February 19th, 2026 – A new investigation from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) reveals how one of the world’s most important squid fisheries is being pushed towards ecological and social crisis, as vast Chinese fishing fleets exploit weak governance, poor transparency and regulatory loopholes across the South East Pacific. Squid caught by one company implicated in some of the worst fisheries and labour abuses, China National Fisheries Corporation, were exported to the USA, EU and the UK.
The report exposes how China’s distant-water squid fleet is operating at an extraordinary scale in the South East Pacific. It targets jumbo flying…