic smuggling is now widespread across the EU, and the European Anti-Fraud office,

Olaf, has repeatedly impounded garlic consignments illegally imported from China and mislabelled as other vegetables, most frequently onions. In recent months significant amounts of Chinese garlic have been impounded in Sweden and Poland, among other countries.

More information can be found here.

Google's New Privacy Policy May Violate EU Rules

By  Gabriele Steinhauser

Brussels - Google's new privacy policy appears to violate the European Union's data protection rules, France's regulator said Tuesday, just two days before the new guidelines are set to come into force.

Google announced its new privacy policy with much fanfare last month. The rules, which are set to come into force on Thursday, regulate how the Web giant uses the enormous amounts of personal data its collects through its search engine, email and other services.

However, the EU's data protection authorities are concerned about the privacy effects of the policy and earlier this month asked French regulator CNIL to investigate them.

"Our preliminary analysis shows that Google's new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection," CNIL said in a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page. The letter was sent Monday and posted on CNIL's website Tuesday.

The agency said Google's explanation of how it will use the data was too vague and difficult to understand "even for trained privacy professionals."

The new policy makes it easier for Google to combine the data of one person using different services such as the search engine, YouTube or Gmail if he is logged into his Google account. That allows Google to create a broader profile of that user and target advertising based on that person's interests and search history more accurately. Advertising is the main way Google makes its money.

However, CNIL said data protection authorities in the EU "are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data across services," adding they had "strong doubts about the lawfulness and fairness of such processing."

Vivian Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner who oversees the bloc's data protection rules, said she welcomed CNIL's letter and called on Google to delay its new policy.

Google argues that combining the data into one profile makes search results more relevant and allows a user to cross-navigate between different services more easily. It says the main purpose of the new policy is to combine the more than 70 different rules for Google's wide-ranging services into one that is simpler and more readable.

"We are confident that our new simple, clear and transparent privacy policy respects all European data protection laws and principles," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, wrote in response to CNIL's original letter, adding that users had more than a month to get familiar with the new rules.

Fleischer also rejected CNIL's reiterated request to delay the rollout of the privacy policy until all concerns have been cleared up.

"We have notified over 350 million authenticated Google users and provided highly visible notifications on our home page and in search results for our non-authenticated users," he wrote. "To pause now would cause a great deal of confusion for users."

The probe of the privacy policy is one of several battle lines between Google and the European Commission, the executive arms of the 27-country EU.

Google's search engine has a market share of more than 90 percent in the EU, with rival services like Microsoft's Bing gaining little traction.

The Commission is already examining whether Google uses this dominance to stop other search engines from entering the market. It is also investigating complaints from Microsoft and Apple into whether Motorola, which Google is in the process of taking over, is breaking EU competition rules in its aggressive enforcement of standard-essential patents.

EU Blames Iceland for Collapse of "Mackerel War" Talks

European Union - The latest round of talks to try to resolve a dispute over mackerel fishing rights in the northeast Atlantic has ended in failure, with the EU's fisheries chief blaming Iceland and the Faroe Islands for their collapse.


Officials have so far held five rounds of talks to try to end the ongoing "mackerel war," which began in 2010 when Iceland increased its annual catch quota for the fish from around 2,000 tons to 130,000 tons.

Faroese mackerel catches have increased six-fold in the last two years to reach 150,000 tons in 2011.

The massive increase in quotas has brought both countries into conflict with fishermen from Scotland, Ireland and Norway, and threaten to derail Iceland's bid to join the 27-nation EU.

Last month, Iceland's economics minister said the dispute over fishing rights would probably be the biggest hurdle in the country's EU membership bid, which is losing support among Icelanders.

"It is particularly disappointing that neither Iceland nor the Faroe Islands really engaged in the negotiating process," EU fisheries chief Maria Damanaki said in a statement after the talks in Reykjavik.

"The Union and Norway call on Iceland and the Faroe Islands to reduce their current unsustainable fishing levels," she said. "We remain ready in the future to continue to seek a reasonable and fair quota sharing arrangement."

Iceland and the Faroe Islands have said the increase in their quotas is justified because warmer temperatures have caused migratory mackerel to swim further north than ever before into their waters.

For its part, the EU has threatened to stop Icelandic and Faroese fishermen from landing their catches at EU ports.

Monsanto Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in France

By Catherine Lagrange and Marion Douet

France - A French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.
In the first such case heard in court in France, grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004.

He blames the agribusiness giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.
The ruling was given by a court in Lyon, southeast France, which ordered an expert opinion of Francois's losses to establish the amount of damages.

"It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning," François Lafforgue, Francois's lawyer, told Reuters.

Monsanto said it was disappointed by the ruling and would examine whether to appeal the judgment.

