What Can One Person Do?
SUPPORT workers’ efforts to organize, as is their legal right.
DEMAND that local, regional, and federal governments enforce stronger standards, so that 100 percent of plastic and other waste is being recycled.
CALL on elected officials to push for stronger protections for the oceans and their workers.
VOLUNTEER with NGOs, unions or local governments that protect the oceans and their workers.
SIGN petitions demanding stronger actions to address crime at sea.
PROMOTE coastal communities and marine-protected areas that ban industrial activities (with the exception of the development of offshore wind and renewable energy).
PROTEST for issues about which you feel most passionate.
VOTE for candidates who actively work to protect the oceans and their workers.
LEARN about the labor and environmental concerns tied with the watery two thirds of the planet.
BUY from companies with public sustainable seafood and human rights policies.
ASK your restaurateur/grocer if they know who caught their seafood, where it came from, and if it is free of illegal fishing and forced labor.
AVOID buying farmed carnivorous fish.
DECREASE the single-use plastic products you buy, and the waste you produce.
DIVEST from companies that do not prioritize sustainability and human rights.
QUESTION certification schemes relating to seafood or fishmeal.
INTERROGATE blue washing terms for carnivorous farmed fish such as “wild farmed” or “sustainably farmed.”
SHIFT away from fossil fuels by transitioning to renewables.
TRANSITION to a plant-based diet.
BUY what is harvested nearby, underutilized, and in season.
DISCUSS the state of the oceans and their workers with the people around you.
SUBSCRIBE to the Outlaw Ocean newsletter for updates on our investigations.
FOLLOW the Outlaw Ocean on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
CONTRIBUTE financially to support non-profit investigative journalism and organizations working to protect the oceans and their workers.
DISSEMINATE reporting on the world’s oceans on social media and email it to others, and counter misinformation by pushing rigor and facts in exchanges with others.
What Can Governments Do to Better Protect Human Rights and the Environment at Sea or Tied to Seafood?
ESTABLISH catch limits and quotas that leave more fish in the sea.
REQUIRE governments and companies to recognize the whole ecosystem including a recognition of fish that ends up not just for human consumption but also animal feed.
INCENTIVIZE, protect and enable workers, including migrants, to organize.
BAN recruitment fees.
VERIFY that employers covered the cost of recruitment, and require companies to repay workers for any fees they paid out of their own pockets.
REGULATE crewing agencies.
FORBID passport confiscation.
ESTABLISH minimum standards and accreditation for all international fishing-crew providers.
END restrictive visa regimes for migrants working in the fishing industry and ensure all migrants have the same rights as nationals.
PROVIDE workers with free, safe access to satellite-based wifi 24/7.
END transhipment at sea.
LIMIT time ships can keep workers on a vessel or offshore to less than one year.
REQUIRE that adequate and safe food is available and that dietary supplements be provided to crew to avoid nutritional deficiencies.
MANDATE that captains cease all fishing activities and provide necessary assistance in the event a crew member is seriously injured or falls overboard.
PUT observers on ships, adopt the International Observers Bill of Rights, and have them report labor and fishery violations.
REQUIRE onboard cameras, possibly as a complement to human observers, to further monitor compliance with labor and fishing rules.
GRANT access to a country’s port only if the ship is willing to show marine/worker documents, including crew lists and contracts.
REQUIRE companies to map their supply chains, keep them updated and make them public.
MAKE bills of lading, import records, labor contracts and crew manifests public (with personal privacy details protected.)
STRENGTHEN and harmonize import control rules across countries for the sake of keeping illegal fishing products and goods made with forced labor out of markets.
PREVENT those same banned goods from being dumped in other countries that have weaker laws or enforcement.
PARTNER with allies to address human rights issues through diplomatic channels and ensure that no one profits from abuses at sea or on land.
CONSULT with local communities in the creation of marine-protected areas.
PROTECT the rights of citizens to their public commons including access to shores and waterways.
RATIFY International Labor Organization Conventions No. 188 and 166, which concern wages, hours, and safety and seafarer repatriation.
RATIFY the Port State Measures Agreement, a UN treaty that outlines rules for how ships visiting a nation’s port should be inspected.
