Environmental Groups Challenge Lack of Import Bans on International Fisheries

Three wildlife advocacy groups took to the Court of International Trade on Aug. 8 to contest the collective failure of the Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security departments and the National Marine Fisheries Service to ban fish or fish products exported from fisheries that don't meet U.S. bycatch standards under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) (Natural Resources Defense Council v. Gina Raimondo, CIT # 24-00148).

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Center for Biological Diversity and the Animal Welfare Institute in their complaint alleged that fisheries in nine nations -- Canada, Ecuador, France, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, the U.K. and South Korea -- failed to live up to U.S. standards. As a result, the federal agencies haven't undertaken their mandated duty in failing to ban fish from these fisheries, the complaint said.

In addition, the three nonprofit advocacy groups said the NMFS violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it didn't provide a notice and comment period for the extension of the enforcement of the MMPA. In 2016, the NMFS said it would grant exporting fishing nations a "one-time only" five-year extension to comply with the Act. However, the agency has issued three more extensions, the most recent one lasting until January 2026.

The advocacy groups bemoaned the lack of notice and comment periods associated with these extensions.

The three groups asserted jurisdiction at the trade court under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, arguing that the import ban under the MMPA is an "embargo." The nonprofit organizations also asserted standing by claiming that their members live and travel to locations "where they delight in knowing marine mammals live."

NRDC specifically said its members "plan to continue visiting these regions and hope to observe marine mammals in the future," and "derive recreational, conservation, aesthetic, and other benefits from seeing marine mammals in the wild." Failure to enforce the import ban will adversely and irreparably affect these interests, the council said.

The MMPA says if a foreign nation doesn't provide proof to the commerce secretary that its fisheries comply with U.S. bycatch standards, the treasury secretary is required to ban the import of fish and fish products from those fisheries. The three advocacy groups said many nations that export fish to the U.S. "allow the indiscriminate use of gillnets, to the detriment of marine mammal populations that inhabit the waters in which those fisheries operate.”

Despite these nations' "failure to submit this most basic information regarding the effects of their fisheries on marine mammals, NMFS has failed to ban seafood imports," the complaint said. The advocacy groups said these nations didn't provide "reasonable proof" of the "effects on ocean mammals" of the "gear used, posing a significant threat to marine mammal populations."