The National Ocean Council Committee to Combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud announced its proposal for creating a U.S. seafood traceability program — the next step the U.S. government is taking to ensure that global seafood resources are sustainably managed and not fraudulently marketed.
The agency hopes the proposal is a major step forward in combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It aims to trace the origins of imported seafood by establishing reporting and filing procedures for imported fish and fish products entering U.S. commerce.
The proposed seafood traceability system will collect data about harvest, landing, and chain of custody of fish and fish products (initially limited to the list found here) imported into the United States identified as particularly vulnerable to IUU fishing and seafood fraud. Similar information for domestically harvested seafood is already reported under numerous state and federal regulatory requirements, as detailed in the Federal Register notice. The proposal does not create any new reporting requirements for domestic landings of wild-caught seafood.