INCREASE enforcement of laws and other regulations at sea by sanctioning and prosecuting companies and individuals that violate human rights laws.
CONDUCT routine unannounced spot checks of ships and plants to inspect for violations.
REQUIRE ships to keep location monitoring transponders activated always and share this data publicly.
MAKE tracking data for fishing and commercial ships public and universal.
LAUNCH a new grid of satellites so that the public can monitor sea traffic.
MANDATE all ships to have unique identifying numbers (like license plates).
ELIMINATE harmful subsidies that underwrite industrial fishing.
SHRINK the size of industrial fishing fleets.
PROHIBIT destructive gears such as gill or bottom trawling nets, demersal seines and drifting fish aggregating devices (FADs).
BAN shark finning.
BAN all carnivorous open net pen fish farms in coastal and offshore waters.
PROHIBIT the use of feed that is made from wild fish.
IMPOSE high fees to limit single-use plastics.
USE satellites to identify ships that dump oil or other waste at sea.
END use of the dirtiest types of ship fuel.
REDUCE offshore oil and gas drilling.
MEASURE and track greenhouse gas emissions from ships and throughout the supply chain.
INCREASE investments in marine renewable-energy sources such as offshore wind and solar power.
EXPAND, create new, and better police marine-protected areas.
REQUIRE ship operators to disclose who their owners and captains are and any illegal fishing or human rights infractions in their histories.
INCREASE public access to key documents such as vessel licenses, authorizations, and lists of suppliers.
PUBLISH lists of ships with previous environmental or labor infractions.
REQUIRE buyers to publish and keep updated a list of the vessels and landing ports from which their products are sourced.
ADOPT the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency.
LEGISLATE mandatory due diligence laws that require companies to prevent, address, and remedy adverse human rights and environmental impacts within their supply chain.
REFORM international fisheries agreements to ensure the costs associated with access to the waters of a foreign country are fully borne by the shipowners benefiting from the agreement.
ENSURE that international fisheries agreements are based on assessments of target stocks that are less than 10 years old.
LIMIT the inclusion of industrial lobbies in official delegations when States participate in international negotiations so that their presence is in equal proportion to non-industrial stakeholders.
SUPPORT the adoption of an international moratorium on seabed mining within the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
SUPPORT the adoption of an international moratorium on all commercially industrial activities developed in the polar regions, with the sole exception of those historically carried out by local communities.
REQUIRE that companies deploy operational, accessible and safe alert mechanisms for workers at sea and on land.
What Can Companies Do to Better Protect Human Rights and the Environment at Sea or Tied to Seafood?
ORGANIZE exit interviews by independent auditors with crew when they return to shore.
OVERSEE risk assessments to identify possible human rights abuses presented by business operations.
PRODUCE and make public human rights policies and due diligence roadmaps in line with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct and U.N. Guiding Principles.
REGISTER with and provide information on seafood sourcing to the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s Ocean Disclosure Project.
DEMONSTRATE full chain traceability for all seafood products, and make the results public (including vessels, labor agents, and beneficial owners) so companies can accomplish due diligence in identifying risks and investigating issues.
ADOPT POLICIES including the Employer Pays Principle and a ban on transshipment at sea.
PREVENT trafficking risk by supporting accreditation of recruitment agencies and screening suppliers for signs of forced labor and debt bondage.
MONITOR crew wellbeing through free and secure wifi at sea.
STOP relying exclusively on voluntary certifications and social audits, which have significant limitations, and start self-examining supply chains.
ENSURE that all supply vessels are not included on illegal fishing vessel blacklists, including those established by the European Union and regional fisheries management organizations.
COMMIT to cease any commercial relationship with a supplier who has been involved in any form of human right violation in the last five years, throughout the value chain.
STOP sourcing from overfished species.
PRIORITIZE the supply of seafood products from short distribution channels.
What Is the Broader Context on Efforts to Protect Human Rights at Sea or Tied to Seafood?
The most effective way for companies to ensure ethical practices within seafood supply chains is to promote and enable workers’ efforts to organize, as is their right under international law. They should also safely incorporate workers into due-diligence efforts, including remediation, according to unions such as the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and NGOs like Fishwise.
