How American Government Supports Sustainable Seafood

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The United States is recognized as a global leader in sustainable seafood, a reputation built on a rigorous, science-based approach to managing its vast marine resources.

The core mission of the US government involves protecting the long-term health of marine ecosystems and fish populations while simultaneously supporting the economies, food security, and cultural practices of the countless communities that depend on the ocean’s bounty.

From the coasts of New England to the waters of the Pacific Islands, the government’s work is a continuous effort to navigate the often-competing demands of conservation and commerce.

The Foundation: The Magnuson-Stevens Act

The foundation of modern American fisheries management is the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the principal law governing marine fisheries in U.S. federal waters.

First passed in 1976 and significantly strengthened in subsequent reauthorizations, the MSA established the legal and operational framework that transformed U.S. fisheries from a state of crisis into a global model for sustainability. It represents a fundamental philosophical shift from an era of unchecked resource extraction to one of science-based stewardship.

Reclaiming U.S. Waters

Prior to 1976, the state of U.S. fisheries was precarious. International waters began just 12 nautical miles from the coast, leaving vast and productive fishing grounds open to large, unregulated foreign fishing fleets. These fleets, often employing massive vessels and highly efficient gear, contributed to the depletion of valuable fish stocks, interfered with domestic fishing efforts, and damaged the coastal economies dependent on these resources.

The original 1976 Act took two decisive actions to address this crisis. First, it extended U.S. jurisdiction over its fisheries from 12 to 200 nautical miles offshore, creating a vast “fishery conservation zone” (now known as the Exclusive Economic Zone).

This single act asserted national sovereignty over some of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems. Second, it established a novel system of regional governance by creating eight Regional Fishery Management Councils, tasked with developing management plans for the fisheries within their geographic areas.

These actions were designed to phase out foreign fishing, prevent overfishing, and allow depleted stocks to recover for the benefit of the nation.

The National Standards for Sustainability

At the heart of the MSA are 10 National Standards for fishery conservation and management. These standards are the bedrock principles that every fishery management plan developed by the regional councils must adhere to, creating a consistent, legally mandated framework for sustainability across all U.S. fisheries.

While all ten are critical, several stand out for their foundational importance:

National Standard 1: Mandates that conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the “optimum yield” from each fishery. This creates the primary legal obligation to end and prevent the depletion of fish stocks.

National Standard 2: Requires that management be based upon the best scientific information available. This ensures that decisions about catch limits and conservation are driven by data and rigorous analysis, not political pressure alone.

National Standard 8: Obliges managers to take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities in order to provide for their “sustained participation” and to minimize adverse economic impacts, consistent with conservation requirements.

National Standard 9: States that management measures shall, to the extent practicable, minimize bycatch and the mortality of bycatch that cannot be avoided.

These standards establish a legal requirement for a balanced approach. The law does not prioritize conservation above all else, nor does it prioritize economic gain. Instead, it creates a designed tension between biological, economic, and social objectives that fishery managers must constantly navigate.

Regional Management Councils

The MSA’s most innovative feature is its system of eight Regional Fishery Management Councils, which are responsible for the fisheries in the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and Arctic oceans. This structure is unique in natural resource management, creating a participatory and decentralized process for developing federal regulations.

Each council is composed of representatives from federal and state agencies, as well as members of the public—primarily from the commercial and recreational fishing industries, but also from environmental organizations—who are nominated by state governors and appointed by the Secretary of Commerce.

This structure ensures that stakeholders with direct knowledge of and a vested interest in the fisheries have a seat at the table.

The councils’ primary responsibility is to develop fishery management plans for the fisheries in their region. This process is public, transparent, and science-driven. Councils convene advisory panels, hold public meetings, and solicit public comment on all proposed actions.

Crucially, they set annual catch limits based on the scientific advice provided by their independent Scientific and Statistical Committees, which are composed of expert biologists, economists, and sociologists. When a fish stock is determined to be overfished, the council must develop a rebuilding plan to restore the population to a healthy level.

