New Analysis: Animal Welfare Act Enforcement Deteriorates Following SCOTUS Ruling aalberg Mon, 09/29/2025 - 11:52 photo by Jo-Anne McArthur/NEAVS/We Animals October 8, 2025 Washington, DC—The US Department of Agriculture, long known for its lackluster enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), appears in recent years to have drifted even further away from enforcement efforts. Since mid-2024 in particular, according to an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) report released today, the department has largely abandoned the use of fines to address AWA violations, electing instead to issue official warnings that lack meaningful repercussions. The timing of this shift underscores the potential implications of a recent Supreme Court decision pertaining to fines levied by a federal agency.The report, titled Trends in Animal Welfare Act Enforcement, is an original analysis of actions taken by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) to encourage compliance with the AWA, based on documentation obtained from the agency’s online Animal Welfare and Horse Protection Actions database. AWI analyzed the database’s enforcement-related documents dating from January 2020 (when the database’s AWA documentation begins) to August 2025. The analysis revealed that following the Supreme Court’s June 2024 decision in Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] v. Jarkesy—in which the court held that the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial applied to assessment of fines by the SEC for securities fraud—there was a precipitous drop in the issuance of fines by USDA-APHIS. In the 14 months following this decision, which could potentially be construed to apply to USDA-APHIS’s assessment of fines under the AWA, USDA-APHIS levied a meager five fines, including just one since the second Trump administration took office in January. This stands in stark contrast to the 63 fines issued in the 14 months preceding the Jarkesy decision. In fact, it is even fewer than the number of fines imposed over a similar time frame during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many facilities were temporarily closed and routine inspections were severely curtailed.Official warnings are not considered enforcement actions, and since 2021, there have been more official warnings issued for AWA violations than all enforcement actions (administrative complaints, confiscations, license suspensions, settlements, and decisions and orders) combined. Furthermore, official warnings’ proportion of total actions seems to be growing: In the year before the Jarkesy decision, official warnings constituted 66% of all actions taken by USDA-APHIS in response to what it identified as AWA violations; in the year following the decision, official warnings constituted 91% of actions taken. Official warnings have been issued even when violations are severe. For example, Alpha Genesis Incorporated (AGI)—which sells and experiments on nonhuman primates—received an official warning earlier this year for the preventable death of 22 monkeys in November 2024. This is the third official warning AGI has received since 2014 for violations that include monkey deaths and escapes.For animals in laboratories, this situation is especially concerning. The issuance of fines appears to be one of USDA-APHIS’s primary enforcement mechanisms against research facilities, as research facilities are exempt from certain AWA enforcement actions, such as license revocations and criminal penalties.If USDA-APHIS cannot or will not issue fines against violators, the AWA’s protections will be severely weakened for the approximately 775,000 warm-blooded animals used in research, testing, and teaching in the United States each year—leaving these animals nearly as vulnerable as the tens of millions of rats, mice, birds, and cold-blooded animals who are not even covered under the AWA.“The USDA’s apparent hesitancy to take meaningful enforcement actions in the wake of the Jarkesy decision is troubling,” said Dr. Joanna Makowska, director of AWI’s Animals in Laboratories Program. “Our government must have an effective mechanism for enforcing its primary federal law regulating the use of animals in research—anything less is unacceptable.”Chronic understaffing at USDA-APHIS—a problem that is only getting worse as the number of facilities the agency is charged with inspecting continues to increase while the number of inspectors decreases—further jeopardizes the welfare of all animals under the AWA’s purview. The agency has lost more than one-third of its inspectors in the last several years, including a 15% decrease in 2025 alone. Meanwhile, between 2021 and 2024, the number of licensees and registrants increased by nearly 50%. Several legislative efforts to strengthen AWA enforcement are under consideration by Congress, including the Better CARE for Animals Act and Goldie’s Act. The Animal Welfare Enforcement Improvement Act, a longstanding AWI priority bill that would close AWA loopholes that allow chronic violators to escape accountability, could be reintroduced soon as well.“Our analysis indicates that the USDA’s historically weak enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act is getting weaker. We are failing millions of animals who deserve, at minimum, robust enforcement of existing law,” said Makowska. “While the long-term repercussions of the Jarkesy decision remain to be seen, the data highlight the department’s struggle to fulfill its most basic responsibilities to these animals. This is a problem that won’t be fixed overnight—but strengthening the AWA itself is a great starting point.” Media Contact Information Kim Meneo, Animal Welfare Institutekim@awionline.org, (202) 446-2116 The Animal Welfare Institute (awionline.org) is a nonprofit charitable organization founded in 1951 and dedicated to alleviating animal suffering caused by people. We seek to improve the welfare of animals everywhere: in agriculture, in commerce, in our homes and communities, in research, and in the wild. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and LinkedIn for updates and other important animal protection news.