In terms of providing services directly to deckhands, Stella Maris, LPN, Mission to Seafarers are groups that directly help crew members who have been abandoned, physically harmed, trafficked, or not paid for their work. Recent research estimates that 100,000 fishers die at work every year, the equivalent of more than 300 per day globally. Historically, the largest international transport union federation, the ITF, has focused primarily on protecting crews on freighters, tankers, and cargo ships, but in recent years the federation has broadened its mission to guard against abuse of workers on fishing vessels as well. The FISHSupport Network brings together ITF, Stella Maris, Global Labor Justice, the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, the International Christian Maritime Association and others to protect fishers around the world. The Human Trafficking Legal Center plays a crucial role in supporting litigation, including criminal prosecutions, against offending companies and individuals. The organization also leverages trade remedies — like import bans — to stop the import of seafood tied to forced labor.
Several groups, including the Environmental Justice Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, International Justice Mission, Human Rights at Sea, Global Labor Justice, and Vérité publish invaluable investigative reports about labor and environmental abuses on fishing ships. These groups also play an important role behind the scenes, pushing for stronger laws and better enforcement to protect workers on these boats. They have advocated for a variety of policy solutions, including that countries ratify International Labor Organization Conventions No. 188 and 166, which focus on wages, hours, safety, and seafarer repatriation (as well as Conventions No. 29, 87, and 98, which deal with forced labor, the right to organization, and collective bargaining.) The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre also offers a database of information on companies’ records across multiple labor and environmental issues. For journalists and NGOs interested in investigating crime at sea, The Outlaw Ocean Project offers a Forensic Guide.
Forced labor is more common on fishing ships that stay at sea for extended periods. These ships avoid docking and spot checks by onshore inspectors, sometimes for years, by relying on transshipment, a process that relies on other vessels to carry supplies to the fishing boats and to transport their catch back to shore. Transshipment enables lower prices and efficiency for companies but also allows unscrupulous fishing-boat operators to keep crews captive and to lie about their catch on the documents they give to customs authorities, such as by making it seem as if the fish was caught legally when it was not. As a result, many labor and environmental advocates argue that governments and fish buyers should require fishing ships to make more frequent visits to shore and to allow crew time off vessels. Some of these groups also contend that transshipment at sea should be banned or limited.
Labor rights groups have encouraged seafood and shipping companies to minimize their exposure to labor abuses by hiring directly and avoiding (or at least carefully vetting) so-called crewing or manning agencies that recruit and sometimes manage workers on fishing and other vessels. On the issue of manning agencies, researchers with Humanity United/Freedom Fund, for example, have suggested the use of On The Level accreditation. Other researchers argue that companies should require unannounced spot checks, including confidential crew interviews, as well as safe and confidential exit interviews of former workers to check for common problems like fees, hidden deductions, or forced savings withdrawn from workers’ paychecks, illegal wages or pay withholding, and the blacklisting of workers who speak up about environmental or labor violations. Companies should insist that they be provided copies of the contracts signed by workers, while prohibiting the use of any recruitment fees that often result in workers being trapped in debt. Buyers and retailers of seafood have a huge role to play in forcing their suppliers to clean up their supply chains. Researchers with Humanity United/Freedom Fund point to two documents that offer useful input on ways for buyers/retailers to improve. One is by Ethical Trade International and another is from Re:Structure Lab.
Such spot checks and exit interviews need to be independent, public, and rigorous. Otherwise, they can become a counterproductive marketing ploy that serves not workers but the industry. The toolset at responsiblesourcingtool.org walks companies and other stakeholders through the human rights due diligence processes, including supplies and agency screening, monitoring and worker interviewing and engagement, needed to prevent forced labor. The toolset has been developed by Verité with the support of the U.S. Department of State. A company called Ulula is developing a due diligence tool for fishing vessels that it says will include digital crew interviews, live data collection and worker alert mechanisms variables, though the tool is not yet completed.