Evolution and Success

The MSA is not a static law. It has been significantly amended twice, with each reauthorization strengthening its conservation mandates. The 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act brought new requirements to prevent overfishing, rebuild depleted stocks, and, for the first time, identify and protect Essential Fish Habitat.

The 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act went even further. It mandated the use of strict, science-based annual catch limits and accountability measures for all federally managed fisheries.

This meant that if a catch limit was exceeded, the council was required to implement measures to correct the overage, making the prevention of overfishing a binding legal requirement rather than just a goal. The 2007 reauthorization also strengthened the role of science and enhanced international cooperation to combat illegal fishing.

By these measures, the MSA has been a remarkable success. Since the year 2000, 50 U.S. fish stocks have been declared rebuilt. The 2023 Report to Congress on the Status of U.S. Fisheries noted that the number of stocks on the overfishing list had reached an all-time low.

Independent academic studies have confirmed the policy’s effectiveness, finding that U.S. fish stocks subject to rebuilding plans doubled in size within five to ten years, while fish populations in regions without similar policies continued to decline. The recovery of stocks like summer flounder, haddock, and sea scallops demonstrates a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the MSA’s legal framework and positive biological outcomes.

However, this success has not been without significant challenges and criticism. The stringent measures required to rebuild stocks, which often involve sharp, short-term reductions in catch, have caused severe economic hardship in some fishing communities. The New England groundfish fishery, for example, has been the subject of a federally declared fishing disaster, with critics arguing that the MSA’s rigid rebuilding timelines have severely hampered the industry.

This highlights the acute trade-offs inherent in the law’s design; the process of achieving long-term ecological sustainability can impose painful short-term economic costs.

The Domestic Management System

While the Magnuson-Stevens Act provides the legal blueprint, a complex machine of federal agencies and targeted programs is responsible for its day-to-day implementation. This domestic toolkit combines scientific research, technological innovation, regulatory oversight, and safety enforcement to manage wild fisheries, promote new forms of seafood production, and ensure the product that reaches consumers is safe.

NOAA’s Leadership Role

At the center of this effort is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Sustainable Fisheries. This office acts as the national conductor, providing policy direction and coordinating the implementation of the MSA across the country.

It works directly with the eight regional councils to develop and approve fishery management plans, ensuring they comply with the 10 National Standards. Its key responsibilities include establishing policies to prevent overfishing, overseeing the rebuilding of depleted stocks, and determining the official status of U.S. fish stocks.

The Office also directly manages fisheries for Atlantic highly migratory species, such as tunas, sharks, and swordfish, which range over vast areas of the ocean. This involves setting quotas, issuing permits, and representing the U.S. in international negotiations for these shared resources.

A critical evolution in NOAA’s management philosophy is the increasing focus on Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management. This represents a significant shift from traditional single-species management, which often treats each fish stock in isolation.

EBFM is a more holistic approach that recognizes the complex suite of biological, physical, economic, and social factors that influence a marine ecosystem. It seeks to manage fisheries by considering the interactions among different species, the importance of habitat, the effects of climate change, and the needs of human communities.

By taking this broader view, EBFM aims to maintain resilient ecosystems and optimize benefits for the nation, moving fisheries science toward a more comprehensive and climate-ready future.

Reducing Bycatch

One of the most significant environmental impacts of fishing is bycatch—the unintentional capture of non-target species, including fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds. Bycatch is a major ecological problem that can slow the recovery of overfished stocks and harm protected species populations, and it is also an economic issue for fishermen who must discard unwanted catch.

National Standard 9 of the MSA legally mandates that bycatch be minimized to the extent practicable.

The U.S. government’s primary tool for translating this legal mandate into on-the-water action is the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program. BREP is a competitive annual grant program administered by NOAA Fisheries that provides millions of dollars in funding to support the development of innovative fishing gear and practices designed to reduce bycatch.

The program fosters collaboration among scientists, engineers, and fishermen, working side-by-side to find creative solutions.

BREP has funded a wide array of successful projects across the country, including:

Turtle Excluder Devices: These devices, required in shrimp and some flounder trawl fisheries, are grids fitted into the net that allow shrimp to pass to the back while directing larger animals like sea turtles and sharks out through an escape hatch.

