I wrote back in 2023 about NOAA Fisheries' biennial Report to Congress, the one mandated under the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act (as amended by Magnuson-Stevens). NOAA has just released the 2026 edition, titled Improving International Fisheries Management, and as usual, it is worth a read even while keeping in mind the geopolitical lens through which any single country produces this kind of "who's naughty" list.
The mechanics haven't changed: NMFS identifies nations or entities for IUU fishing, forced labour, shark catch without a comparable conservation programme, or bycatch of protected living marine resources (PLMRs). Identification triggers a two-year consultation period, after which NMFS issues either a positive or a negative certification. A negative certification means denial of U.S. port access for the relevant vessels, and potentially import restrictions on the fish they land.
New identifications this cycle
For IUU fishing: Costa Rica, Grenada, Mexico, Morocco, the PRC, and the Russian Federation. For forced labour: Burma and the PRC — the first time Burma appears in this report, for conditions on the raft and mid-shore fisheries of the Ayeyarwady Delta, where roughly 40,000 people work and the majority are estimated to be in forced labour. For shark catch: Ghana, Japan, Mexico, Namibia, the PRC, Taiwan, and Vanuatu — all for lacking binding "fins naturally attached" requirements. And, notably, PLMR bycatch identifications now extend into the Pacific for the first time, catching Indonesia and Papua New Guinea for insufficient sea turtle bycatch monitoring in their pelagic longline fleets, a shift from the Atlantic-heavy focus of previous reports.
Certifications
Positive certifications went to Angola, The Gambia, Taiwan, and Vanuatu (on their 2023 IUU identifications), and to Tunisia (already certified positive back in May 2025, for adopting whole-finfish-bait requirements comparable to U.S. sea turtle bycatch mitigation). Negative certifications went to Grenada, Mexico, and the PRC for IUU fishing, and — this is the new bit — to the PRC and Vanuatu specifically for shark catch.
I have to flag Vanuatu again, since concerns were raised about them back in 2023. They get a positive certification for the IUU/CCAMLR/IATTC issues that triggered their original identification — genuine progress, with resolved transshipment notification gaps and resumed observer reporting. But they now carry a negative certification for sharks because, despite claiming that finning is prohibited, NMFS found no binding legislation to that effect, and Vanuatu's own National Plan of Action for Seabirds, Sharks and Turtles plainly states that "nothing in the Vanuatu national laws prevents" finning. That is a remarkably candid admission to have sitting in a national policy document.
Vanuatu's Fisheries Act provides the framework for implementing RFMO measures, but the gazette that would make them binding still hasn't been published. This is exactly the gap between having decent people trying their best in a fisheries authority and having a legal and political system that backs them up with the instruments they need — which is what I flagged three years ago.
Mexico's lanchas, again
This is the fifth cycle in a row Mexico has been identified for the same issue: small-scale vessels (lanchas) illegally fishing red snapper in the U.S. EEZ. The numbers this time are stark — 185 vessels interdicted by the US Coast Guard across 2022–2024, 175 case packages handed to Mexican authorities, and 92% of individuals interdicted in 2024 alone had been caught before, some more than 40 times. Mexico has taken some steps — a Tamaulipas working group, a proposed prevention zone — but recidivism has actually increased. Port denials for Mexican Gulf vessels, in place since February 2022, remain in effect.
The PRC, unsurprisingly, is everywhere
The PRC picks up identifications or negative certifications across nearly every category: IUU fishing (flag state control failures over distant-water vessels fishing in others' EEZs — Sierra Leone, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Vanuatu all cited), forced labour (squid jiggers and distant-water crew), and sharks (still no finning ban outside RFMO jurisdiction, and PRC belongs to three RFMOs — SPRFMO, CCAMLR, SIOFA — that lack one).
NMFS also flags, in the "priority issues" chapter, that PRC access agreements are more opaque than the EU's, which publishes its agreements and authorised vessel lists in full. This opacity around access agreements — who gets to fish where, under what MCS obligations — is a structural issue I keep coming back to in my own work, and it is good to see it get its own chapter here rather than being buried as a footnote to specific country cases.
Transhipment gets some real movement
Worth noting for those of us who follow this closely: SPRFMO adopted 100% observer coverage for transhipment in 2024 (led by the U.S.), NPFC stood up a regional transhipment observer programme in 2025, and ICCAT adopted Rec. 24-15 restricting non-member carrier vessels and banning dual carrier/fishing authorisation.
Meanwhile, WCPFC's 2009 transhipment measure remains stubbornly un-updated… a familiar story for those of us in the Pacific.
The report also documents a case of 22 PRC-flagged vessels transshipping 59 times with the Wan Tong, a vessel already on NPFC's IUU list under a different name, which the PRC nonetheless kept on its approved carrier list on the basis of a change of ownership and flag. NPFC found the PRC non-compliant as a result — a useful, concrete illustration of exactly how transhipment control gets gamed.
The full report is worth reading directly for the RFMO-by-RFMO detail in the later chapters, particularly if you work across CCAMLR, IATTC, ICCAT, or the Pacific bodies.
As always, the identifications and certifications reflect U.S. interests (hence China is the constant villain) and U.S. legal comparability standards, not a neutral global assessment — but as a structured, sourced, and reasonably transparent process, it remains one of the better public trackers of state-level IUU and bycatch performance available.
The views expressed here are my personal ones and don't reflect the position of any of my contractors.