Workers on fishing and merchant vessels are predominantly male. However, because it pertains to the issue of how the seas represent a liminal space legally, one issue that the Outlaw Ocean Project has covered in its reporting is the work of Women on Waves. This organization advocates for womens’ reproductive rights and its director, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, uses a ship to provide access to medical services needed to end pregnancies. Women on Waves no longer operates its ship and at-sea abortion clinic. The organization has now shifted to research, currently focused on developing mifepristone (the abortion “pill”) as an over-the-counter, on-demand contraceptive. In terms of ways for people to get involved with these issues, Dr. Gomperts has suggested comprehensive sex education in schools, easier access to contraceptives and family planning services, and more research aimed at improving reproductive health and expanding access to reproductive healthcare.
Another important frontier relating to human rights at sea concerns migrants. Climate change, poverty, war, overfishing, terrorism and other factors are driving an increasing number of people in search of work and better options, which often involves perilous journeys crossing the sea. Because the offshore realm is weakly regulated, rarely policed, and sparse in its journalistic coverage, governments, militias, private companies and others get away with treating migrants in ways that would likely get them in trouble on land.
Tens of thousands of refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea each year are captured by the E.U.-funded Libyan Coast Guard and sent to brutal prisons in Libya where murder, extortion and rape are common. The E.U. has provided them new boats, rebuilt others, provided everything including satellite phones and inflatable rafts. It has also provided real-time information on the locations of migrants trying to make it to Europe. Frontex, the E.U.’s border protection agency, keeps near constant surveillance over the Mediterranean. The UN’s International Maritime Organization also plays a facilitating role. Human rights advocates say that this policy has to stop. One of the reasons that the coast guard has become so effective in this effort is that in 2018, Libya expanded the reach of its offshore patrols. In receiving U.N. recognition of an at-sea search-and-rescue zone, Libyan authorities stretched the area where they (falsely) claim jurisdiction nearly a hundred miles off of Libya’s coast, far into international waters, and halfway to Italian shores. To be clear: most of Libya’s search and rescue zone is international waters where their authorities do not have any sovereign or jurisdictional powers; they instead have search-and-rescue responsibilities, according to maritime legal scholars. The consequence of this expanded zone is that humanitarian boats like those from Doctors Without Borders are prevented from getting to the migrants first to pull them out of the water and then to deliver them to ports of safety, typically in Europe. Instead, with help from E.U.-funded planes and drones flying above the migrant boats, the Libyan Coast Guard gets to these refugees faster, returning them to prisons in Libya, the country the migrants just fled. This policy also needs to change, according to these human rights researchers.
The bigger question is how can countries more humanely handle migration? The stakes of this question are only going to grow considering that demographers predict that more than 150 million people will seek to relocate due to the climate crisis over the next 50 years. Migration experts and human rights advocates offer a variety of insights for ways to improve the handling of the Mediterranean and other migration crises. These include: Improve coordination
among coastal states to ensure rescues and prompt disembarkation; remove disincentives that cause merchant ships to be hesitant to properly respond and rescue when migrant boats call in distress; stop coastal nations from pushing migrant boats back out to sea or into other nations’ waters; and expand safe and legal pathways to minimize number of people who take dangerous sea journeys.
Other researchers say that E.U. officials might not have much control over what happens in the migrant prisons in Libya. But they could apply more pressure on the Libyan government by tying further financial support for the Libyan Coast Guard to demonstrable improvements in these prisons. Several other sources make a higher-altitude point: building taller and thicker walls like the invisible one that the E.U. has erected across the Mediterranean is not the way to respond to global migration. The more sustainable solution is to direct resources and policy attention toward countering the rights abuses and other factors that push people to take dangerous journeys toward Europe and the U.S.
What’s to Be Done About Plastic Pollution and Climate Impacts at Sea?
Even the most remote areas of the world’s oceans have been inundated with millions of tons of plastic waste and debris. Oceana notes that 40 percent of the plastics currently in use are single-use, and that only 9 percent of plastic waste has been recycled. This deluge is destroying natural habitats, killing sea life and birds, and contaminating the animal and human food chains. Solutions proposed by the conservation non-profit Oceanic Society include limiting the production of single-use plastics and prioritizing the proper recycling of plastics. Oceana and the BLOOM Association are pursuing a similar goal by pushing for local- and national-level legislation that would reduce the production and consumption of single-use plastics.