Ropeless Fishing Gear: To protect large whales, particularly the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, from entanglement in the vertical lines of pot and trap gear, BREP has funded the development and testing of “on-demand” or “ropeless” systems. These systems store the line and buoy on the seafloor until the fisherman sends an acoustic signal to release them to the surface for retrieval.

Shark Deterrents: Projects have tested the use of weak electrical fields and specific types of magnets attached to fishing gear to deter sharks from taking bait intended for other species.

Gear Modifications: Other projects have demonstrated that simple changes, like using larger circle hooks in certain fisheries, can dramatically reduce the bycatch of undersized fish.

Despite these technological advances, accurately monitoring the scale of bycatch remains a challenge. The government relies heavily on data collected by human fisheries observers who are placed on commercial fishing vessels.

However, a 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that observer coverage—the percentage of fishing trips that carry an observer—varies widely and is very low in some major fisheries. For example, only 2% of trips in the Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl fishery had an observer.

This lack of data can make bycatch estimates less reliable. The GAO concluded that NOAA has not effectively communicated its resource needs for observer funding to Congress and recommended the agency develop measurable performance goals for reducing and monitoring bycatch.

Aquaculture Development

As global demand for seafood grows, it is clear that wild-capture fisheries alone cannot meet the need. Marine aquaculture, or the farming of fish, shellfish, and seaweed, is a resource-efficient way to produce protein and is seen by the U.S. government as a critical component of the nation’s future food security.

The National Seafood Strategy explicitly calls for increasing sustainable U.S. aquaculture production to support jobs, the economy, and the competitiveness of the U.S. seafood sector.

To facilitate this expansion, NOAA is actively identifying Aquaculture Opportunity Areas. These are specific geographic areas in federal waters that have been evaluated through a science- and stakeholder-driven process to be environmentally, socially, and economically appropriate for commercial aquaculture development.

The goal of the AOA process is to use the best available science to site farms in a way that minimizes conflicts with other ocean uses and reduces the environmental footprint of the industry.

However, a significant policy disconnect exists between the stated goal of expanding aquaculture and the practical reality of the regulatory environment. While the U.S. has a comprehensive suite of environmental laws that apply to aquaculture—including the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act—there is no single, streamlined federal statute for permitting aquaculture in federal waters.

Aspiring aquaculture producers face what a Congressional Research Service report described as a “complex, time consuming, and difficult to navigate” permit and consultation process involving multiple federal agencies, including NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

This “regulatory uncertainty” has been identified as one of the main barriers to investment and growth in the U.S. offshore aquaculture industry. This reveals a critical friction point in the government’s strategy: it actively promotes an industry for which it has not yet created a clear and efficient regulatory pathway.

Food Safety Oversight

The final piece of the domestic toolkit is ensuring that all seafood reaching the American consumer is safe and honestly labeled. This responsibility falls primarily to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA operates a mandatory food safety program for all seafood processors, both domestic and foreign, based on the principles of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point. This system requires processors to identify potential food safety hazards—such as pathogens or drug residues—and implement controls to prevent them.

The FDA’s oversight is particularly stringent for certain high-risk products. The harvest and sale of bivalve molluscan shellfish (oysters, clams, mussels) are managed through the National Shellfish Sanitation Program, a cooperative program between the FDA, states, and the industry that ensures shellfish are grown in clean waters and handled safely from harvest to market.

The agency is also adapting to new food technologies that could play a role in future seafood sustainability. In a landmark move, the FDA has reviewed and approved cell-cultivated (often called lab-grown) salmon as safe for human consumption.

This technology, which grows salmon meat directly from fish cells in a controlled environment, could one day reduce pressure on both wild stocks and traditional aquaculture. The FDA is now working to develop labeling guidelines for these novel products to ensure consumers are clearly informed about their nature and source.

Finally, the FDA provides direct advice to consumers about making healthy seafood choices. This includes the widely cited recommendation that Americans eat at least 8 ounces of seafood per week. This advice is balanced with guidance on mercury levels in certain fish species, helping sensitive populations like pregnant women and young children choose a variety of fish that are both nutritious and safe.