IUCN Reaffirms Long-Tailed Macaques’ Endangered Status Despite Industry Pressure aalberg Fri, 10/10/2025 - 15:11 October 10, 2025 Washington, DC—The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) today released an update to its Red List of Threatened Species. The update revealed that the long-tailed macaque (LTM) remains listed as “endangered,” signifying that the species “faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild.” The National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR)—an industry-funded pro-animal-research lobbying group—had petitioned IUCN to downlist the species.LTMs face unprecedented threats to their survival. As noted in the newly published species assessment, they have experienced “an inferred 50–70% decline over the past three generations (30 years) due to habitat loss and high levels of exploitation,” including accelerating demand from the biomedical and pharmaceutical research industries. IUCN anticipates that the species will continue to decline at a similar rate in the future.“We applaud IUCN for its refusal to back down to industry pressure. Science—not special interests—should guide species protection,” said Dr. Joanna Makowska, director of the Animal Welfare Institute’s Animals in Laboratories Program.IUCN originally uplisted LTMs from “vulnerable” to “endangered” in March 2022, citing trade, including for biomedical research, as a major threat to the survival of the species. More than a year later, following a series of events that negatively impacted the lucrative primate trade, NABR petitioned IUCN to reverse its 2022 designation and downlist the species. Since then, NABR and its sister organization, the Foundation for Biomedical Research, have persistently campaigned for downlisting on the grounds that LTMs “play a critical role in developing new drugs, devices and vaccines.”In June 2024, IUCN announced that the species would continue to be classified as endangered while the organization awaited a revised scientific assessment. IUCN has been reviewing the revised assessment for the past several months.More than three years after the original endangered designation, the final verdict is in: Scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the global population of LTMs is severely declining, has experienced localized extinctions, and will continue to decline at a precipitous rate unless threats to the species are mitigated. IUCN will therefore maintain its 2022 endangered designation for LTMs.“The National Association for Biomedical Research has repeatedly campaigned to downlist the species, citing the importance of long-tailed macaques for biomedical research,” Makowska continued. “But that argument is beside the point: If the global population is in freefall, the species should be provided with the appropriate protections. Full stop.”IUCN’s decision may be critical in ensuring LTMs’ long-term survival. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi, and plant species. IUCN listings are grounded in science, and though they don’t carry legislative or regulatory authority on their own, they can influence the level of protections a species receives under international agreements and national laws, including the Conventional on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)—an agreement among 185 nations—and the US Endangered Species Act. Media Contact Information Kim Meneo, Animal Welfare Institutekim@awionline.org, (202) 446-2116 The Animal Welfare Institute (awionline.org) is a nonprofit charitable organization founded in 1951 and dedicated to alleviating animal suffering caused by people. We seek to improve the welfare of animals everywhere: in agriculture, in commerce, in our homes and communities, in research, and in the wild. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and LinkedIn for updates and other important animal protection news.

Each year, The Chronicle of Philanthropy releases its list of America’s Favorite Charities—the 100 nonprofits that raise the most from individual donors, foundations, and corporate philanthropies. Together, these organizations inspire generosity and collective impact, accounting for more than $38 billion in charitable giving in 2023. We’re proud to see several of our members recognized on… The post Congratulations to Our Members Recognized Among America’s Favorite Charities appeared first on America's Charities.