Organizations such as Break Free from Plastic and the Plastic Pollution Coalition advocate for regulations that reduce plastic production and use, particularly of dangerous polymers such as polystyrene and PVC, and single-use packaging. These organizations also work to increase transparency about chemical additives, and to ban those that have been demonstrated to be dangerous or not been adequately tested. A common policy solution is to put the responsibility for disposal costs and logistics on plastic producers rather than consumers. The UN has made some movement in these directions: 175 countries agreed in March 2022 to adopt a global treaty for plastic pollution that addresses the full life-cycle of plastics. A special intergovernmental committee that has been convened to establish a legally binding treaty is due to finalize the terms in 2025.
The world’s oceans are crucial in the fight against climate change, particularly because they store carbon that would otherwise build up in the atmosphere. Mangroves, which play a key role in protecting coastlines from erosion, are also major carbon sinks, acting as greenhouse-gas mitigators by soaking up carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in their roots. When mangroves are cleared for development or killed by pollution, millions of tons of carbon dioxide are released back into the atmosphere. Mangroves also provide an irreplaceable habitat for thousands of fish species. The Global Mangrove Alliance, a group campaigning to stop mangrove loss and restore mangrove ecosystems around the world, says that if current deforestation rates are not impeded, all mangroves could be lost by the end of this century. The organization calls for better governance to protect and restore mangroves and to ensure their sustainable use by local communities.
Seagrass meadows also play a vital role in capturing carbon, at a rate 35 times faster than the tropical rainforest. Covering over 116,000 square miles (300,000 square kilometers) of the Earth’s surface, according to the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), this coastal ecosystem draws carbon from the air and uses it to build an extensive root system. At the end of its lifespan, dead seagrass falls to the ocean floor, where, if the sediment is left undisturbed, it acts as a carbon vault for thousands of years. An estimated 7 percent of sea meadow coverage is being lost every year, due in large part to pollution, coastal land development, and dredging. The UNEP is calling for the comprehensive global mapping of seagrass coverage to better track and monitor the health of sea meadows, and to strengthen conservation efforts by incorporating more regions of seagrass meadow as marine protection areas.
Krill play an outsized role in the battle against climate change by eating phytoplankton, a microscopic organism that removes carbon dioxide from the air, and then depositing carbon-filled waste on the ocean floor. Krill absorb up to 23 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Some researchers have predicted that over the next one hundred years, the population of krill biomass will undergo “a marked decline,” potentially to near extinction. Another study concluded that Antarctic krill stocks in the Southwest Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean had already declined by between 40 and 80 percent between 1976 and 2003. Because of krill’s ecological importance, nonprofits like the Changing Markets Foundation have called for an all-out moratorium on krill fishing. However, krill production quadrupled between 2001 and 2020, from 104,000 metric tons to 451,000 metric tons, and Russia and China are aiming to dramatically expand their fleets in the coming years. The Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition advocates for a network of sanctuaries to protect biodiversity and to rebuild depleted populations.
Krill fishing, especially when targeting the exact patches of ocean where whales mate and feed, represents a major concern for whale conservationists. Though mostly halted, industrial whaling represents another threat. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission set a moratorium on commercial whaling, but Japan, Norway, and Iceland still engage in the practice. These countries have also pushed for the ban to be overturned or weakened. The Environmental Investigation Agency, an NGO based in the U.K., works to expose other seafood supply chains with links to the industry. The E.I.A. has called on the International Whaling Commission to establish a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary and reject any future proposals for commercial whaling quotas.
Bottom trawling involves dragging huge nets along the ocean floor to capture marine life. The process is highly undiscerning and destructive. Not only does it level seafloor structures like coral, it kills large amounts of bycatch or non-target species. Recent research has also found that the dragging action churns up layers of ocean floor and sediment, causing the reoxygenation and release of previously captured carbon back into the atmosphere at the rate of 408 U.S. tons (370 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide annually. Bottom trawling is also distinctly wasteful in terms of high levels of bycatch. The Irish Wildlife Trust says that over 90 percent of all EU fish discards result from bottom-trawled catches. Oceana reports that globally, bottom trawling is responsible for up to half of all discarded fish and marine life. The BLOOM Association’s Ocean Coalition initiative also addresses bottom trawling.
