Seafood is one of the most extensively traded global food commodities, with exports totalling
close to 60 million tonnes (US$151 billion) in 2020 (FAO, 2022). Ports are central to that
trade, serving as hubs for fishing and carrier vessels to land fish as well as undertake other
services important to fishing operations (e.g. refuelling, reprovisioning, exchanging crew etc).
Given the logistical and resourcing challenges associated with undertaking effective
monitoring control and surveillance (MCS) at sea, and particularly on the high seas, visits by
fishing vessels to port serve as an opportunity to cost-effectively monitor compliance with
relevant national and international fisheries management frameworks.
Notwithstanding that, the movement of seafood products through ports from source fisheries
to end market, and the extent to which port State controls are applied along the way, has not
been widely studied for many ports and supply chains. In that context, The Pew Charitable
Trusts (‘Pew’) contracted MRAG Asia Pacific to undertake an ‘in-depth ports study’,
examining the flow of fish from source fishery to end market and the port controls applied,
using four case study ports as examples. The four case study ports – Callao (Peru),
Montevideo (Uruguay), Cape Town (South Africa) and Dalian (China) – were chosen broadly
for their importance in global seafood trade, the relatively high number of foreign fishing
vessel (FFV) visits and the availability of local experts to assist in gathering information and
interpreting trends.
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