The Global Challenge: Fighting Illegal Fishing

While the United States has built a robust system for managing its own fisheries, the reality is that up to 85% of the seafood consumed in the country is imported. This creates a sustainability paradox: the U.S. is simultaneously a world leader in domestic fishery management and one of the largest markets for seafood sourced from a global system where destructive and illegal practices are rampant.

The government’s biggest sustainability challenge, therefore, lies not within its own 200-mile limit, but in policing the vast and often opaque international supply chains that stock American supermarkets and restaurants.

The Scale of Illegal Fishing

The most pervasive threat to global ocean health and sustainable fisheries is Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing. This term encompasses a wide range of illicit activities, from fishing without a license and ignoring catch limits to using prohibited gear and failing to report catches to authorities.

IUU fishing is a low-risk, high-reward enterprise that undermines every aspect of sustainability. It depletes fish stocks, destroys marine habitats, puts law-abiding fishermen at an unfair disadvantage, and threatens the food security of coastal communities worldwide.

The scale of the problem is immense. Experts estimate that IUU fishing nets criminals up to $36.4 billion each year. For the U.S., the International Trade Commission estimated that $2.4 billion worth of seafood derived from IUU fishing was imported in 2019 alone.

Furthermore, these activities are often intertwined with other transnational crimes, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, and forced labor, with harrowing reports of abuse and slave-like conditions aboard some fishing vessels.

A Coordinated Government Response

Recognizing IUU fishing as a threat to economic, food, and national security, the U.S. has adopted a “whole-of-government” approach to combat it. This strategy, formalized by the 2019 Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement Act and a 2022 National Security Memorandum from President Biden, coordinates the actions of 21 different federal agencies through an Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing.

The key players in this international effort are:

The Department of State: As the nation’s lead diplomatic agency, the State Department works to strengthen international fisheries governance. It represents the U.S. in multilateral forums, negotiates bilateral and regional agreements, and uses diplomatic tools to pressure nations to improve their practices.

A key part of this work is leading U.S. delegations to Regional Fishery Management Organizations, where it pushes for the adoption of science-based conservation measures. The State Department also coordinates with other agencies to deny port access to vessels from nations that have been negatively certified for engaging in IUU fishing.

NOAA Fisheries: NOAA’s Office of International Affairs, Trade, and Commerce is responsible for implementing key provisions of the MSA that address international fisheries. This includes producing the biennial Report to Congress on Improving International Fisheries Management, which formally identifies nations whose vessels have engaged in IUU fishing.

Once a nation is identified, NOAA initiates a two-year consultation process to encourage corrective actions. Failure to address the issues can lead to a negative certification, which can trigger sanctions like port access denial and import restrictions.

The U.S. Coast Guard: The Coast Guard provides the critical at-sea enforcement and maritime security presence. It conducts high-seas boardings and inspections to ensure vessels are complying with international conservation measures.

A cornerstone of its strategy is building partnerships with other coastal nations, particularly through “shiprider” agreements. These bilateral agreements allow law enforcement officials from a partner nation to ride aboard U.S. Coast Guard vessels, empowering them to enforce their own laws within their own waters with the support of U.S. assets.

This approach directly confronts predatory state behavior and builds the capacity of smaller nations to combat IUU fishing in their own regions.

This coordinated strategy reframes the fight against IUU fishing as a geopolitical issue. It is about more than just protecting fish; it is about enforcing a rules-based order at sea, countering the influence of strategic rivals who flout international norms, and using fisheries policy as an instrument of foreign policy and national security.

The Seafood Import Monitoring Program

The U.S. government’s most direct tool for leveraging its market power to combat IUU fishing is the Seafood Import Monitoring Program. Established in 2016 and fully implemented in 2018, SIMP is a risk-based traceability program designed to prevent seafood from IUU fishing and fraud from entering U.S. commerce.

The program requires U.S. importers to provide key data about the “chain of custody” for certain seafood products, tracing them from the point of harvest to the point of entry into the U.S. This information, including details on the harvesting vessel, fishing gear used, and landing location, is submitted through the U.S. government’s single trade data portal.

