In March 2022, the president of USA, Joe Bidenissued a executive order banning the import of Russian seafood to prevent billions of dollars from financing the war of Putin in Ukraine, but members of Congress said it was unenforceable. U.S. importers often don’t know where their fish is caught, and trade data indicates that nearly a third of imported caught seafood labeled as coming from China They are extracted from Russian waters.
This embarrassing setback highlighted the opaque nature of the global seafood supply chains and since then it has motivated calls from American legislators conservationists of the oceansconsumer advocates and advocacy organizations human rights requiring US importers to make a Track your seafood from hook to plate to ensure that they are not related to labor and environmental crimes or violations of sanctions against “pariah” states such as North Korea and Iran.
➡️ Subscribe to our Newsletter and receive the most relevant notes on the environment
Since the ban on seafood import from Russia in June 2022at least 31 Chinese squid fishermen have caught fish in Russian watersseveral of them owned by companies that ship seafood to the United States and the European Union, according to satellite data and export records.
China captures, processes and exports the vast majority of the planet’s seafood. It has a distant water fleet that is more than twice the size of its nearest competitor. By weight, squid represents more than 70 percent of the seafood caught by the fleet.
Classified as the world’s worst supplier of illegal and unregulated fishing and highly likely to use forced laborthis fleet has been linked to a host of crimes, including cases of incursions into Argentine waters, routinely turning off its transponders in violation of Chinese law, illegal fishing in North Korean waters in violation of sanctions of the UNand involvement in acts of violence, wage theft, gross negligence, and human trafficking of both foreign and Chinese crew.
The fact that the ships are so far from the coast, in constant transit, usually operating in high seaswhere National governments have limited jurisdiction, makes seafood supply chains especially difficult to trace. The many catch transfers between fishing vessels, transport vessels, processing plants and exporters leave huge gaps in traceability, he said. Sally Yozelldirector of the environmental safety program at the Stimson Centera research organization in Washington, D.C. “Most seafood is caught by Chinese boats or processed in China” he said, “which makes the chain of custody even more opaque.”
Some American seafood companies that matter from China They say they know that their seafood is not linked to crime because Chinese processors provide them with information indicating its origin and that They detail which ship captured them and where. But those documents are far from infallible, because they are self-reported, often unverifiable, and completed at the processing plant, not on the ships where the crimes occur, he said. Sara Lewis of FishWise, a nonprofit organization that conducts seafood sustainability consulting. The catch certificates They also say nothing about working conditions.
To document the nature of these traceability gaps as catches move from hook to plate, a team of journalists followed and, in some cases, boarded for inspection, Chinese fishing vessels in several locations, including in the waters near North Korea, Gambia, the Falkland Islands and the Galapagos Islands.
The team followed the ships by satellite back to ports, and then, to determine who was cleaning, processing and freezing the catch for eventual export, tracked Chinese fishing boats as they moved their catch to refrigeration ships and they took it to the ports of Chinawhere the trucks were filmed and followed until the processing plants. Journalists used export records to trace the seafood to grocery stores, restaurants and food service businesses in the European Union and the United States.
This investigation revealed gaps in tracking in each delivery. Approximately 350 miles west of the Galapagos Islandsin a chinese squid boat, a sailor opened freezers several stories below deck to reveal stacks of white catch bags. He explained that the names of the vessels do not appear on the exchanges because that allows them to more easily transfer cargo to other vessels owned by the same company. This gives fishing companies greater versatility, but also makes it impossible for buyers along the chain to know which vessel actually made the catch.
On the bridge of another ship, A Chinese captain opened his fishing log, which is supposed to include where, when and what was caught. Both First pages were written, but the rest was blank. “No one keeps them,” one captain said of the records, noting that company officials on shore would later complete them. In processing plants, Squid on conveyor belts are often separated not based on the vessel that caught it, but based on weight, quality, size and type depending on the market willing to pay a premium for each attribute.
***
Seafood is the last great planetary source of wild protein and experts express concern about this Chinese domination of the market. Political analysts like Whitley Saumweber and Ty Loft in it Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DCsay China’s near-monopoly on distant water fishing “endangers the food security of millions of people,” especially in developing countries most dependent on fish like protein source.
➡️ Join the El Sol de México channel on WhatsApp so you don’t miss the most important information
U.S. lawmakers say reliance on China of the Illegal practices put domestic fishermen at a competitive disadvantage. “We cannot continue allowing countries like China and Russia to compete unfairly with our honest fishermen by abusing our oceans and human beings”, stated a June 2022 letter sent to President Biden signed by Representative Jared Huffman of California and Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana. “Addressing the issue of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is an important step in ensuring that our citizens not only eat safe and healthy food, but that their economic interests are protected.”
Fishing is the deadliest profession in the world and human rights violations and abusive conditions on these ships are well documented. Human rights defenders such as Environmental Justice Foundation and Human Rights Watch have warned that seafood buyers have no way of knowing if they are tacitly complicit in these crimes. Consumer advocates cite the health risks that result from the fact that between The 15 to 30 percent of seafood that ends up on American plates is not what the label says.
It will continue next Wednesday.
*This report was produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit journalism organization based in Washington, DC. Research and writing was carried out by Ian Urbina, Joe Galvin, Maya Martin, Susan Ryan, Daniel Murphy and Austin Brush. This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center.