Kelp forests along the seabed are important natural tools for combating climate change. Besides being a nutritionally strong food source, kelp absorbs inorganic carbon and converts it into organic biomass. Kelp, which is present along an estimated quarter of all of the world’s coastlines, according to the World Resources Institute, provides vital coastal protection, reducing the size of waves, and acts as a rich ecosystem for other forms of life. The Sea Change Project, an organization dedicated to protecting and increasing awareness of kelp forest, notes that kelp is threatened by plastic pollution, overfishing, ocean mining, and other manmade harms. The Sea Change Project released “My Octopus Teacher,” a documentary film set in a kelp forest off the African coast.
Both ocean-based transport and ocean tourism contribute heavy amounts of carbon to the atmosphere, exacerbating the effects of climate change. A report produced by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy calls for decarbonisation in both industries through strategies at the governmental level such as investing in the development of zero-emission fuels, low-carbon ports, and new tourism models that funnel money back into local oceanic communities. Several organizations have called for a simultaneous just transition for workers currently employed by the fossil fuel industry.
Salt marshes are key to both ecological success and preparation for the effects of climate change. Home to more than 75 percent of fisheries species, these environments serve not only as estuaries but also as barriers between the land and sea that protect coastal communities from sea-level rise, storm surges, and flooding. Organizations such as the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation and the Coastal Conservation League call for a reduction in overfishing in the marshes, which is draining them of critical species; for altered sewer outflow plans, to reduce the harmful discharge of excess nutrients; and for policy initiatives like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, which aims to preserve a million acres of salt marsh threatened by climate change.
“Ghost gear”—that is, nets, traps, and other fishing equipment that has been discarded at sea—can ensnare marine life, damage natural habitats such as coral reefs, create navigation hazards, and contribute to pollution, all of which is known as “ghost fishing.” Much fishing gear is made out of plastic, adding to the buildup of non-degradable materials coating the oceans. The Plastic Soup Foundation notes that because of plastic’s longevity, unless the material is actively sought out and removed, it will continue to pose a threat to marine life and environments. The organization also noted that because ghost gear is often discarded in international waters, governments are unlikely to take responsibility for cleanup measures. To address the problem, the Oliver Ridley Project runs a program where individuals can submit reports of ghost nets that need to be removed, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has launched its Marine Debris program, aimed at preventing the continued discarding of fishing gear. The organization Fishing for Litter has also developed a program that aims to involve the fishing industry itself in reducing the discarding of equipment and other forms of debris.
Offshore production of oil and gas—such as in the Arctic or the Congo Basin—can spread a wide range of pollutants into the environment. The noise generated by the heavy machinery necessary for extraction can injure animals in the surrounding areas. The construction of drills and platforms can damage or destroy ocean habitats, and oil spills can devastate marine life. Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund are pushing for tightened standards on oil-spill responses and protection measures for especially sensitive environments such as the Arctic. The WWF has also called for increased use of marine sources of renewable energy, such as offshore wind and solar power, and for exploration and development of marine carbon-dioxide removal measures.
What’s to Be Done About Illegal, Unsustainable, and Overfishing?
Current industrial fishing practices are unsustainable in many places around the world. Many marine scientists and advocates have called for creating more marine-protected areas that are off-limits to large-scale commercial fishing and other industrial activities. Researchers also argue for scaling back the size of the global fishing fleet, tightening the quotas that limit how many fish can be pulled from the water, and removing government subsidies that make seafood artificially cheap. All of these goals require strong policy, aggressive enforcement and a commitment from governments to prosecute companies caught fishing illegally with adequate penalties and sanctions.
There are several different realms where rules can be applied at sea. What rules that exist are patchy and weakly enforced. But they do represent a starting point for better governance. For fishing vessels, think of three realms: at the port where the ships leave and to which they return, at sea where they fish, and in the countries that grant the ships the right to fly their flags. For two brief overview videos that explain how rules exist relating to each realm, see Pew’s video and Greenpeace’s video.