Using collar data, we’ve been searching for kills made by the two female snow leopards that gave birth this summer, F12 and F19. While doing this, we have noticed that they employed two very different parenting strategies. F12 appears to take more risks and is likely able to provide the cubs with more food, whereas F19 plays it safer, possibly providing less meat but potentially keeping her cubs more secure. F12 and her cubs left their den on July 26th, when the cubs were almost 2 months old. She had just killed a female ibex and moved the cubs to the kill. They had a nice, protected ledge just 50 m above the kill, where they could stay hidden. This was relatively close to our Base Camp – in fact, they could see the Base Camp from the ledge. F12’s two cubs at 28 days old. Since then, F12 has followed this strategy: hunt and then move the cubs to the feast. When the meat runs out, she relocates the cubs a few hundred meters to another site with lots of hiding places (typically tall vegetation and steep walls with crevices and caves), often close to a water hole. She stashes the cubs here when hunting. Once she has made a kill, she goes back to the cubs and travels to the kill site with them. This has continued since late July. We think this pattern will repeat until the end of October or November, when the cubs should be big enough to travel with her more extensively. F19 has a much more careful approach. She didn’t abandon her den until September 2nd.  At that time, the cubs were almost three months old. Prior to this, we have never seen a female use a den for such a long time. It’s probably a risk-averse approach to keep them in the same safe den, instead of traveling with them and stashing them in temporary sites. But at the same time, her cubs are restricted to a diet of milk, whereas F12’s cubs likely started eating meat a month earlier. When F19 finally left the den, she killed a big ibex male. She and the cubs fed on it for five to six days. Then she moved them to a ‘stash site’ high up on a mountain, where she kept them until September 19th (11 days total). During this time, she killed an ibex kid but didn’t bring the cubs to the kill. This pattern has repeated, where she keeps the cubs at a stash site for an extended period and only brings them to some of her kills. Perhaps they are still partly feeding on milk.  A rest site where F19 and her cubs spent about four and a half days. F12, now ten years old, has likely claimed the throne as the best-studied snow leopard female, a title passed down from Dagina, who inherited it from F12’s own mother, Anu. This is F12’s fourth litter; her prior three litters consisted of three, one and three cubs. We know that the single cub disappeared, but the other six cubs survived to at least 1.5 years of age. Once they disperse from their mother, it’s difficult to know their stories unless they stay in the area and show up on our camera traps or become part of our collaring program. One of her cubs, F16, is now collared and thriving. F12 and her previous litter of 3 cubs in 2023. Suffice it to say that F12 is an experienced mother. Logically, her strategy ought to be better as she can provide more food for the cubs, though perhaps she subjects them to greater risks. General view of the southeast part of Tost, where F19 and cubs spent quite a bit of time this past summer and fall F19 is only five years old. She has given birth before but has not successfully raised a litter. Perhaps losing her first litter made her extra cautious, or maybe that same strategy failed to provide enough food. We can’t know for sure. Whether this approach will succeed remains to be seen. What we can do is piece together her story from camera trap images and collar data, then apply those insights to conservation strategies that protect these cats, their habitat, and their prey. Beyond tracking these two mothers, we also collared a beautiful new male on our recent field trip. M25 is probably around five years old and appears to have claimed the territory in the northeast part of Tost around the crater. This area was previously held by Kurzawa, who controlled it since 2018, a remarkably long time for a wild snow leopard male. He was seen on camera in the crater area and more central parts of Tost in late fall of 2024, which suggests that M25 may have started to push him out of his area then.  Recently, we’ve had some rather bad weather with heavy rains that created a waterfall above our camp. It was beautiful, except that the water was flowing towards the camp. Flash floods destroyed many of our traps and completely altered the ravines, making it hard to predict where the cats will walk. We’ve also had some complications with a stone marten. I’d heard they can be troublemakers, climbing into cars and chewing cables, but I thought that was exaggerated. However, this guy has dug out our trap transmitters, pulling them hard enough to set off the alarm and then chewed off the cable to the antenna. Three times now we’ve been jolted awake, grabbed all our gear and scrambled off in a hurry, hoping to collar a snow leopard, only to find stone marten teeth marks. I used to really like martens. Now, I’m not so sure.  F19 recently received her Mongolian name, which is Khiimori.  It means Wind Spirit or Wind Horse. You can help snow leopard cubs in the wild by adopting your own plush cub. All adoptions fund our conservation programs. Photo credits: SLCF-Mongolia Acknowledgements: This long-term ecological study is in collaboration with Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation in Mongolia and Snow Leopard Trust, with special thanks to the Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism, the Government of Mongolia, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences for their support. We would also like to acknowledge: Acton Family Giving, Bioparc Zoo de Doue la Fontaine, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Idaho Falls Zoo at Tautphaus Park, John Ball Zoo, Kolmårdens Zoo, Korkeasaari Zoo, National Geographic Society, Nordens Ark, Parco Zoo Punta Verde, Play for Nature, Tierpark Berlin, The Big Cat Sanctuary/Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Tulsa Zoo, Whitley Fund for Nature, Zoo Basel, Zoo Dresden, Zoo New England and the many incredible partners who have supported programs like our Long-term Ecological Study and research in Mongolia since it began in 2008. We could not do this work without you. The post Two Mothers, Two Different Survival Strategies appeared first on Snow Leopard Trust.

