WASHINGTON - Federal fisheries regulators have announced proposed rules to combat fraudulent marketing of seafood. The program seeks to trace the origins of imported seafood by setting up reporting and filing procedures for products entering U.S. commerce.
"This issue of unreported and unregulated fishing - what we often call IUU fishing - as well as seafood fraud, really undermines our domestic and international conservation and management efforts," says NOAA Fisheries' Jennie Lyons. "These things hurt the fishers who play by the rules, and that's why the president set up a task force to address this topic."
The species initially chosen as the focus of the traceability program are those that were found to be most at risk of unreported and unregulated fishing and seafood fraud. NOAA officials say the Obama administration intends to expand the traceability program to all species.
The proposal does not create any new reporting requirements for domestic landings of wild-caught seafood.
