The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry recently opened consultations on measures to prevent the importation of seafood from fisheries involving illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices. This is the first step in fulfilling the government’s election commitment to introduce country of origin labelling in the seafood industry.
This is important because combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is an area in which Australia can and should be a global leader. And being a good global citizen starts at home.
A recent report by the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D) looks at the IUU fishing problem and how Australia can be an effective partner in combatting it. Overfishing threatens marine biodiversity and the sustainability of global fish stocks. This in turn threatens food security, revenue and livelihoods, with a wider impact on regional stability. IUU fishing threatens the harvest of fish stocks both within and beyond the Australian Fishing Zone, impacting fishing industries and communities in Australia and in neighbouring countries.
This means Australia should strive to be a global leader in sustainable fisheries management. Part of this must be to strengthen the regulation of fisheries at home in order to demonstrate best practices. Australia should seek to be an exemplar of how to ensure that only legitimate catches enter the seafood supply chain.
There are a number of ways to improve Australia’s import regulations to bring greater transparency and consumer information for seafood imports.
One place to start is to look at what other countries are doing.
For example, Japan, one of the world’s largest importers of fisheries products, enacted legislation late last year to prevent illegal fishing catches from entering its seafood supply chain on top of existing import regulations for tuna and similar species. Japan’s new legislation includes regulation on the Japanese domestic market and on imported fisheries products.
In its initial iteration, Japan’s Catch Documentation Scheme requires catch certificates for species — squid and cuttlefish, Pacific saury, mackerel, and sardine — when imported into Japan. The catch certificate that they were caught legally is issued by the competent authority of the vessel’s flag state. Japan intends to add further species in future rounds.
Another example is the European Union Catch Certification and Carding System. This requires states to certify the origin and legality of fish to ensure the full traceability of seafood imported into Europe. The rules are applied to all fishing vessels, under any flag, in all maritime waters.
To ensure imports meet EU fisheries management standards, non-EU countries may be given a formal warning (yellow card) if identified as having inadequate measures in place to prevent IUU fishing. If they fail to improve, they could face being banned (red card) from exporting seafood to EU markets. Given the size of the EU market, potential bans have a big impact and are a significant incentive for countries to address IUU fishing.
The impact of the EU’s card system was demonstrated in 2017 when Vietnam received a yellow card. The resulting extra customs scrutiny pushed fish sales to the EU down by 36% ($320 million) from 2018 to 2020.
It’s clearly a trend with other markets such as Canada, Mexico and other Latin American countries looking at options to regulate seafood imports as an important means to tackle IUU fishing.
Whatever model it chooses, Australia should adopt a system that gives consumers the confidence that imported seafood comes from sustainable sources; this would also provide incentives for exporting countries to introduce traceability systems and address IUU fishing.
This could include Australia increasing efforts to prevent seafood fraud by mislabelling and species substitutions by looking at innovative approaches to testing at its borders. New testing methods such as tamper-proof, high-throughput analyses in hard tissues, together with DNA and biochemical analyses, could play a role in validating seafood origin and support the compliance, enforcement and traceability of seafood products.
The aim is that Australia can be confident that seafood is legally sourced and correctly labelled as advocated by the Fair Catch Alliance, supported by the Minderoo Foundation.
DAFF consultations based on a discussion paper will be open until 23 June and stakeholders can make submissions online.
There are also other areas where Australia can strengthen its domestic regulation to support global efforts to prevent IUU fishing.
While combatting IUU fishing often focuses on fishing vessels at sea, IUU fishing also relies on low levels of scrutiny onshore. Behind some fishing vessels is a network of companies with complex structures of ownership and shell companies that disguise the beneficial owner. Complex corporate structures enable companies to systematically exploit forced labour and engage in corruption, tax evasion and fraud to maximise their profit margins and hide their ultimate beneficial owners.
For example, Australia can work to strengthen its regulations to improve transparency on beneficial ownership and open-source data, which will be pivotal in pursuing corporations benefiting from IUU fishing. Australia can support best practice by meeting global standards for transparency and the exchange of information for tax purposes. When vessels obscure their ownership, do not operate within a registered fleet or report their true financial gains, their actions undermine legitimate producers and legitimate importers.
Fisheries management is a whole-of-government issue linking security, trade, foreign policy and development cooperation activities. Its many different elements require coordination across all the tools of statecraft. And that includes domestic regulation.
To demonstrate best practice, Australia should set an example in its own policies.
This article draws upon AP4D’s report What does it look like for Australia to be an Effective Partner in Combatting Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing funded by the Australian Civil-Military Centre. AP4D thanks all those involved in consultations. The report was launched by minister for international development and the Pacific and minister for defence industry Pat Conroy.
:
Multi-agency effort thwarts illegal fishing off Australian coast
Any feedback or news tips? Here’s where to contact the relevant team.