A recent investigation has revealed evidence that China’s distant-water fishing fleet, the world’s biggest in scale, commits environmental and labor abuses in the southwest Indian Ocean off the coast of East Africa.
“There was no such word as ‘rest’ on Chinese fishing vessels,” explained a former crew member to a group of investigators from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based NGO. “If there were a lot of fish, the work could be up to 22 hours long.”
The testimony was part of a recently released report
by the EJF accusing China’s fishing fleets of environmental and human rights abuses in the southwestern Indian Ocean.
As a leading fishing nation, China’s distant water fishing (DWF) industry is the world’s largest in both catch volume and fleet size. And according to the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Index, China ranks as the worst offender among 152 countries worldwide.
Yeah it sounds pretty bad. Apart from the terrible working condition and human abuse, I worry for their lack of concern for the fishing population as they have no regards for endangered species and future world population of fish and seamamals, and they currently form the biggest fleets in the world.
"When quizzed about illegal activities aboard Chinese boats, 80% of them had reported shark finning — the act of removing fins from sharks and discarding the rest of the shark back into the ocean — and 59% reported the deliberate capture and/or injury of vulnerable marine megafauna, including manta rays, dolphins and sharks.
Pretty much china things…
Not just China, much of the world’s fishing industry is held up by slave labor.
