Just under a decade ago the garment industry faced a reckoning: in April 2013 Bangladesh's Rana Plaza building collapsed, killing more than 1100 people and injuring thousands of others. It had housed five garment factories. The disaster spotlit the unethical and inhumane conditions women and children endure in the fast-fashion supply chain and led to international pressure for improvements. Illegal fishing is increasingly under similar pressure. It too is responsible for human rights abuses as well as environmental harms.
A recent study looked at supply-chain transparency initiatives in three industries to see how lessons learned might help stop the trade in illegal catch. Recent estimates suggest 7.7 to 14 million tonnes – or up to US$17.2 billion – of unreported catches are traded illicitly each year. Illegal fishing puts additional pressure on small-scale fishers who rely on the resources to live. Illegal fishers break rules designed to sustainably manage fish stocks – for example, by catching non-targeted species such as sharks and dolphins and using destructive gear like driftnets where prohibited, damaging reefs and the natural environment. Illegal fishers may also avoid licence fees and underreport their catch. The last 10 to 15 years have seen a stronger push to trace catches ‘from bait to plate’ by requiring each company in the supply chain to disclose where their fish comes from and ensure it is caught legally.
In 2020 Japan passed a law requiring all catch and transfers of seafood to be submitted to the government for a certificate of legal catch. The law was similar to regulations introduced by the European Union and the United States. Australia, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines and Taiwan have also signalled their interest in expanding transparency in internationally wild-caught seafood. These efforts are crucial, but their ability to change real-life practices is still to be measured – and changing what fishers do is the only way to stop the problem at its core. The fisheries industry is not the first to face global sustainability pressures, yet it is often analysed separately from land-based sectors – a lost opportunity to learn from industries with similar features. The global supply chains of the fashion and textile industry include large corporations whose operations can have significant environmental impacts – just as illegal fishing does.