Technology exists to better track fish as it travels from bait to plate, and an emergent movement is pushing to make seafood more traceable. Governments and large seafood sellers are considering mandating the use of DNA field kits for identifying species to combat the problem of counterfeit fish. SeaChoice has done useful research on this technology. They are also considering tracking packages more aggressively with bar-coded labeling, and employing algorithms to flag high-risk imports, such as those coming from vessels that have past violations and those carrying shipments routed through border crossings commonly associated with organized crime.
Grocers and restaurateurs are turning to firms like SCS Global and Trace Register for supply-chain audits and traceability consulting services, respectively. But most researchers and advocates say that corporate-responsibility programs tend to be ineffective, because they are largely self-policing, lack third-party oversight or verification, focus primarily on environmental concerns instead of human-rights issues, and typically reach only as far as processing plants rather than the ships where crimes are most likely to occur. Labor audits are equally flawed, because they tend to be announced ahead of time, and in some cases, companies can request new audits if they do not like the results they are given. What’s more, the employer being audited pays for the auditor and can easily keep workers out of sight of inspectors. Additionally, signs of forced labor, such as debt bondage and document confiscation, are often overlooked during audits. An added complication is that workers may not be honest to auditors that they do not fully trust. For all these reasons, auditing is not adequate for identifying difficult issues such as sexual abuse and forced labor.
Organizations like Global Fishing Watch and Skylight do research and empower advocacy on two main premises: first, that laws are only as good as their enforcement, and second, that at sea, the prerequisite for enforcement is transparency. These organizations use satellite data to track the behavior of ships. They have called on companies to require vessels that catch or carry their fish to have a unique vessel identifier such as an International Maritime Organization (IMO) number, which remains constant throughout the vessel’s lifetime, regardless of change of name, ownership, or flag. If a ship lacks this type of identifier, companies that get goods or fish from it have no way of knowing where it traveled, whether its workers had contracts, and whether it is on any of the black lists maintained by regional fishery-management organizations. In 2017, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization took a step toward consolidating this information by publishing a global, one-stop online database of vessels. The Coalition for Fisheries Transparency has called for governments to adopt the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency, a set of ten steps designed to make information about vessels and fishing activity publicly accessible.
Labor advocates have called for fish buyers to source only from countries that have ratified international agreements, among them the Port State Measures Agreement, a UN treaty that outlines rules for how ships visiting a nation’s port should be inspected. Another important requirement is for fishing ships to carry observers, who are answerable only to local fishery authorities. The job of these onboard observers is to monitor and document a vessel’s compliance with quotas and check for other possible crimes, such as shark finning, excessive bycatch, or high-grading (the practice of throwing older fish overboard to replace it with newer catch). These observers should be trained, hired and protected so that they are both responsible and empowered to report on marine and labor conditions and violations. The Cape Town Agreement, which is not yet in force, is designed to increase safety on fishing vessels. Global Labor Justice has launched a campaign promoting increased access to WiFi for fishers at sea.
Researchers and advocates also argue that it is important for governments to deny access to their markets for seafood produced through crimes like illegal fishing or forced labor, or that is fraudulently marketed. In the United States, NOAA Fisheries’ has refused to administer the import provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act – a law which has been on the books since 1972. Advocates say that this has incentivized harmful fishing practices that have devastated marine mammal populations, including vaquita dolphins. The BLOOM Association has launched a new framework calling on retailers, market actors and politicians to review and redirect their ocean policy decisions, including ending fisheries that are complicit in human rights abuses and sourcing only from fisheries with good governance and sufficient scientific data to assure stock sustainability.
Due to the isolating and sensitive nature of their role on ships, observers are at high risk of harassment and personal injury, even death. Unions and other advocates say that while the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission has adopted observer safety reforms for relevant flag states and employers operating in that area of the high seas, more needs to be done internationally by regulatory authorities in both flag and coastal states to enforce the measures, and to expand these protections to other high-seas regions. These measures include requiring independent communication devices for observers to report threats to their safety or that of other workers and a personal beacon so observers can be easily located in an emergency. The Association of Professional Observers, an organization that advocates for observer safety and fair treatment, calls on governments to adopt and codify the International Observers Bill of Rights, a set of provisions for safe working environments, and it advocates for the retention of skilled observers through better employment conditions, such as health insurance and fair wages. A group led by FishWise has also proposed a series of measures to protect at-sea observers from harm or harassment.
