Wild seafood imports often caught illegally
Up to onethird of the wildcaught seafood imported to the United States is harvested illegally, and a new report from the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council investigates why the problem is so pervasive and what could be done to prevent it.
Illegal seafood imports — known in the industry as illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing — are associated with marine habitat destruction, overfishing and human trafficking, according to the report. Though wildcaught and farmed seafood harvested and produced within the United States is highly regulated, regulation of the $20 billion annual imported seafood market could use much improvement, it found.
“We know illegal fishing is a huge problem, and that a lot of it happens overseas by vessels in other countries’ waters and on the high seas,” said Sandy Aylesworth, senior oceans advocate at NRDC and the author of the report. “It has these enormous consequences for fisheries management and really impairs our ability to make sure we have sustainable fisheries in the future. And it’s connected to these horrific human rights abuses.”
Though seafood imports decreased during the pandemic as many restaurants closed, normally more than 80% of
the seafood consumed in the United States is imported, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Illegally caught fish usually comes from marine protected areas or overfished populations and is then fraudulently labeled to make its way past inspectors. In many cases, the illegally caught fish is caught or processed by workers who are victims of human trafficking.
The report studied seafood imports between 2016 and 2019 into the port complex that includes the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and Los Angeles International Airport. Combined,
they receive about 1.5 billion pounds of seafood a year, more than any other U.S. port.
Despite that volume, the port complex has only one ontheground law enforcement officer from NOAA, which is charged with regulation, Aylesworth found. NOAA has only five analysts looking for potentially risky shipments across the country, she added.
Overall, more could be done to assess the risk of shipments coming in, Aylesworth said, such as having a more sophisticated electronic monitoring system to check for potential fraud. For example, fraudulent labels may hide the fact
that seafood came from a vessel known for illegal activity. Or labels may
claim fish came from an area where that species isn’t found, to hide that it actually came from a protected area.
Those who want to avoid purchasing illegal seafood should look for domestically caught seafood or follow guidelines from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, Aylesworth said. The NRDC would like to see more federal investment in enforcement and seafood traceability, such as the Seafood Import Monitoring Program that NOAA introduced in 2017 and that needs expansion, she said.
“We really have the power to disincentivize and curtail illegal fishing,” Aylesworth said. “We’re not going to reward them by putting it on consumers’ plates.”