"Monsanto always considered that there were not sufficient elements to establish a causal relationship between Paul Francois's symptoms and a potential poisoning," the company's lawyer, Jean-Philippe Delsart, said.

Previous health claims from farmers have foundered because of the difficulty of establishing clear links between illnesses and exposure to pesticides.

Francois and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their use of crop protection products.

The agricultural branch of the French social security system says that since 1996, it has gathered farmers' reports of sickness potentially related to pesticides, with about 200 alerts a year.

But only about 47 cases have been recognized as due to pesticides in the past 10 years. Francois, who suffers from neurological problems, obtained work invalidity status only after a court appeal.

LESS INTENSIVE NOW

The Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of crop-protection chemicals in the European Union. The EU and its member countries have since banned a large number of substances considered dangerous.

Lasso, a pre-emergent soil-applied herbicide that has been used since the 1960s to control grasses and broadleaf weeds in farm fields, was banned in France in 2007 following an EU directive after the product
had already been withdrawn in some other countries.

Though it once was a top-selling herbicide, it has gradually lost popularity, and critics say several studies have shown links to a range of health problems.

Monsanto's Roundup is now the dominant herbicide used to kill weeds. The company markets it in conjunction with its biotech herbicide-tolerant "Roundup Ready" crops. The Roundup Ready corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops do not die when sprayed directly with the herbicide, a trait that has made them wildly popular with U.S. farmers.

But farmers are now being encouraged to use more and different kinds of chemicals again as Roundup loses its effectiveness to a rise of "super weeds" that are resistant to Roundup.

And while the risks of pesticide are a generally known and accepted hazard of farming in most places, and farmers are cautioned to take care when handling the chemicals, increased use of pesticides will only cause more harm to human health and the environment, critic say.

"The registration process does not protect against harm. Manufacturers have to be held liable for adverse impacts that occur," said Jay Feldman, director of Beyond Pesticides, a non-profit group focused on reducing pesticide use.

France, the EU's largest agricultural producer, is now targeting a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with initial results showing a 4 percent cut in farm and non-farm use in 2008-2010.
The Francois claim may be easier to argue than others because he can pinpoint a specific incident - inhaling the Lasso when cleaning the tank of his crop sprayer - whereas fellow farmers are trying to show accumulated effects from various products.

"It's like lying on a bed of thorns and trying to say which one cut you," said a farmer, who has recovered from prostate cancer and asked not to be named.

The French association of crop protection companies, UIPP, says pesticides are all subject to testing and that any evidence of a cancer risk in humans leads to withdrawal of products from the market.

"I think if we had a major health problem with pesticides, we would have already known about it," Jean-Charles Bocquet, UIPP's managing director, said.

The social security's farming branch this year is due to add Parkinson's disease to its list of conditions related to pesticide use after already recognizing some cases of blood cancers and bladder and respiratory problems.

France's health and environment safety agency (ANSES), meanwhile, is conducting a study on farmers' health, with results expected next year.

New Virus Affecting European Meat

Europe - A new virus that affects animals in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium is cause for concern according to the European Food Safety Authority.

The virus, called Schmallenberg and named after its town of possible origin in Germany, causes birth defects in cattle, sheep, and goats. It causes abnormalities of the head, neck, and limbs.

The EFSA is looking into how the virus, which comes from insects, will affect livestock in upcoming months and years, as well as how it will affect the human population.

According to Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent “Nothing shows at this stage that the virus can infect human beings, but nevertheless we have asked EFSA to look into that as well”

Russia has, at the moment, banned imports of sheep and goat meat from the European countries in question.

Germany to Seek EU Animal Welfare Label on Meat

Germany will press the European Union to introduce a label on meat saying it came from humanely raised farm animals, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said on Thursday.

The move would be part of a new German government programme to improve farm animal welfare, she said.

"Transparency changes buying behaviour and then the production processes and manufacturing processes," she said at the opening of the Green Week food trade fair in Berlin.

An EU-wide label on meat to show consumers that the animal was reared humanely should be introduced, she said.

"This will make it possible for consumers to recognise products which were produced using a very high level of animal welfare," she said.

It would not be practical for Germany to make such a move alone, she said.

Farm animal welfare is part of a charter for agriculture and consumers setting out a series of medium and long term goals for German farm policy announced by Aigner on Thursday.

The charter said the amount of space farm animals receive and their freedom of movement were key factors for animal welfare.

Practices such as castrating piglets without painkillers was not compatible with animal welfare, it said.

The actual definition of humanely-reared still needs considerable research, said a report from a ministry working group preparing the charter.

Consumers must be ready to pay more for meat with such labels, German farmer's association DBV said.
"Consumers will have to change their understanding of prices," said Heinrich Graf von Bassewitz, DBV spokesman for organic farming.

"Consumers who complain about so-called factory farming have pushed forward this form of agriculture though their purchases of cheap foods and their extreme price-consciousness."