Tell NOAA: End Illegal Fishing and Forced Labor

Tell NOAA: End Illegal Fishing and Forced Labor

Not only does illegal fishing destroy our oceans and deplete fisheries, but it often relies on forced labor and leads to rampant human rights abuses. The United States is one of the world’s largest consumers of illegally fished seafood, and our government has a responsibility to help end labor abuse in the seafood industry.

Tell NOAA Fisheries to adopt effective standards for seafood traceability to intercept the flow of illegal seafood into the U.S. and help consumers feel confident the seafood they buy is legally caught and not a product of labor abuses.

Tell NOAA to help stop abuse in the seafood industry!

Illegal fishing

Eighty percent of the seafood sold in the United States is imported, making it one of the world’s most influential seafood markets. Nearly a third of the wild-caught seafood sold in the U.S. each year was caught through illegal or unreported practices.

Not only does illegal fishing destroy our oceans and deplete fisheries, but it often relies on forced labor and leads to rampant human rights abuses. Because most U.S. seafood is untraceable, U.S. consumers are unwittingly buying fish caught or processed through forced labor or human trafficking.

The United States is one of the world’s largest consumers of illegally fished seafood, and our government has a responsibility to end labor abuse in the seafood industry. NOAA is accepting public comments until March 28th, 2023 on a new proposed rule that would modestly expand the requirements of the U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Program to help curtail these abuses. But the rule doesn’t go far enough: as proposed, traceability requirements would apply to only half of seafood imports, leaving massive loopholes that are easy for bad actors to exploit. The proposed rule also fails to help address labor abuses in seafood supply chains.

Tell NOAA Fisheries to adopt effective standards for seafood traceability to intercept the flow of illegal seafood into the U.S. and help consumers feel confident the seafood they buy is legally caught and not a product of labor abuses at the end.

Tell NOAA to help stop abuse in the seafood industry!
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