Environmental Justice Foundation

China's distant-water fishing fleet is the world's largest, responsible for uniquely severe illegal fishing, human rights abuses, and intentional wildlife killing.

However, as Ian Urbina explains, it's not just vessels flying China's flag behind this.

The 'beneficial owner' - who really profits from a given vessel's activities - is often based in China, even when the ship is flying another nation's flag.

Beneficial ownership is often shrouded in secrecy. Greater transparency is urgently needed 🔎

How China Dominates Domestic Fishing Waters Across the Globe Through loopholes and local partnerships, China dominates not just the high seas—but national waters of poorer nations.

Today we welcome a sweeping wave of new commitments in support of a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining 👏

Austria 🇦🇹, Malta 🇲🇹, Tuvalu 🇹🇻, Honduras 🇭🇳, Guatemala 🇬🇹 now make 32 countries opposed to this destructive, unnecessary industry.

Our statement:

Press comment: Sweeping wave of new nations back a ‘precautionary… The Environmental Justice Foundation exists to protect the natural world and defend our basic human right to a secure environment.

Small-scale fisheries are the lifeblood of coastal communities in Senegal.

They are threatened by severe declines in fish populations, driven in large part by overfishing by the bottom trawl industry. We spoke to people at the sharp end of this crisis:

Bottom trawling is precipitating the collapse of Senegal's artisanal fisheries. Artisanal fishing communities are the beating heart of Senegal’s fisheries sector. Yet they are under threat from severe declines in fish populations, driven...

Banning bottom trawling in marine protected areas is strongly supported by the British public.

81% of people polled by Oceana said this destructive form of fishing shouldn't be allowed in 'protected' areas. In coastal constituencies, 80% said the same:

Angry & disappointed: From coast to city, UK is united against destructive fishing in marine sanctuaries Eight in ten adults in the UK (81%) feel that bottom-trawl fishing – which involves dragging heavy metal gear and nets across seafloor habitats – should be banned in marine protected areas (MPAs), according to new polling. In coastal constituencies, this verdict is just as strong: 80% of respond...

Our global climate and biodiversity crises are fundamentally interconnected.

Alongside many other NGOs, we are calling on the new government to recognise this by appointing a climate and biodiversity envoy.

Rebecca Speare-Cole reports in the Independent:

Government urged to expand top climate diplomat’s role to include biodiversity Labour has pledged to reinstate the UK Special Representative for Climate Change after the Tories axed the role last year.

Despite their importance, sharks face many threats.

On , our old article still rings true – "We need to act globally to give shark populations the chance to recover, safeguarding them and the marine ecosystems which depend on them."

Sharks: the awe-inspiring predators keeping our ocean healthy Sharks keep our marine ecosystems, and their essential ‘blue carbon’ stores, healthy. But our actions are causing drastic declines in shark populations

In Papua New Guinea, shark calling is a critical, ancient custom to many coastal communities – however, it is threatened by deep-sea mining.

On , we call on our leaders to defend ocean ecosystems and leave the culture of these communities alone:

‘Shark calling’: locals claim ancient custom threatened by seabed mining ‘Shark calling’, a Papua New Guinea tradition of singing to sharks then catching them by hand, could vanish – and locals blame deep-sea disturbances

The Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, is burning.

These catastrophic fires - and ongoing deforestation - are driven extensively by agribusiness, and worsened by the climate crisis. Cattle supply chains link them to the EU. Here's how:

BURNING PARADISE: How the EU is fuelling the Pantanal's demise The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is an international NGO working to defend our shared natural environment and human rights: https://ejfoundation.or...

"Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record", with the Earth 1.64C above preindustrial times, according to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Every fraction of a degree matters if we want to avoid the worst of the climate crisis. Rapid, sustained action to upgrade to clean energy and reach zero carbon, across the whole of every government, is the only way to do so:

Temperatures 1.5C above pre-industrial era average for 12 months, data shows Copernicus Climate Change Service says results a ‘large and continuing shift’ in the climate

Today is World Zoonoses Day, a moment to reflect on how to prevent future pandemics.

As EJF's Steve Trent wrote in 2022, this means a fundamental reset in our relationship with nature, restoring wildlife and allowing it to thrive.

Meeting ambitious targets set on nature recovery since 2022, at the successful Montreal-Kunming talks, will be key:

Reset our relationship with nature to avoid pandemics We have not learned the lessons of Covid-19. After monumental loss of life we are rushing straight back to the old “normal” which gave us this pandemic.

How can we restore a thriving ocean? How can we protect wildlife, support food security and livelihoods for coastal communities around the world, and take meaningful action to end the climate crisis?

Answers to all this and more in our Ocean Manifesto:

A manifesto for our ocean In this manifesto, we lay out a roadmap for the protection of the ocean, providing clear policy recommendations to save our seas and safeguard our future.

