Katrina Nakamura

Nearly 70,000 fishing crew are currently at sea catching the ecolabeled tuna in your sandwich or sushi. Tuna fishing on the High Seas is remote, making it difficult to detect forced labour and important to look into the welfare of fishers on vessels fishing for ecolabeled tuna. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabel says it is keeping forced labour out of the certified supply chain and that buyers choosing certified tuna significantly reduce their exposure. To determine how this is achieved, an analysis was performed of the primary data published by the MSC at https://fisheries.msc.org for the 3327 tuna vessels listed in its program. The data show that a majority of tuna vessel owners (1970 fishing employers) are participating anonymously. Their involvement in forced labour is unknown, and vessel conditions are untraceable for 74% of the tuna catches reported by certifiers. A majority of MSC’s tuna clients (about 4% fishing entities) refuted forced labour on behalf of 53% of tuna fishers in a template that MSC provides and protects with a disclaimer. Yet, on some of the vessels, tuna fishers have recently reported forced labour. Content analysis showed the information provided by MSC’s tuna clients overall deflects (rather than accepts) accountability for human rights and adverse effects, such as debt bondage. These findings matter to fishers’ welfare because the MSC has reported that its program encompasses 59% of the world’s tuna, making its assurances about lower risks in certified tuna influential in the sector, with potential to undermine criminal and civil enforcement.

Nearly 70,000 fishing crew are currently at sea catching the ecolabeled tuna in your sandwich or sushi. High Seas tuna fishing is remote and dangerous so this research asked how protections against fishing labour violations are represented in tuna ecolabeling data. Half of the world’s tuna supply is represented by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) which says that choosing certified tuna is the best way for tuna buyers to significantly reduce exposure to the risks of forced labour in fishing. Data were collected from https://fisheries.msc.org for 3313 tuna vessels and content analysis showed that 74% of ecolabeled tuna was untraceable to vessel owners (fishing employers). Few of the certificate-holders providing self-declarations about fishing labour were fishing employers (about 4%). Seventeen dismissed even the potential for labour violations for 53% of tuna fishers (37,061) without details of proof or prevention. Overall, the information found on the MSC website did not make vessel employment practices transparent for certified tuna products. MSC clients include a company associated to US tuna ban for forced labour whose self-declaration states “no evidence of forced labour”. Tuna fishers have reported forced labour on several vessels in the program since 2019. Serious omissions in the program’s information system could propagate harmful consequences for fishers. One-Sentence Summary: Data from the Marine Stewardship Council reveal that tuna ecolabeling does not effectively protect fishers from fishing labour violations.

Women play central roles in fish industries and in adaptation strategies when fisheries change. Yet, the methods and approaches taken by women are not well-clarified or acknowledged with the result that, when fisheries change, fisheries policies and programs can be ill-equipped. We applied a gender lens to adaptation strategies in fisheries by surveying Fishery Improvement Project implementers across the aquatic value chain and comparing changes in fishery governance. Project implementers enumerated 100 fishery roles and described multiple forms of leadership by women fishers, cooperative representatives, harvest agents, primary processors, domestic partners of fishers, community fisher representatives and quality assurance technicians. Projects led by women (self-identified) had stronger scores for fisheries governance with 71% showing positive score increases since the project began as compared to 23% in the reference population. Key factors in successful fisheries adaptation were field data collection and time spent with local stakeholders over changes in the fishery. However, localized initiatives by women that did not fit easily into project templates went unrecognized by funders with the result that field work crucial to successful adaptation was being performed with voluntary labour at unsustainable levels. Investments in social capital and in women’s leadership at all levels of decision-making appear crucial to successful adaptation in fisheries.

We combined reliable human rights data and industry technology to identify ways to remediate forced labor risk in seafood production.