The proposed rule will require about 600 international fish brokers and 2,000 importers to create “paper trails” for a select group of “at-risk” fish when they are imported into the United States.
According to Food Safety news, the at-risk fish include: abalone, Atlantic cod, blue crab, dolphinfish (mahi-mahi), grouper, red king crab, Pacific cod, red snapper, sea cucumber, sharks, shrimp, swordfish, albacore tuna, bigeye tuna, skipjack tuna and yellowfin tuna.
NOAA said the action plan for establishing a seafood traceability program is the result of a study done by a presidential task force established on June 17, 2014, and known as the National Ocean Committee to Combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud.
During a conference call on Thursday, a NOAA fisheries spokesman said the “U.S. seafood traceability program” will require seafood importers to document the “catch” to first “landfall” in the United States for certain species. The at-risk species were chosen based on:
Principals of enforcement capability;
species misrepresentation;
catch documents;
the complexity of the chain of custody and processing;
mislabeling or other misrepresentation; and
human health risks
The at-risk list accounts for about 40 percent of the seafood entering the U.S. when measured by value. NOAA’s spokesman said the agency wants to eventually include all seafood species imported into the country. The Seafood Import Monitoring Program, as it is officially known, is published today in the Federal Register.
Oceana’s senior campaign director Beth Lowell, while commending NOAA for taking the first step in fighting illegal fishing and seafood fraud, said in a statement on Thursday the regulations don’t go far enough. “The new rule is missing critical components to stop IUU fishing and seafood fraud, and that full-chain traceability for all U.S. seafood is a must to ensure that it is safe, legally caught and honestly labeled,” said the statement.
Lowell said illegal fishing is a “dirty business.” She added that “limiting traceability to only a group of ‘at risk’ seafood leaves the rest of the seafood supply unguarded.” She also said stopping the new traceability requirements at the “first landing” does not go far enough in stopping fish fraud.
The new regulations are being published in the Federal Register for a 60-day comment period by the public. The final rule will probably be published in the fall.
