Saving Seafood

NGO files Magnitsky sanctions recommendation in US against Chinese processors

January 11, 2024 — An NGO confirmed to SeafoodSource it has formally filed a recommendation to implement Global Magnitsky (GloMag) sanctions against Chinese companies named in the recent Outlaw Ocean report on labor issues in the U.S. seafood supply chain.

The Outlaw Ocean report revealed evidence that seafood processed by Uyghur labor in China has entered the U.S. supply chain – a violation of the U.S.’s Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act (UFLPA). The report – along with video evidence that was released later – identified Uyghur laborers in the supply chain of several Chinese processing and fishing companies that provide seafood to dozens of companies worldwide, including several in the U.S.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

David and Lucile Packard Foundation place equity, justice at the forefront of its ocean grants

December 27, 2023 — Trustees of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation have approved an initiative to make justice and equity central tenets of the organization’s grantmaking efforts.

The initiative, which aims to provide more equitable and durable support – both regionally and locally – to Indigenous peoples, fishers, and other communities dependent on the ocean, is currently in a transitional phase as it consolidates several strategies into a single, integrated ocean initiative structured around three primary portfolios of work: global fisheries, ocean habitats and communities, and ocean-based climate solutions.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Biden expands clampdown on U.S. imports of China-processed Russian seafood

December 26, 2023 — President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order enabling the closure of a sanctions loophole that has allowed the U.S. importation of large quantities of Russian-caught pollock, cod, salmon and crab processed in China.

The action has been sought by North Pacific seafood industry officials — and their congressional allies — who say that Chinese-processed Russian seafood has contributed to soft U.S. markets and lower prices paid to Alaska fishermen.

The crackdown on the seafood imports is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to add bite to the U.S. sanctions rolled out in a March 2022 executive order responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The initial seafood sanction banned the imports of Russian seafood exported directly to the United States, but allowed those products to move freely to American consumers if they were first processed in another country.

Biden’s Friday action expands U.S. ability to sanction financial institutions, and also includes language that will enable tougher sanctions on Russian seafood and diamonds even if “substantially transformed” in another country.

Read the full article at the Seattle Times

Biden administration orders crackdown on Russian seafood imports

December 26, 2023 — President Joe Biden Dec. 22 signed an executive order expanding the U.S. ban on Russian seafood to include imports of Russia-originated seafood processed in third countries, including China.

The unnumbered executive order expands U.S. Executive Order 14068 to prohibit the importation of seafood “harvested in Russian waters or by Russia-flagged vessels, even if these products are then transformed in a third country.”

“The United States has been clear: those who are supplying goods or processing transactions that materially support Russia’s military industrial base are complicit in Russia’s brutal violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden said the executive order resulted in part from the G7 Leaders’ statement, issued Dec. 6. The order called for the group’s seven members – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and the European Union – to step up its efforts against evasion and circumvention of their sanctions and export controls measures on Russian goods. The statement called for additional actions to further curtail Russia profiting from the export of its commodities, including through the imposition of measures to limit their sale through third countries.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Squid games on the high seas as U.S. Coast Guard monitors Chinese fishing vessels

December 24, 2023 — Squid, which can weigh over a 100 pounds and are a vital source of food and jobs, are pursued by fishermen up and down the South American coast as they migrate each year. And wherever they go, China’s “squid jiggers” can be found.

Fishing is a multibillion-dollar industry, and China’s fleets dominate the Pacific Ocean. Operating thousands of miles from home, they have helped make the country one of biggest exporters of seafood in the world, as well as the worst-scoring nation when it comes to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Since late last year however, Chinese vessels have been subject to inspections from the U.S. Coast Guard, which has been empowered by measures introduced by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), a 14-member, intergovernmental body that aims to ensure sustainable fishing in the South Pacific Ocean.

Read the full article at NBC News

ALASKA: Alaska congressional delegation steps up efforts to shut down U.S. imports of Russian seafood processed in China

December 19, 2023 — At the Yantai Sanko Fisheries shore plant in China’s Shandong Province, workers cut pollock into trim fillets. The company website touts “perfect quality” from a plant complex with easy access to international shipping lines.

