TY - JOUR
T1 - Consequences of seafood mislabeling for marine populations and fisheries management
AU - Kroetz, Kailin
AU - Luque, Gloria M.
AU - Gephart, Jessica A.
AU - Jardine, Sunny L.
AU - Lee, Patrick
AU - Moore, Katrina Chicojay
AU - Cole, Cassandra
AU - Steinkruger, Andrew
AU - Josh Donlan, C.
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation and Resources for the Future for funding. This work was also supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center under funding received from NSF Grant DBI-1639145. We thank Seafood Watch for providing access to their sustainability assessments. We thank V. Ruiz, P. Tyedmers, K. Warner, W. Wheeler, C. Wilcox, M. Zwirn, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor for input on the manuscript; and M. Ashenfarb, J. Blakely, L. Dunlap, and K. Lee for research assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - Over the past decade, seafood mislabeling has been increasingly documented, raising public concern over the identity, safety, and sustainability of seafood. Negative outcomes from seafood mislabeling are suspected to be substantial and pervasive as seafood is the world’s most highly traded food commodity. Here we provide empirical systems-level evidence that enabling conditions exist for seafood mislabeling in the United States (US) to lead to negative impacts on marine populations and support consumption of products from poorly managed fisheries. Using trade, production, and mislabeling data, we determine that substituted products are more likely to be imported than the product listed on the label. We also estimate that about 60% of US mislabeled apparent consumption associated with the established pairs involves products that are exclusively wild caught. We use these wild-caught pairs to explore population and management consequences of mislabeling. We find that, compared to the product on the label, substituted products come from fisheries with less healthy stocks and greater impacts of fishing on other species. Additionally, substituted products are from fisheries with less effective management and with management policies less likely to mitigate impacts of fishing on habitats and ecosystems compared with the label product. While we provide systematic evidence of environmental impacts from food fraud, our results also highlight the current challenges with production, trade, and mislabeling data, which increase the uncertainty surrounding seafood mislabeling consequences. More integrated, holistic, and collaborative approaches are needed to understand mislabeling impacts and design interventions to minimize mislabeling.
AB - Over the past decade, seafood mislabeling has been increasingly documented, raising public concern over the identity, safety, and sustainability of seafood. Negative outcomes from seafood mislabeling are suspected to be substantial and pervasive as seafood is the world’s most highly traded food commodity. Here we provide empirical systems-level evidence that enabling conditions exist for seafood mislabeling in the United States (US) to lead to negative impacts on marine populations and support consumption of products from poorly managed fisheries. Using trade, production, and mislabeling data, we determine that substituted products are more likely to be imported than the product listed on the label. We also estimate that about 60% of US mislabeled apparent consumption associated with the established pairs involves products that are exclusively wild caught. We use these wild-caught pairs to explore population and management consequences of mislabeling. We find that, compared to the product on the label, substituted products come from fisheries with less healthy stocks and greater impacts of fishing on other species. Additionally, substituted products are from fisheries with less effective management and with management policies less likely to mitigate impacts of fishing on habitats and ecosystems compared with the label product. While we provide systematic evidence of environmental impacts from food fraud, our results also highlight the current challenges with production, trade, and mislabeling data, which increase the uncertainty surrounding seafood mislabeling consequences. More integrated, holistic, and collaborative approaches are needed to understand mislabeling impacts and design interventions to minimize mislabeling.
KW - Food fraud | seafood mislabeling | seafood trade | species substitution
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2003741117
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2003741117
M3 - Article
C2 - 33199620
AN - SCOPUS:85097211489
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 117
SP - 30318
EP - 30323
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 48
ER -