Finning the High Seas

This investigative series uncovered a massive illegal shark-finning scheme and widespread labor abuses across the fleet of Dalian Ocean Fishing (DOF), a major Chinese tuna company with dozens of boats operating in international waters. Reporters tracked down and interviewed some two dozen Indonesian deckhands who worked aboard the company’s vessels, documenting their experiences with excessive work, substandard food and drinking water, illness, and deaths at sea. Their testimonies enabled Mongabay and its partners to determine that a tiny handful of DOF boats took more sharks than what China reported its entire longline fleet catching in the same place and time, which informed  U.S. sanctions against the company.

Dalian Ocean Fishing, subject of Mongabay probe, now sanctioned by U.S.

‘It was a shark operation’: Q&A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat

How reporters uncovered a massive illegal shark finning operation

How Mitsubishi vacuumed up tuna from a rogue Chinese fishing fleet

‘There are solutions to these abuses’: Q&A with Steve Trent on how China can rein in illegal fishing

Exclusive: Shark finning rampant across Chinese tuna firm’s fleet

Worked to death: How a Chinese tuna juggernaut crushed its Indonesian workers

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