The vast majority of pollock that moves through China’s seafood processing industry comes from Russia, which is prohibited by the Biden administration’s March 2022 sanctions from exporting seafood directly to the United States. But Russian-caught fish labeled as a product of China has continued to pour into U.S. markets, helping to tank what had been record-high prices for the North Pacific trawl fleet that catches pollock off Alaska.

For more than a year, Alaska seafood industry officials have called for expanding the sanctions to cover any Russian seafood processed in China or any other country. In recent weeks, Alaska’s congressional delegation has stepped up efforts to try to make that happen.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, has repeatedly asked Treasury Department officials for a new ruling that would reinterpret the sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine to cover all Russia-caught seafood, no matter where it was processed. Rep. Mary Peltola took a lead role in putting together a letter, signed by 38 members of Congress, sent Thursday to President Joe Biden. It asks for the closure of the “loophole” that allows Russian seafood processed in China to be imported into the United States “in defiance of U.S. sanctions.”

If the Treasury Department does not act, Sullivan says he’s planning another attempt to pass legislation that would require the Biden administration to end these imports. He would try to move a bill through the Senate through a unanimous consent vote, a tactic he tried unsuccessfully in June.

“I have been having a tough time getting this over the goal line. We’ve been working this nonstop,” Sullivan said. “Stay tuned.”

This campaign to clamp down on Russian-caught imports has gained momentum from an investigation by The Outlaw Ocean Project — a journalism nonprofit — into the Chinese seafood industry. The reporting, published by The New Yorker in October, found evidence that Yantai Sanko and nine other seafood companies have used the forced labor of more than 1,000 Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities from the Xinjiang region in northwest China.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

US Senator Tom Cotton introduces bill to ban Chinese seafood imports

December 7, 2023 — U.S. Senator Tom Cotton has introduced legislation that would ban the import of seafood and aquaculture products from China.

“Fishing and aquaculture is yet another industry the Chinese Communist Party is weaponizing for their own gain through blatant abuse and slave labor. This legislation will stop imports of this illicit seafood by imposing real costs on the Chinese government and the companies that aid them,” Cotton said in a statement.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Fleets of Force

November 18, 2023 — Beijing says many of these boats are just fishing. But they bristle with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and high-velocity water cannons. They’re here for intimidation

This fleet, built largely with government money, helps China dominate one of the most crucial and disputed waterways in the world: the South China Sea.

Working in tandem with an aggressive coast guard, these militarized fishing boats assert Beijing’s presence more than 1,000 miles from the Chinese mainland.

The boats patrol the tiny, disputed Spratly islets. Their reinforced steel hulls make it easy to ram smaller boats. They swarm other countries’ outposts and squat on shoals within sight of foreign coastlines.

In confrontations with China’s militarized fleet, like this one on Oct. 22, the Philippines’ smaller boats don’t stand a chance. China’s muscle is crucial to its de facto control over the South China Sea.

Read the full article at the New York Times

China leads list of labor abusers, sometimes akin to slavery, detected on fishing vessels worldwide

November 15, 2023 — Hazardous, forced work conditions sometimes akin to slavery have been detected on nearly 500 industrial fishing vessels around the world, but identifying those responsible for abuses at sea is hampered by a lack of transparency and regulatory oversight, a new report concluded.

The research by the Financial Transparency Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that tracks illicit money flows, is the most comprehensive attempt to date to identify the companies operating vessels where tens of thousands of workers every year are estimated to be trapped in unsafe conditions.

The report, published Wednesday, found that a quarter of vessels suspected of abusing workers are flagged to China, whose distant water fleet dominates fishing on the high seas, traditionally lawless areas beyond the jurisdiction of any single country. Vessels from Russia, Spain, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea were also accused of mistreatment of fishers.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Global blue food production at risk from human-caused environmental changes, study finds

November 3, 2023 — Over 90 percent of global blue food production faces substantial risks from environmental changes, with leading seafood-producing countries – including China, Norway, and the U.S. – running the highest risks, according to a new study.

Published in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability, the study, “Vulnerability of blue foods to human-induced environmental change,” included a global analysis assessing the vulnerability of countries’ fisheries and aquaculture production in the face of anthropogenic impacts, or environmental changes directly caused by human activities. Specifically, anthropogenic threats can reduce the amount of high-quality blue food countries can produce by altering water quality and habitats, causing shifts or declines in stocks, and compromising food safety by contaminating fish with pathogens or pollutants that are toxic for human consumption.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource