Labor abuses including violence, debt bondage and withheld wages and medical care, overfishing, shark finning, marine mammal killings: A new report exposes bad practices and a weak regulatory framework governing the jumbo flying squid fishery in the Southeast Pacific Ocean. The report was launched on Feb. 19, just days before the annual meeting of the commission of the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation (SPRFMO), the intergovernmental body that manages the fishery. The report drew on interviews with 81 fishers, mainly Indonesian sailors who worked between 2021 and 2025 on 60 Chinese vessels targeting jumbo flying squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the region. “Our interviews revealed that these vessels are engaged in widespread fisheries abuses and labor abuses,” Dominic Thomson, head of the investigation for U.K.-based NGO the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), told Mongabay. Jumbo flying squid, also known as Humboldt squid, are large-bodied animals averaging 50 to 80 centimeters (20 to 31 inches) in length. They concentrate in the South Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South America, where they play a key mid-trophic role in the marine ecosystem, serving both as a predator of smaller species and as prey for sharks, swordfish, sperm whales, dolphins and other marine life. The species is among the most commercially important squid species, accounting for about 30% of global squid landings. The fishery involves South American countries fishing mainly within their exclusive economic zones (EEZs): Ecuador, Chile and Peru. The latter has for decades been the world’s leading producer. In the last decade,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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