When the UK votes tomorrow, the environment and the climate crisis will be on many voters' minds, with the topic ranking as the fifth most important in polling by YouGov.

We pay for governments failing to take the climate seriously in three ways:

⚡️ higher energy bills

💸 vast subsidies for fossil fuel companies, paid for by the public

🌊 floods, storms and heatwaves made more frequent and severe by global heating

This makes climate action inherently linked to ending the cost of living crisis, the number one priority among voters.

Cutting green policies has added £22bn to UK energy bills since 2015, according to analysis from Carbon Brief.

Whoever next takes office, they should prioritise environmental and climate action.

Leading the upgrade to clean energy and restoring the UK's disappearing wildlife benefits everyone.

Our Climate Manifesto outlines the key steps:

A manifesto to combat global heating This manifesto is designed to point the way and highlight what can and should be done to achieve a sustainable, survivable future, providing a framework…

The Southwest Indian Ocean is rich in biodiversity, and a lifeline to coastal communities.

However, the Chinese distant-water fishing fleet threatens this. We have uncovered systemic illegal fishing and human rights abuses on its vessels in the region:

Tide of injustice: exploitation and illegal fishing on Chinese… This report maps the presence and activities of the Chinese DWF in the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO), a region notable for its biodiversity-rich seascape,…

Wetlands are vitally important for wildlife, for the climate, and for all of us, but they are rapidly disappearing before our eyes.

Brazil's Pantanal wetland is the world's largest tropical wetland, but it is burning. El Pais report:

Explosión de fuego en el mayor humedal del mundo: el Pantanal de Brasil arde La intensidad de la estación seca, que cada año empieza antes por el cambio climático, incrementa los incendios en un 3000%

If Thailand's fisheries reform rollbacks move ahead, human rights and ocean ecosystems will be threatened.

Current rules protect people, nature, and make Thailand a globally trusted seafood seller – removing them risks lucrative market access.

We are calling for these actions:

The Dadaab refugee camp was set up to support people fleeing conflict, but increasingly, those arriving have been forced to leave their homes by the climate crisis.

In 2022, we documented the stories of these climate refugees who, despite doing the least to cause the crisis, suffer first and worst.

Today, World Refugee Day, we call for legal protections to give climate refugees the rights they deserve. We also call on world leaders to cut emissions and upgrade to clean energy, so in the future, people will not have to flee their ancestral homes because of drought, floods and fires.

📽️

"We left with nothing in our hands": The drought driving displacement in the Horn of Africa Dadaab refugee camp, in Kenya, is home to over 200,000 people. The camp opened in 1991 when refugees fleeing the civil war in Somalia started to cross the bo...

🌱 Wetlands regulate our increasingly unstable climate and support rich and abundant biodiversity. Four billion people rely on their ecosystem services. They are disappearing rapidly - three times faster than forests - but it's not too late to save them.

On Monday, we joined a "Roundtable on EU Wetland Partnerships" in Brussels. Here are some impressions:

Dr Musonda Mumba, Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands, welcomed the adoption of the EU Nature Restoration Law and emphasised the need to act now.

Barbara Pompili, Special Envoy to the President of the French Republic for the One Water Summit, highlighted the concerning state of rivers and wetlands and how protecting our life-giving water resources is an interdisciplinary issue closely linked to climate action and nature conservation.

Dr Chris Baker explained how EU Wetland Partnerships support a stable economy, green jobs, climate resilience and Indigenous communities. He also mentioned the EU's responsibility to address the challenges wetlands are facing today.

Veronica Manfredi, Director for Zero Pollution and Green Cities at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Environment, stressed the importance of wetlands as indispensable 'water banks' that are crucial to global water supplies.

Péter Olajos, EU Blue Deal co-rapporteur, highlighted how the EU Blue Deal can help protect water not only as an environmental, but also as a social and economic resource.

EJF's CEO Steve Trent pointed out the importance of coordinating and harmonising efforts to protect the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland.

Today marks one week until rollbacks on Thai fisheries rules could progress.

If they do, it would make severe human rights abuses at sea much more likely, put key fish populations at risk of renewed collapse, and endanger Thailand's trade deals abroad.

Our recommendations:

🌍 Join us for a Roundtable on Wetland Partnerships 🌍

We are co-hosting a hybrid event with Wetlands International Europe on June 17th, which will discuss the vital role wetlands play for wildlife, for the climate, and for all of us.

Wetlands make up less than 6% of the Earth’s surface, but 40% of all known animal and plant species rely on them.

