Making Ecolabelling relevant to the developing world

The role of market incentives in supporting the move towards sustainable seafood production is increasingly being demonstrated in the real world although the level of documentation is relatively poor. Market demand is strongest in western Europe where the greatest effort has been made by organisations such as the MSC to prove the concept that certification and labelling can be a positive tool. However, there is a need to ensure that suppliers in developing countries can be assured of access in an appropriate fashion. The MSC has made major progress towards ensuring developing country access via its systems development and outreach programs

Opportunity for marine fisheries reform in China

China's 13th Five-Year Plan, launched in March 2016, provides a sound policy platform for the protection of marine ecosystems and the restoration of capture fisheries within China's exclusive economic zone. What distinguishes China among many other countries striving for marine fisheries reform is its size- accounting for almost one-fifth of global catch volume-and the unique cultural context of its economic and resource management. In this paper, we trace the history of Chinese government priorities, policies, and outcomes related to marine fisheries since the 1978 Economic Reform, and examine how the current leadership's agenda for "ecological civilization" could successfully transform marine resource management in the coming years. We show how China, like many other countries, has experienced a decline in the average trophic level of its capture fisheries during the past few decades, and how its policy design, implementation, and enforcement have influenced the status of its wild fish stocks. To reverse the trend in declining fish stocks, the government is introducing a series of new programs for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, with greater traceability and accountability in marine resource management and area controls on coastal development. As impressive as these new plans are on paper, we conclude that serious institutional reforms will be needed to achieve a true paradigm shift in marine fisheries management in China. In particular, we recommend new institutions for science-based fisheries management, secure fishing access, policy consistency across provinces, educational programs for fisheries managers, and increasing public access to scientific data.Additional co-authors: Yingqi Zhou, Ping Zhuang, and Rosamond L. Naylo

Fishing for feed in China: Facts, impacts and implications

China is the world's largest capture fisheries and aquaculture producer. Over recent decades, China's domestic marine catch composition has changed markedly, from large volumes of a few high‐valued food species to multiple, small, low‐valued, species, a significant proportion of which is primarily used as animal, especially fish, feed. Despite the growing volume and economic importance of the feed catches, their species composition, catch volumes and socio‐environmental impacts are all poorly understood. Based on a nationwide survey of >800 fishing vessels, and the identification and measurement of >12,000 fish and invertebrate individuals, the present study provides an overview of the feed component of China's domestic marine catch, by volumes, species and sizes, and found it to be substantial and biologically unsustainable. Half of the trawler catch (3 million metric tons, mmt), or 35% of the total catch (4.6 mmt) in China's exclusive economic zone, are now comprised of low‐valued “feed‐grade fish”. The present study identified 218 fish species, 50 crustaceans and five cephalopods, and of these, 102 fish species were food species with 89% individuals in their juvenile size ranges. Feed‐grade fish were mainly used as aquaculture feed directly, or indirectly, through the feed industry after reduction to fishmeal and fish oil. The unparalleled scale and poor fisheries resource condition of China's domestic marine fisheries, in parallel with severe overfishing of juveniles, creates a demand for fundamental changes to fishery management practices, including a significant reduction of fishing effort to ensure productivity and ecosystem resilience

Evolving Perspectives of Stewardship in the Seafood Industry

Humanity has never benefited more from the ocean as a source of food, livelihoods, and well-being, yet on a global scale this has been accompanied by trajectories of degradation and persistent inequity. Awareness of this has spurred policymakers to develop an expanding network of ocean governance instruments, catalyzed civil society pressure on the public and private sector, and motivated engagement by the general public as consumers and constituents. Among local communities, diverse examples of stewardship have rested on the foundation of care, knowledge and agency. But does an analog for stewardship exist in the context of globally active multinational corporations? Here, we consider the seafood industry and its efforts to navigate this new reality through private governance. We examine paradigmatic events in the history of the sustainable seafood movement, from seafood boycotts in the 1970s through to the emergence of certification measures, benchmarks, and diverse voluntary environmental programs. We note four dimensions of stewardship in which efforts by actors within the seafood industry have aligned with theoretical concepts of stewardship, which we describe as (1) moving beyond compliance, (2) taking a systems perspective, (3) living with uncertainty, and (4) understanding humans as embedded elements of the biosphere. In conclusion, we identify emerging stewardship challenges for the seafood industry and suggest the urgent need to embrace a broader notion of ocean stewardship that extends beyond seafood

Common, low-frequency, rare, and ultra-rare coding variants contribute to COVID-19 severity

The combined impact of common and rare exonic variants in COVID-19 host genetics is currently insufficiently understood. Here, common and rare variants from whole-exome sequencing data of about 4000 SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals were used to define an interpretable machine-learning model for predicting COVID-19 severity. First, variants were converted into separate sets of Boolean features, depending on the absence or the presence of variants in each gene. An ensemble of LASSO logistic regression models was used to identify the most informative Boolean features with respect to the genetic bases of severity. The Boolean features selected by these logistic models were combined into an Integrated PolyGenic Score that offers a synthetic and interpretable index for describing the contribution of host genetics in COVID-19 severity, as demonstrated through testing in several independent cohorts. Selected features belong to ultra-rare, rare, low-frequency, and common variants, including those in linkage disequilibrium with known GWAS loci. Noteworthily, around one quarter of the selected genes are sex-specific. Pathway analysis of the selected genes associated with COVID-19 severity reflected the multi-organ nature of the disease. The proposed model might provide useful information for developing diagnostics and therapeutics, while also being able to guide bedside disease management. © 2021, The Author(s)

Genetic mechanisms of critical illness in COVID-19.

