The industry
CP said in a statement that it believed the right thing was to use its commercial weight to try to influence the Thai government to act rather than walk away from the Thai fishing industry, although it is putting in place plans to use alternative proteins in its feed so that it can eliminate Thai fishmeal by 2021 if necessary. While it recognises that workers on boats are exploited, it added that the Thai department of fisheries continues to deny that unregistered boats are a problem. “We can do nothing, and witness these social and environmental issues destroy the seas around Thailand, or we can help drive improvement plans. We are making good progress,” it said.
CP said it requires and pays its 38 fishmeal factories to ensure that they only buy trash fish from legal and licensed boats. In theory, this requires boat captains to log the location, date, time, and quantity of their catch and to register their workers.
But the Guardian discovered that in practice captains often fail to record trash fish data. Many of them also know there are slaves on the fishing trawlers but never report it to authorities.
“I don’t care if the men are trafficked or not, I just buy the fish,” one boat captain told the Guardian. “I need to make money.”