The program targets 13 species groups that have been identified as being particularly vulnerable to IUU fishing or seafood fraud.

Despite its goals, SIMP has been the subject of significant criticism regarding its effectiveness:

Limited Scope: A major critique is that SIMP is far from comprehensive. The 13 covered species groups account for only about one-third to one-half of all U.S. seafood imports by volume. Advocacy groups like Oceana argue that this leaves a massive loophole, allowing billions of dollars worth of potentially illicit seafood to enter the U.S. market with no traceability requirements.

Insufficient Auditing and Enforcement: The program’s impact is further questioned due to low levels of enforcement. A 2024 Congressional Research Service report noted that from January 2018 through September 2023, NOAA audited just 0.5% of all SIMP-covered import entries. Critics argue that without robust auditing, the program serves as little more than a paperwork exercise.

Clerical vs. Substantive Impact: Some stakeholders, including members of the seafood industry, contend that the program is a costly administrative burden that primarily catches clerical errors rather than stopping illicit products. NOAA itself has clarified that SIMP is not a consumer-facing eco-labeling program and is designed to trace seafood from “boat to dock,” not all the way to the dinner plate, meaning it does not prevent fraud that may occur later in the supply chain.

In response to these persistent concerns, NOAA announced in late 2023 that it was launching a comprehensive review of SIMP to enhance its impact and effectiveness. However, a proposed rule that would have strengthened the program and explicitly linked IUU fishing to forced labor was withdrawn in early 2025, leaving the future of SIMP’s expansion uncertain.

International Cooperation

Beyond its domestic trade rules, the U.S. actively engages in international diplomacy to build a global consensus around sustainable fishing. A primary venue for this work is through Regional Fishery Management Organizations. These are treaty-based international bodies where member countries, including the United States, cooperate to manage fish stocks that straddle or migrate across multiple national jurisdictions and the high seas.

Through its leadership in RFMOs like ICCAT (tunas) and the North Pacific Fisheries Commission, the U.S. pushes for the adoption of science-based catch limits, stronger monitoring and enforcement, and measures to protect vulnerable ecosystems.

The U.S. also champions key international agreements that provide the framework for global fisheries governance:

The UN Fish Stocks Agreement: This is the primary international legal instrument for ensuring the long-term conservation and sustainable use of highly migratory and straddling fish stocks. The U.S. works through the UN to promote its effective implementation.

The Port State Measures Agreement: Hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, this agreement is the first binding international treaty specifically designed to combat IUU fishing. Its core function is to prevent vessels engaged in IUU fishing from using ports to land their illegal catches, effectively closing off their access to global markets.

The WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: After more than two decades of negotiations, the World Trade Organization adopted a groundbreaking agreement in 2022 to prohibit certain forms of harmful fisheries subsidies. These subsidies, which total an estimated $22 billion annually, artificially lower the costs of fishing and are a key driver of overfishing and global fleet overcapacity. The U.S. played a leading role in the negotiations and continues to push for the agreement’s swift entry into force.

Success Stories and Challenges

The world of fisheries management is not static. It is a dynamic field where long-term strategies are constantly tested by new scientific information, unforeseen environmental shocks, and the immense challenge of a changing climate.

Case studies from U.S. fisheries provide tangible examples of both the remarkable successes that are possible with adaptive, science-based management and the profound difficulties that lie ahead.

Success Story: Atlantic Sea Scallop Recovery

The Atlantic sea scallop fishery stands as one of the most compelling success stories in U.S. fisheries management. In the mid-1990s, the fishery was on the verge of collapse. Decades of operating under an “open access” system, where anyone could participate, had led to a massive buildup of fishing effort and severe overfishing. By 1998, landings had plummeted, and the resource was declared overfished.

The turnaround was the direct result of a series of bold management decisions made under the framework of the Magnuson-Stevens Act:

Limited Access: In 1994, the fishery was changed from open to limited access. Permits were issued only to vessels with a history of participation, effectively capping the size of the fleet and preventing future increases in fishing effort.