Host-mediated lung inflammation is present1, and drives mortality2, in the critical illness caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Host genetic variants associated with critical illness may identify mechanistic targets for therapeutic development3. Here we report the results of the GenOMICC (Genetics Of Mortality In Critical Care) genome-wide association study in 2,244 critically ill patients with COVID-19 from 208 UK intensive care units. We have identified and replicated the following new genome-wide significant associations: on chromosome 12q24.13 (rs10735079, P = 1.65 × 10-8) in a gene cluster that encodes antiviral restriction enzyme activators (OAS1, OAS2 and OAS3); on chromosome 19p13.2 (rs74956615, P = 2.3 × 10-8) near the gene that encodes tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2); on chromosome 19p13.3 (rs2109069, P = 3.98 ×  10-12) within the gene that encodes dipeptidyl peptidase 9 (DPP9); and on chromosome 21q22.1 (rs2236757, P = 4.99 × 10-8) in the interferon receptor gene IFNAR2. We identified potential targets for repurposing of licensed medications: using Mendelian randomization, we found evidence that low expression of IFNAR2, or high expression of TYK2, are associated with life-threatening disease; and transcriptome-wide association in lung tissue revealed that high expression of the monocyte-macrophage chemotactic receptor CCR2 is associated with severe COVID-19. Our results identify robust genetic signals relating to key host antiviral defence mechanisms and mediators of inflammatory organ damage in COVID-19. Both mechanisms may be amenable to targeted treatment with existing drugs. However, large-scale randomized clinical trials will be essential before any change to clinical practice

Aerial patrols don\u27t see all the sharks, but they\u27re keeping people safe

The recent series of shark bites on the north coast of New South Wales is a politician’s worst nightmare, as the government tries to balance public safety with protecting wildlife. In response NSW has stayed away from culling sharks and launched a new program, run through the Department of Primary Industries, Fisheries, to tag, track and monitor sharks. However, more research may not necessarily prove to be the answer because good research takes time and large resource allocations to deal with infrequent events – and politicians don’t have the luxury of time. Instead, we should look at programs that are already working, such as aerial patrols

Seafood Trade and Market Access: Threats and Opportunities

Humans have been trading seafood and seafood products since time immemorial. This trade has commonly crossed national boundaries, but the scale of trade has increased markedly in the past twenty years. By and large the distilled view of nations is that trade is good and there has been considerable international pressure to encourage and facilitate trade. As trade has increased, so too have the debates over the costs and benefits due to the changes to incomes, wealth distribution, cultures and social cohesion that this trade has driven. Whilst trade has undeniable impacts on natural resources such as fisheries, it is not the sole and ultimate reason for the perilous state of many fisheries in the world. The sustainability of fisheries is ultimately dependent on good management, whether trade occurs or not. The impacts of the increasing trade in seafood need to be seen within a wider context of societal change and the capacities of communities to embrace and manage such change. The question over whether increased trade poses an opportunity or threat depends on the perspective of those who stand to gain or lose — either financially or in some other way. The tools used by societies to manage the impacts of trade-induced change are many and varied. This paper explores some of the well-known tools such as tariffs, subsidies, phytosanitary measures, international agreements and the like. It places a particular focus on the impacts of such measures on developing countries. The paper also explores some of the increasing range of private sector measures which either enhance or constrain trade. These measures have arisen as the private sector has sought to either address issues of governmental failure or exploit real or perceived demands from consumers. Finally, in seeking to address the issue of whether trade is a threat or opportunity, some speculation about the future trade in seafood and the development of measures to control and harness it are discussed

Fisheries

Fisheries management is inherently difficult, and often \u27wicked\u27. \u27Wicked\u27 problems are difficult to define because they are intermeshed with other complicated and larger problems and include multiple factors that are hard to quantify (Jentoft and Chuenpagdee 2009). Such problems have no clear single solution and require the engagement of stakeholders in an ongoing, cyclical and consultative manner

Longtail tuna, Thunnus tonggol (Bleeker, 1851): a global review of population dynamics, ecology, fisheries, and considerations for future conservation and management

2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Longtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol) is a neritic species that supports commercial, artisanal and recreational fisheries throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Historically receiving little attention by commercial fisheries, the global annual catch of longtail tuna has steadily risen from around 30,000 t in the early 1980s to exceeding 200,000 t since 2004, reaching a peak of 291,264 t in 2007, and was 281,613 t in 2017. Catches of longtail tuna in the Indian Ocean now exceed catches of principal commercial target species, such as albacore and bigeye tunas. A sequence of stock assessments undertaken throughout the species\u27 range since the late 1980s persistently indicated that at least three of the four stocks defined in this paper are likely to have been, and most likely are currently, subject to overfishing and overfished as a result of excess fishing effort on this relatively slow-growing and long-lived tuna species. As the spawning biomass of principal tuna target species continue to decline in both the Indian and western and central Pacific Oceans, the increasing catches of longtail tuna, other neritic tunas, and seerfishes is worrisome. Few conservation and management measures (CMMs) are currently in place specifically for longtail tuna, although in recent years some coastal States, Regional Fishery Bodies, and tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organisations have begun to develop initiatives to improve the catch and biological data quality for longtail tuna and sympatric species of neritic tunas and tuna-like species. This paper provides a global review of biological, ecological and fishery information to provide researchers, fishery managers and policy makers with the most current information from which to begin to guide future stock assessment and the development of CMMs for longtail tuna