Consumers are paying more attention to these issues, and a growing number of them are becoming vegans or vegetarians and opting for plant-based diets to avoid seafood (and meat) altogether. Diet is a personal choice and there are clearly equity issues in what people can afford to consume. That said, the science is fairly clear that the consumption of many forms of animal protein is an important factor in the climate crisis.
For people who want to continue eating seafood but hope to distance themselves from possible environmental or labor abuses, there are ways to be better informed about the companies supplying the fish. For further guidance, consumers can consult Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, which produces seafood report cards that rank fish environmentally as “red” (avoid), “yellow” (good alternative), and “green” (best choice). Human-rights and labor concerns are not incorporated into these ratings. In response to growing awareness that seafood is often tainted by forced labor, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has since introduced a series of tools to help corporate buyers identify these risks in their supply chains. Yet unlike Seafood Watch, the new tools do not seek to advise retailers on which species to purchase. Instead, the goal is simply to raise awareness. Despite calls from advocacy groups to adjust their sustainability rankings to incorporate the forced-labor risk, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has not done so. One place where consumers can find resources about local seafood is the Local Catch Network. Many labor and supply chain researchers caution against Monterey Bay Aquarium rankings and similar certification models as deeply flawed, potentially green-washing, unenforceable and possibly doing more harm than good. Other researchers see them as among the only ways for consumers to figure out what items to buy.
Retailers hold significant influence over consumer choices and economic power within the supply chain. SeaChoice, a Canadian NGO, utilizes its Seafood Progress tool to track and publish if and how major retailers are demonstrating progress against their human rights and environmental sourcing policies. Of increasing concern is the tendency for retailers to neglect taking responsibility for large volumes of the seafood they sell by excluding them from their sourcing policies. Oxfam has created a “Supermarket Scorecard” related to human rights.
Our appetite for fish has outpaced what we can sustainably catch, and aquaculture, or farmed fishing, has emerged as an alternative that does have some clear benefits over catching fish in the wild. In India and other parts of Asia, these farms have become a crucial source of jobs, especially for women. And farming bivalves (oysters, clams, and mussels) promises a cheaper form of protein than traditional fishing for wild-caught species. There’s potential for environmental benefits, too: with the right protocols, aquaculture uses less freshwater and arable land than most animal agriculture. Still, some forms of fish farming have drawn criticism from ocean conservationists, for contributing to the problem it was created to solve. They point to environmental harm brought by the excess feed, feces, antibiotics, and chemicals used in farms for carnivorous fish. Footage of seabeds near these farms depicts dead zones and the destruction of precious Posidonia meadows, some of nature’s largest carbon sinks. The fish farms leave behind harmful algal blooms, mass fish die-offs, and large amounts of microplastics and debris in surrounding waters. Fish farms can act as reservoirs for disease and parasites, such as sea lice, that can then transfer to at-risk wild fish. And shrimp aquaculture, in particular, continues to be devastating for mangroves throughout Asia and South America.
To learn more about some of the common criticisms of aquaculture, read the research from the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, Don’t Cage Our Oceans, and the Poseidon Project. To learn more about other types of aquaculture that many ocean advocates support, including shellfish and seaweed farming, Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA), restorative mariculture, and tidal energy farms, take a look at this explainer by the Regenerative Farmers of America.
Several NGOs have ships and conduct advocacy on the water in fishing grounds. Greenpeace has a fleet that it uses for a variety of purposes, including surveillance of illegal fishing, nonviolent direct action against oil and gas drillers, and ferrying scientists to distant waters to research biodiversity that is being compromised by industry activities at sea. Sea Shepherd also has a fleet that it uses to carry fishery officers from poorer countries to inspect ships and to patrol against poachers. The Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Earthrace Conservation are two smaller advocacy organizations that have ships and do anti-poaching patrols.