Effort Controls and Gear Technology: Each permitted vessel was given a limited number of “days-at-sea” to fish. Concurrently, regulations were implemented to increase the ring size on scallop dredges, allowing smaller, juvenile scallops to escape and grow to a more valuable size before being harvested.

Area Management: The most transformative change was the implementation of large-scale rotational area management. In 1994, three large areas on Georges Bank were closed to all fishing to help rebuild groundfish stocks. This had the secondary benefit of protecting vast beds of scallops.

Building on this, managers began a system of closing areas where surveys detected high densities of small scallops, keeping them closed for several years to allow the scallops to grow, and then reopening them for targeted fishing.

Science-Industry Collaboration: The success of area management was critically dependent on good science. A groundbreaking cooperative research program, led by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science and Technology in partnership with the scallop fleet, developed a video survey system that could be deployed from commercial fishing vessels.

This provided managers with far more precise and timely data on scallop abundance and distribution than was previously available, allowing for the strategic opening and closing of areas and building trust between industry and regulators.

The results were dramatic. The scallop population rebuilt rapidly. By the 2000s, landings had soared, and the Atlantic sea scallop fishery became the most valuable in the United States. In 2019, commercial landings were valued at approximately $570 million.

The story of the scallop is a powerful demonstration of a virtuous cycle: strong management controls on fishing pressure, combined with good data and stakeholder trust, can lead to both ecological recovery and enormous economic prosperity.

Challenge: Climate Change and Pacific Northwest Salmon

In stark contrast to the scallop’s success, the plight of many Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead populations illustrates the profound challenge that climate change poses to fisheries management. These iconic species, which are culturally and economically vital to the region, are facing a crisis driven by environmental factors that traditional fishing regulations cannot solve.

A warming climate is altering every stage of the salmon’s complex life cycle:

Freshwater Impacts: Rising stream temperatures are reducing the amount of cold-water habitat essential for spawning and juvenile rearing. Changes in snowpack and rainfall patterns are altering river flows, which can impede both the downstream migration of young smolts to the ocean and the upstream return of spawning adults.

Marine Impacts: In the ocean, warming waters are shifting the location and abundance of the plankton and small fish that salmon rely on for food. The entire marine food web is being disrupted, and ocean acidification presents another long-term threat.

This environmental upheaval is undermining a core assumption of fisheries management: stationarity, the idea that ecosystems, while variable, are fundamentally stable over time. Climate change is introducing a level of “non-stationarity” that makes historical data a less reliable guide for the future.

Managers are now grappling with sudden, catastrophic events, such as the marine heatwave that contributed to the collapse of the Alaska snow crab population, and long-term shifts in species distribution, with fish like black sea bass moving hundreds of miles north on the Atlantic coast.

For Pacific salmon, the outlook is grim. Scientific models project that under current climate trajectories, many populations are at high risk of extinction within the coming decades, even with changes in their migratory behavior.

This case study demonstrates that the management toolkit that worked so well for scallops—controlling fishing effort—is insufficient for a problem driven by global climate change. The challenge for NOAA and its partners is to develop new, more flexible, and predictive management approaches that can adapt to a rapidly changing world.

Challenge: Managing Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

The management of Atlantic bluefin tuna highlights the immense difficulty of international cooperation. Bluefin are a highly valuable, highly migratory species, crossing the entire Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea during their lifetime. They are fished by dozens of nations and managed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

For decades, intense fishing pressure, driven by high market demand, led to severe depletion of the stock. Reaching a consensus on science-based quotas within ICCAT has been a persistent challenge, with short-term national economic interests often clashing with long-term conservation goals.

The use of highly efficient fishing gear like longlines also results in significant bycatch of other vulnerable species, such as sharks and sea turtles, further complicating management efforts.

While ICCAT has made progress in recent years by adopting modern management procedures and harvest control rules for bluefin tuna, the process has been slow and contentious. This case illustrates that even with the best available science, managing shared international resources requires a level of political will and cooperation that can be difficult to achieve and sustain among competing nations.

