Kimberly Riskas is the Fair Catch Program manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS). AMCS works in alliance with stakeholders at every stage along the seafood supply chain, including fishing companies and associations, restaurants, logistics companies, human rights organizations, academics, and other non-governmental organizations.
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing damages marine ecosystems, undermines legitimate fisheries, and fuels cycles of exploitation that do lasting harm to vulnerable communities.
Australia, with its vast maritime estate and developed fisheries management practices, has long recognized the seriousness of IUU fishing. As such, it has played a key role in leading, coordinating, and supporting multilateral efforts to combat IUU fishing in Antarctica, Southeast Asia, and the Indo-Pacific for over 20 years.
But, for all this history of progress, Australia is failing to address its own role in perpetuating IUU fishing: weak seafood import controls.
Like many developed nations, Australia is a net importer, bringing in between 60 percent and 70 percent of the seafood it consumes. The bulk of these imports comprise canned tuna from Thailand, farmed vannamei prawns from Vietnam, and frozen squid from China. Each of these products have well-documented issues with IUU fishing within their supply chains, including problematic aquafeed sources in the case of farmed prawns, as well as worker exploitation and human rights abuses.
Under Australian law, seafood importers are only required to collect two of the recommended 17 key data elements (KDEs) needed to identify seafood produced by IUU fishing. Additional KDEs are required for a limited number of species for biosecurity reasons, but these remain inadequate to verify a product’s provenance. A 2021 report by the Minderoo Foundation recommended Australia adopt verified traceability and labeling measures “from catch to plate.”
Following pressure from an alliance of stakeholders, in 2023, the Australian government agreed to “consider a framework that addresses the importation of seafood from fisheries that involve IUU fishing practices.” This took the form of an iterative, multi-stakeholder consultation process led by the nation’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry (DAFF). A final report detailing the outcome of the process – and the future of Australia’s seafood import framework – was due to be released in the first half of 2024.
We’re now one year past the intended release date, and DAFF has yet to release the final report and get to work implementing seafood import controls.
In a complex landscape of shifting global tariffs, exporters will no doubt be looking for markets that offer minimal scrutiny of seafood products. Without comprehensive import controls, Australia will continue to provide a market for illicit seafood. Not only does this benefit those engaging in IUU fishing, it also puts Australia’s domestic fisheries, which have comparatively higher operating costs and legal operating standards than many of their overseas counterparts, at a competitive disadvantage.
This minimal scrutiny on imported seafood is at odds with Australia’s sustained domestic, regional, and international efforts to curb IUU fishing. Australia ratified the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) in 2015, which aims to prevent illegally caught seafood from reaching the market. Australia may have closed its ports to vessels engaged in IUU fishing, but its borders are wide open to illicit seafood imports.
At the recent United Nations Ocean Conference, Australian government officials made promises to protect the high seas and tackle marine plastic pollution but did not use the opportunity to commit to action on seafood import controls on the world stage. The Australian government also refrained from making public commitments on seafood imports at the 10th Our Ocean Conference held in Busan, South Korea, this past April.
To maintain Australia’s credibility in the global fight against IUU fishing, the Australian government must urgently take the following actions:
- Release the final report detailing the seafood imports framework that has been in development since 2023;
- Commit to a clear timeline for implementing the framework; and
- Work with relevant stakeholders across industry, academia, advocacy, and other sectors to guide the initial implementation of the framework and its subsequent expansion.
Australia is lagging behind in implementing robust import controls to close its borders to the products of IUU fishing. Other major market states have already acted: the E.U. in 2010, the U.S. in 2018, and Japan and South Korea in 2020, with development of import controls underway in other nations. It is time for the Australian government to bring Australia in line with global best practices and close its borders to the products of IUU fishing.
