
Japan's fisheries minister said Tuesday his country will never stop hunting whales, despite fierce criticism from other nations and violent clashes at sea with militant conservationists.

Interpol Environmental Crime Program, with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, this week announced the beginning of a massive global movement -- Project SCALE -- to cull illegal fishing and associated crimes.

Europe's fisheries ministers may dilute plans for a total ban on the practice of discarding fish at sea, as they meet in Brussels. An outright discards ban was widely welcomed when backed by the European Parliament last month, but it is being resisted by France, Spain and others.

The Falkland Islands government at a public meeting defended their position of not including in the annual budget what they described as ‘windfalls’ from fishing and oil and instead adding the ‘exceptional” excess revenue to the Consolidated Fund.

The Foreign Office said that the UK is striving to ensure that all fishing undertaken in the Southern Ocean is carefully managed and sustainable and that the current FCO focus is supporting international work to establish a network of Southern Ocean Marine Protected Areas.

Looks like Olympic Gold medalist Usain Bolt may finally have some competition. Japanese researchers published a study in German magazine ‘Marine Biology’ about the ocean squid that can fly more than 30 meters through the air at a speed of 11.2 meters per second.

As part of its overall efforts to ensure that the US fishing industry isn’t undermined by unsustainable or illegal activities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has submitted a Congressionally mandated report identifying ten nations whose fishing vessels engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in 2011 or 2012, or had ineffective measures to prevent the unintended catch of protected species in 2012.

The United Kingdom Minister for the Overseas Territories Mark Simmonds welcomed the announcement of a set of additional measures to safeguard the sustainable-use Marine Protected Area (MPA) around the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.

Chile has established a set of new fisheries laws protecting underwater sea mountains, limiting by-catch and setting science based quotas, protecting 150.000 square kilometers of marine habitat.

The recent statements by the CEO of Marine Harvest in Chile generated a rapid reaction of the Minister of Economy, who justified the measures taken to prevent the catastrophic recurrence of a crisis such as the spread of infectious salmon anaemia (ISA).