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The United States' current Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) and a potential extension are undergoing review, yet quantitative evaluation of the current program is lacking. The SIMP is a traceability program aimed at reducing imports of seafood products that are of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) origin or associated with seafood fraud. We conducted a quantitative examination of the SIMP's current scope and design by synthesizing publicly available trade data along with measures of IUU fishing and seafood mislabeling. We found prioritized shipments amounted to 33% of 2016 imported tonnage. The SIMP species groups had higher IUU scores and mislabeling rates relative to non-SIMP groups, but the difference was consistent with random prioritization suggesting potential benefits from program expansion. Furthermore, two-thirds of imported volume lacked a mislabeling rate and 5% lacked species information, underlining the urgent need for improved open-access data on globalized seafood supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impacts of climate change are evident and intensifying for coastal communities and natural resource-dependent stakeholders. As climate impacts mount, so does the need to understand mechanisms that enable and impede proactive adaptation. Through two years of focus groups and interviews with fisheries participants in the Gulf of Alaska, we explore subjective climate change attribution—the expressed connection between an observed ecosystem change and climate change itself—amongst fisheries stakeholders, and its extension to other stakeholders and coastal communities. Participants’ observations differentiate fishing communities’ experiences of climate change, revealing perceptions of marine heatwave impacts and trends in target and non-target fishery species. We interrogate these findings through models for climate attribution, risk appraisal, and adaptive capacity. Fishermen (We use the term fishermen instead of fishers in keeping with how those participating in the fishing industry in Alaska refer to themselves, irrespective of their gender) recognize tremendous ecosystem change but convey a mismatch between those observations and climate attribution. Perceptions of individual risk and adaptive capacity are complicated by psychological roadblocks, opportunity costs, and a lack of perceived options for adaptation. Yet fishermen’s discussion reveals pathways to reconcile observations of change with attribution, risk appraisal, and adaptive capacity, especially with science in a critical role to bridge the gaps within and across these processes for fishermen, natural resource users, and coastal communities more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]