Culinary Traditions Exhausting Spain’s Fisheries

"We have little boquerón (a type of anchovy), little jurel (scad), little salmon," recites a server at a restaurant on the coast in Málaga, the southern Spanish city known for its "small fried fish."

GE Salmon an Ambiguous Milestone for Aquaculture

The march toward domesticating the last wild food source may be about to take a major step forward in Washington - for better or worse.

Q&A: ‘Children Mustn’t See Fish Only in Pictures’

A casual visit to any of Europe's major supermarkets could leave a shopper with the impression that there is a boundless supply of fish in the continent's waters. The true picture is far less rosy. With about 88 percent of the European Union's fish stocks overexploited, EU vessels are travelling increasingly longer distances before bringing home their catches.

Record Temperatures Killing Caribbean Corals

The waters of the Caribbean Sea are the warmest on record and the region's imperilled corals are bleaching and beginning to die, experts warn.

Locally-Run Protected Areas Could Reverse Fisheries’ Death Spiral

Local fishers objected to the creation of a new no-fishing marine protected area off the coast of Belize in 1996. Today they are benefiting from the bounty of fish spilling out of the Laughing Bird Caye National Park. Tourism has also boomed, illustrating the multiple benefits and value of marine protected areas, according to a new series of reports released Wednesday by Conservation International (CI).

BIODIVERSITY: Japan Cooks Up New Ideas as Fish Consumption Depletes Stocks

A processed fish cake, made of a mixture of deep sea fish species pounded into paste and sold either deep fried or frozen, is the brain child of Takuhira Kaneko, head of Act for Company, which trades in fish and located in western Fukuoka city in Japan.

EUROPE: Getting Into a Stew over Mackerel

The British have a fascination for the rich, fatty meat of the mackerel, that summertime extravagance often served as pates and salads at fashionable pubs and restaurants. A far cry from the humble cod that is a staple of the more downmarket chip shops on the nation's high streets.

Mexican Fishers Throw a Lifeline to Lobsters

Faced with the voracious international demand for lobsters from the Mexican Pacific and Atlantic, fishers and environmental organisations have come together to institute sustainable lobstering practices -- although the financial benefits are slow in coming.

CHINA: Bigger Bite Needed into Appetite for Shark Fin Soup

Campaigns featuring some of China’s biggest celebrities, including basketball star Yao Ming and actor Jackie Chan, have persuaded some Chinese to think twice about eating shark fin soup. But changing attitudes about the centuries-old delicacy, a large contributor to decimated shark populations, continues to be a challenge.

EAST AFRICA: Protecting Lake Victoria’s Top Predator

Coordinated conservation measures to arrest the steep decline of stocks of Nile perch in Lake Victoria are showing encouraging results - for fish, if not for fishing communities around the lake.

Shark Slaughter Advances Into Red Sea

Six Yemeni fishing boats captured in Egyptian territorial waters in June might have gone unnoticed if not for their unusual cargo -- several kilometers of long lines and over 20 tons of dead sharks.

ARGENTINA: A Livelihood from Whales – Without Hunting

If you want to observe the charismatic southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), the most popular place to do so is off Argentina's Valdés Peninsula, an enclave on the Atlantic coast that relies on tourist dollars -- and therefore opposes whale hunting.

Caribbean Under Fire for Pro-Whaling Stance

The votes of six Caribbean countries could help decide whether or not the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will ease the 1986 global ban on commercial whaling and allow hunting in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica.

SOMALIA: Questions Abound about EU’s “Combating” of Piracy

Modern German justice had never handled a case of piracy until Jun 11, when 10 Somali seafarers, including children, were presented at a tribunal in the city port of Hamburg, some 300 km west from Berlin, on charges of robbing cargo in the Indian Ocean.

ENVIRONMENT: Australia Stands Firm on Anti-Whaling Move vs. Japan

Deep rift continues between pro and anti-whaling members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as Australia Tuesday lodged legal action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Japanese ‘scientific’ whaling, calling for a permanent end to all whaling in the Southern Ocean, an established whale sanctuary and a critical feeding ground for the mighty mammals.

Fighting Off Criticism, IWC Looks to Rein in Whaling

It may seem odd that an outright ban on whaling would not be the most effective way to prevent the controversial practice, but that is exactly what the International Whaling Commission is betting on.

AFRICA: “EU Subsidises Companies Guilty of Illegal Fishing”

The European Union has for years been paying subsidies to the tune of one billion euro annually to industrial fishing companies based in its member states, including companies that have been caught fishing illegally in African waters.

BIODIVERSITY: Prized Bluefin Tuna Adrift in a Sea of Conflicting Interests

Mounting international criticism against Japan’s Atlantic bluefin tuna imports linked closely to the extinction of the species has turned the spotlight, once again, on the lack of a viable means of protecting most of the world’s fast- depleting natural resources.

ENVIRONMENT: Whaling Profitable but Bad for Iceland’s Image

Early April Greenpeace protestors in Rotterdam intercepted seven containers with 140 kg of fin whale meat from Iceland, destined for Japan. They said that the import of whale meat to the Netherlands is illegal, but Dutch authorities turn a blind eye on consignments destined elsewhere.

BIODIVERSITY: Trade Trumps Concern for Threatened Marine Species

As details emerge about the backroom politics and contentious votes that led to the failure to protect any of the several marine species up for international protection at a key conference the past two weeks, conservation advocates are looking ahead to influence regional, local and even individual choices in the next round of battles to save the threatened species.

AFRICA: Illegal Fishing in Guinea’s Waters “Worst in the World”

Rampant illegal fishing is hitting some of the poorest West African countries the hardest as this practice is globally most rife in the east central Atlantic Ocean area, which covers the territorial waters of some 15 African countries from Morocco and Mauritania in the north to Angola in the south.