Challenge: Disaster Response System

When a fishery experiences a sudden and catastrophic loss, often due to an extreme environmental event, the federal government has a process to declare a “fishery disaster” and provide financial assistance to affected communities. This process, however, is itself facing significant challenges, as detailed in a 2025 GAO report.

The GAO found that the process to get disaster relief funds to fishermen and fishing communities is critically slow, often taking more than three years from the time of the disaster to the disbursement of funds. Stakeholders reported that communication from NMFS about the status of their requests was often inadequate, and the agency had not assessed whether it had sufficient staff to manage an increasing workload.

This issue is directly linked to climate change. The frequency of fishery disasters caused by extreme events—hurricanes, marine heatwaves, harmful algal blooms—is increasing, placing ever more strain on a reactive and overburdened system.

The challenges with the disaster assistance program underscore the urgent need to shift from a reactive posture of providing relief after a collapse to a more proactive and resilient management approach that anticipates and adapts to climate-driven changes before they become disasters.

Your Role as a Consumer

The complex machinery of government—from the halls of Congress where the Magnuson-Stevens Act was written, to the decks of Coast Guard cutters patrolling the high seas—ultimately connects to a simple, everyday act: choosing what seafood to buy at the grocery store or order at a restaurant.

The government recognizes that an informed public is a crucial ally in the mission for sustainability, and it provides tools to help consumers make responsible choices.

FishWatch.gov: The Government’s Guide

The U.S. government’s primary resource for seafood consumers is FishWatch.gov, a website managed by NOAA Fisheries. FishWatch is designed to provide the public with clear, accessible, and science-based facts about the sustainability of U.S. seafood.

It serves as the direct public-facing output of the vast scientific and management apparatus that monitors and assesses the nation’s fisheries.

For hundreds of species, FishWatch provides easy-to-understand profiles that give a snapshot of their sustainability status. For wild-caught species, these profiles include key metrics such as:

• Population Status: Whether the fish stock is at a healthy level, overfished, or in a rebuilding plan
• Fishing Rate: Whether the stock is being fished at a sustainable level or if overfishing is occurring
• Habitat Impacts: An assessment of how the fishing gear used to catch the species affects marine habitats
• Bycatch: Information on the rate of bycatch in the fishery and the management measures in place to reduce it

For farmed species, the profiles provide insights into environmental impacts, the types of feed used, farming methods, and how human health concerns are addressed.

By translating complex stock assessments and management plans into straightforward information, FishWatch empowers consumers to understand the science behind their seafood choices.

Complementary NGO Tools

Working in parallel with the government are numerous non-governmental organizations that also provide consumer guidance and certification programs. These tools often complement government efforts and have become influential in the marketplace.

Prominent examples include:

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch: This program is well-known for its consumer guides that use a simple traffic-light system to rate seafood as a “Best Choice” (green), “Good Alternative” (yellow), or “Avoid” (red) based on its environmental impact.

Marine Stewardship Council: The MSC is a global, third-party certification program for wild-caught seafood. Fisheries that voluntarily undergo a rigorous assessment and meet the MSC’s standard for sustainability can use the recognizable blue fish label on their products, providing consumers with an assurance that the seafood was sourced from a well-managed fishery.

Aquaculture Stewardship Council: The ASC is the farmed seafood equivalent of the MSC, providing a certification and label for aquaculture operations that meet its standards for environmental and social responsibility.

Why “Buy U.S.” Makes Sense

Navigating the complexities of global seafood can be daunting for even the most conscientious consumer. However, the evidence presented throughout this report leads to a single, powerful, and actionable conclusion: looking for “USA” as the country of origin is one of the simplest and most reliable ways to choose sustainable seafood.

This is not a matter of simple patriotism, but a direct reflection of the robust legal and scientific framework that governs American fisheries. Because of the mandates of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, U.S. seafood—whether wild-caught or farmed—is managed under some of the most stringent and transparent environmental standards in the world.

The requirements to end overfishing, rebuild stocks, minimize bycatch, and protect habitat are legally binding and scientifically monitored. While the system is not perfect and faces immense challenges, particularly from climate change, its fundamental integrity provides a high degree of assurance that is often absent in the global marketplace.

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