They also play an outsized role in tackling the climate crisis. For example, peatlands cover only 3% of the planet, but store a quarter of all its soil carbon. Across all wetlands, as many as 1 in 8 people make their livelihoods from them, and they provide clean water, storm protection, and myriad other direct benefits for us all.

This event will have a particular focus on the need for international efforts to conserve and protect wetlands.

Learn more and register here 🌱 : https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=Q_2jJqlbXEG5BFRAh4bSHTbM6fh3NzZLkK-7abRMVO9URUxIWkg4UUpWVTRFOEkwRkRSVE1RSFpUMC4u

How can journalists report on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing? How can environmental crimes and human rights abuses at sea be exposed?

From field investigations to satellite data, crew interviews to social media scraping, the tools available to uncover stories and detect environmental injustices are more comprehensive than ever.

Yesterday, EJF's Steve Trent joined Global Fishing Watch and Mongabay.com at a Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Network webinar to discuss these tools and how we use them in our own investigations.

You can watch it in full here 🎦

If you're working on a story about IUU fishing or human rights at sea, or thinking of starting one, we'd love to talk it over. Drop us a line at [email protected] any time 📝

How To Investigate IUU Fishing Let’s start with a number: USD $23 billion. That is the estimated annual loss worldwide caused by illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing—accounti...

World Ocean Day celebrations in Liberia 🇱🇷

Today, our EU-funded Communities for Fisheries Liberia project organised a march in Marshall, Liberia, celebrating ocean conservation and the role of women in sustainable fisheries, to mark tomorrow's ♻️🎣

Can you drive improvements in UK fisheries policy, boosting transparency and tackling illegal fishing and human rights abuses?

Are you a skilled advocate, strategic thinker and great project manager? If so, join us, ClientEarth and Open Seas here:

Advocacy Officer & Coordinator UK Fisheries Transparency Advocacy Officer & Coordinator Position: UK Fisheries Transparency Advocacy Officer & Coordinator Employer: Environmental…

This week features some key international days, including World Environment Day & World Ocean Day 🌍 🌊

To celebrate, we'll send 2 newsletters covering everything from turtle patrols in West Africa to how the ocean keeps the climate stable. Join us here:

Sign up for our emails and stay up to date with EJF's latest news By subscribing to our newsletter, you ensure that you will stay up to date with our campaigns to protect people and planet, as well as how you have been a part of making them a reality.

On Monday, the European Commission gave Senegal a so-called 'yellow card' 🟨, a warning that improvements are needed in fisheries management to avoid a possible seafood trade ban in the future.

What does this mean for Senegal's fisheries, and what is their current state?

🎣 Small-scale fishing is the beating heart of Senegal's coastal communities, but it is threatened. The key pressure is bottom trawling by industrial vessels, almost invariably owned by foreign interests but allowed to fly the Senegalese flag.

Bottom trawlers often illegally enter the waters reserved for small-scale fishers.

Local fishers told us of a systematic disregard for their lives and property, and there are reports of friends dying after collisions with industrial vessels.

💰 The impact on livelihoods is also intense. Fishing communities increasingly suffer from poverty and marginalisation as a result of overfishing, illegal fishing, and other threats, and many struggle to put food on the table.

These trawlers are often owned by foreign interests, providing no benefit to Senegal.

The new leaders of the country, elected in March, made fisheries reform a key campaign topic in the run up to the election, promising transparency and sustainability.

On taking office, they acted swiftly to deliver on this, publishing a list of the vessels licensed to fish in Senegalese waters.

The European Commission's decision provides an opportunity to go further.

As EJF's CEO and Founder Steve Trent says, the new generation of leaders did not cause the crisis in Senegal's fisheries, but they can end it.

⚖️ Enshrining the Coalition for Fisheries Transparency’s Global Charter for Transparency into law can help to achieve this.

Read our full comment here:

European Commission warning to Senegal will further strengthen the… European Commission warned the Senegalese authorities that Senegal risks being listed as a non-cooperating third country in the fight against IUU fishing.

Next week includes World Ocean Day, World Environment Day, and the International Day for the Fight against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing.

Our Ocean Manifesto explains how we can protect the ocean and support ourselves at the same time:

A manifesto for our ocean In this manifesto, we lay out a roadmap for the protection of the ocean, providing clear policy recommendations to save our seas and safeguard our future.

“Without knowing who is catching what, where, when and how, we cannot make progress for a safe, sustainable ocean.”

Illegal fishing and human rights abuses at sea are intertwined – transparency is key to combating these abuses, writes our CEO and Founder Steve Trent:

Fishing industry transparency is key for a thriving ocean (commentary) Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), human rights abuses at sea and the collapse of ocean ecosystems are fundamentally intertwined. Fish populations have rapidly declined globally, with 35% of fish populations now overfished and 57% fished at the maximum sustainable level. More vessels...