Supply chain transparency is important, but countries like Australia also must do more to support the justice process, such as securing compensation for fishermen and putting traffickers in jail.
Agreements between the EU and its partner countries for fishing rights could be a great vehicle to push sustainability but more must be done before we can say they are doing that.
Migrant fishermen from Myanmar on a Thai fishing boat unloading fish at a jetty in Samut Sakhon province.
EPA/DIEGO AZUBEL
Forced labor is a widespread problem in fisheries on the high seas. Between 2012 and 2018, an estimated 100,000 people may have been victims of forced labor on thousands of different boats.
Decision-makers, locally and globally, must balance management of pandemics with a recognition that fish and fishing communities are essential to local well being.
Working waterfronts are a key link between consumers and seafood, but are increasingly threatened by developers. Policies need to ensure that waterfronts remain accessible to seafood harvesters.
Fishing boats coming into Le Guilvinec, Brittany, France, at the end of the day.
Photoneye/Shutterstock
The Atlantic Ocean is still growing physically, but humans are over-harvesting its rich fisheries. The most famous one – North Atlantic cod – has become a textbook example of harmful overfishing.
The Pacific Ocean produces oxygen, helps regulates the weather, provides food and livelihoods. It's a place of fun, solace and spiritual connection. But its delicate ecology is under threat.
A female killer whale leaps from the water in Puget Sound near Seattle.
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Scientists had been uncertain about why killer whales are dying in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. A new study takes an in-depth look and provides the tools to help prevent additional deaths in the future.
Conservation or copper? A proposed mine in northern Minnesota pits industrial jobs against a thriving outdoor economy.
China has clashed with neighbors over its fishing in the contested South China Sea, pictured here. Controversially, Chinese fishermen also venture as far as Argentina and Ecuador.
Yao Feng/VCG via Getty Images
Chinese fishermen are illegally trawling South American waters, inflaming tensions with the US. But for centuries Washington used aggressive fishing to expand its overseas presence, too.
Hurricane Harvey set up a rare natural experiment to study the effects of fishing.
NOAA via Wikipedia
Lee Smee, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Joseph W. Reustle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Hurricane Harvey destroyed the fishing infrastructure of Aransas Bay and reduced fishing by 80% over the following year. This removed humans from the trophic cascade and whole food webs changed.
A large Chinese fishing boat sits just outside the Galapagos ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’, August 2020.
Marcos Pin / EPA