Saving Seafood

Taiwanese fishing groups complain NGOs are ignoring industry efforts, endangering future progress

April 28, 2022 — Taiwanese fishing representatives have issued a joint statement to protest the treatment they have received from non-governmental organizations including the Seafood Working Group and Greenpeace.

The Taiwan Deepsea Tuna Longline Boatowners and Exporters Association, Taiwan Squid Fishery Association, Taiwan Tuna Purse Seiners Association, Taiwan Tuna Longline Association, and Distant Fisheries Youth Association said the industry’s continuing efforts on labor are “simply ignored” by the campaign groups.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Ireland faces possible sanctions from US due to fisheries labor issues

March 24, 2022 — Ireland’s fishing industry is facing sanctions by U.S. authorities after a U.S.-based human rights campaign group filed a report with American authorities alleging exploitation of migrant workers aboard Irish fishing vessels.

In a petition to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Washington D.C.-headquartered legal advocacy group Liberty Shared asked the CBP to exclude seafood “caught and or produced wholly or in part using forced labor by participants in the fishing industry in the Republic of Ireland.” The petition named four Irish fishing companies it said merit scrutiny from the CBP.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

The Wild West of global fisheries

February 28, 2022 — While the term “Wild West” may conjure up images of outlaws acting with impunity in faraway outposts, it’s an apt metaphor for what’s taking place on the high seas just outside our 200-mile exclusive economic zone and around the world.

Too much of the world’s seafood – including seafood imported into the U.S. – is caught using slave labor used onboard vessels operated by Chinese, Taiwanese, and other nations’ companies. Global Fishing Watch estimates the number of enslaved seafood workers as reaching well into the tens of thousands. From a humanitarian perspective alone, this is outrageous. From an ocean-conservation perspective, the effects are devastating. Slave labor is the leading cause of overfishing for the simple reason that when you use slave labor, you can afford to deploy thousands more fishing boats and replenish them at sea, keeping them working 365 days a year.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Labor campaign groups call for embargo on Thai net-makers, citing unpaid prisoners

February 25, 2022 — A group of campaigners is calling on the U.S. government to ensure U.S. companies do not import fishing nets made by Thai companies allegedly using forced prison labor.

An expose written by Thai journalist Nanchanok Wongsamuth, published in December 2021, profiled prisoners who said they and hundreds of other inmates were forced to make nets for less than Thailand’s minimum wage, and were often not paid at all. The prisoners also alleged beatings and torture if they refused to work.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

US labor abuse finding spurs Taiwan’s seafood industry, government to further action

February 14, 2022 — Taiwan will soon revoke the “authorization for investment in operation of foreign-flagged fishing vessels” granted to the owner-operator of the Da Wang, a Taiwanese-owned (and Vanuatu-flagged) vessel which was the subject of a recent finding by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that labor abuses took place on board.

On 18 August, 2022, the U.S. CBP, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, issued a withhold release order refusing all seafood caught by the Da Wang at U.S. ports of entry. On 28 January, 2022, the CBP issued a forced labor finding against the Da Wang, citing an investigation that discovered evidence of all 11 of the International Labour Organization’s forced labor indicators on the vessel. The elevated ruling will result in all seafood affiliated with the Da Wang to be confiscated at all U.S. ports.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

US CBP takes action against Fijian tuna longliner, accusing it of using forced labor

August 4, 2021 — A Fijian commercial fishing vessel has received a withhold release order from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which claims forced labor may have been employed onboard the longliner.

The order requires all U.S. agencies to detain tuna and other seafood harvested by the Hangton No. 112, which is owned and operated by Suva, Fiji-based Hangton Pacific Co.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US ramping up pressure on China’s use of forced labor in distant-water fishing

November 19, 2020 — Fishery products from China and Taiwan have been added to a list of commodities associated with forced labor in the latest edition of a US government report on child and forced labour globally.

The 2020 edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor – a report required by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 – claims that the majority of workers on Chinese distant-water fishing vessels are migrants from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NGOs, businesses urge US Labor Department include distant-water fishing in forced labor list

December 17, 2019 — Greenpeace USA, AFL-CIO, Human Rights Watch, Environmental Justice Foundation, Whole Foods Market, and 19 other groups have sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor requesting the organization end its practice of only considering a country’s territorial waters when creating its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

The letter, sent to Marcia Eugenio – the director of the Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking for the Bureau of International Affairs with the Department of Labor – comes in the wake of a damning report by Greenpeace identifying forced labor issues in Southeast Asia. The new report includes accusations of forced labor against 13 distant-water fishing vessels registered in China, Taiwan, Vanuatu, and Fiji.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How Finance Can Help Protect the World’s Ocean Resources

December 4, 2019 — Can finance contribute to seafood sustainability? This is an increasingly relevant question given the projected growth of seafood demand and the magnitude of social and environmental issues associated with its production.

Since the 1960s, aquaculture has been the world’s fastest-growing food sector. Rates of fish consumption have been increasing twice as rapidly as population growth, and fish has become one of the most traded food commodities.

Today, more than 90 percent of the world’s fisheries are either overexploited or fully exploited, and the sector is plagued with unsustainable practices, ranging from illegal fishing and habitat destruction to overuse of antibiotics and forced labour.

Making sure that seafood is both socially and environmentally sustainable has therefore become a key concern for governments, academics and civil society organisations.

In a recent article published in the journal Science Advances, my colleagues and I explored what role finance could play in promoting a sustainable seafood industry and where leverage points may lie to redirect capital towards better practices.

Read the full story at The Maritime Executive

Forced labor declarations included in latest MSC review consultation

March 20, 2017 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has launched its 2017 policy development round, opening up six areas of its program to consultation from stakeholders.

Topics included in the review range from harmonizing fisheries assessment outcomes and ensuring traceability of certified product within fisheries, to a new standard to manage the mixing of MSC certified and non-certified fish feed ingredients.

The non-profit seafood sustainability organization is also asking for stakeholder input on the development of a new standard for seaweed that is being developed jointly with the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), a new program to recognize fisheries that are “in transition to MSC,” and an update for how to confirm the absence of forced labor in certified fisheries and supply chain organizations.

With MSC extending the requirements for labor practices across its program, it is proposing a self-declaration by certificate holders and those in assessment confirming the absence of forced and child labor in their operations.

Read the full story at Seafood Source