It might very well be "the largest maritime operation the world has ever known," writes Ian Urbina in the New Yorker. Urbina is referring to China's massive fleet of fishing vessels that ply the oceans. By one estimate, China has about 6,500 "distant-water" fishing ships, compared to about 300 each for the US and the European Union. As it turns out, much of the seafood sold in the US comes from these Chinese ships, and Urbina's investigation might give pause to those who love their calamari (ie, squid). In a nutshell:
- China "is largely unresponsive to international laws, and its fleet is the worst perpetrator of illegal fishing in the world, helping drive species to the brink of extinction. Its ships are also rife with labor trafficking, debt bondage, violence, criminal neglect, and death."
"The human-rights abuses on these ships are happening on an industrial and global scale," Steve Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation tells Urbina. Many of the more than 100,000 workers who die each year in the fishing industry do so on Chinese ships. Urbina's story tracks one such case in particular, that of a young Indonesian man who signed up hoping to lift his family out of poverty. The story, however, focuses on illegal fishing practices as well. In one remarkable feat of investigation, it tracks a shipment of "criminally tainted" squid from a ship to port, then to dozens of American exporters, and finally to retail chains including Costco, Kroger, H Mart, and Safeway. Read the full story. (Or check out other longforms.)
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