Colombo: China’s distant-water fishing fleet is an engine of environmental destruction and labour exploitation, which, if continued, will keep on destroying ecosystems, undermining food security and violating human rights, a report has said.

A report in Sri Lanka-based Daily Mirror has stated that the dominance of China, which operates the world’s largest distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet, in global fisheries has come at an “increasingly unsustainable cost”.

“With more than 16,000 active vessels — far exceeding the government’s official cap of 3,000 — China’s DWF footprint is massive, spanning virtually every oceanic region (Overseas Development Institute, 2020). These fleets are not merely fishing further afield; they are operating with poor transparency, inadequate oversight, and grow

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