Before this study, the genomes of only four snow leopards had been sequenced. This study brought that number up to 41, contributing a massive increase in our understanding of snow leopard genetics. Our team provided crucial support by sourcing samples for the Stanford scientists to sequence. Their findings tell an interesting story about the ancestry of snow leopards. Significantly, they found that snow leopards have the lowest genetic diversity among all big cat species, including cheetahs, which are well-known for their low genetic diversity. This is likely due to a persistently low, but stable, population size throughout their evolutionary history. Other species with low levels of genetic diversity often also have high rates of inbreeding, but researchers didn’t find evidence of this among snow leopards. This may be explained by a high level of connectivity between snow leopard populations, and because these intrepid cats have a penchant for traveling long distances between mountain ranges. Perhaps curiosity saved the cat? It’s impossible to know exactly how many snow leopards roamed Earth’s high peaks in the past, but this research suggests that their population has been consistently low during the last 900,000 years and then experienced a bottleneck about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago during the height of the last glaciation. But it seems even this apparent bottleneck, which may have halved their population, did not have a major impact on their genetic diversity, which is common after such occurrences.  All that was a long, long time ago. So what does it have to do with snow leopards today? While it’s reassuring that snow leopards don’t show high rates of inbreeding, a small population coupled with low genetic diversity means the species may be less able to adapt in a fast-changing world.  This is especially concerning, given that their habitat is already experiencing significant human-caused climate change and the growth of industry and development in their once inaccessible mountains. This remoteness was probably what kept the species secure despite its small population over millennia; the cats were able to endure because they were more removed from the pressures that humans have historically always put on predators.  That is no longer the reality, and conservation approaches will need to adapt if and when the snow leopard can’t. Our teams are working to address this growing threat in partnership with the Indigenous Peoples and local communities sharing these precarious mountains. Through livelihood adaptation programs, livestock care and management, and ethical research, we are fostering coexistence with snow leopards and securing their future. This groundbreaking work with Stanford opens new possibilities for our long-term research study of snow leopards. We’re continuing our collaboration to gather more samples that will help us understand the genetic structure of snow leopard populations and identify potential barriers to gene flow across their range.  One exciting possibility is using landscape genetics to map connectivity and animal movement across vast areas. This approach could reveal which landscape features act as barriers and which serve as dispersal corridors for snow leopards. While GPS collars are excellent for tracking individual movements, and cameras can show us movement between monitored sites, genetics may be the only tool that allows us to understand connectivity at large spatial scales. Sign up for our monthly E-News to get all the latest updates from the field delivered to your inbox. Read the full paper here. Photo credits: Ali Javed, SLCF-Mongolia Acknowledgments: Thank you to Stanford University, Bronx Zoo and all other contributors. The post What 900,000 Years of Snow Leopard Ancestry Tells Us About Their Ability to Adapt appeared first on Snow Leopard Trust.

High in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, an unlikely partnership is buzzing with possibility. Some local herding families are shifting their exclusive focus on livestock to include something sweeter—one that will make a difference for the endangered snow leopard. Beekeeping. What do honeybees have to do with snow leopards? Mountain communities have depended on grazing their animals across vast natural pastures for generations. But overgrazing is degrading the landscape, damaging the habitat that livestock, snow leopards and their prey need to survive. When livestock and wild animals compete for the same resources, it often spells trouble for both people and wildlife. Enter the humble honeybee. By incorporating beekeeping into their livelihoods, these mountain families can diversify their income beyond just herding. Selling honey provides an additional resource that works alongside nature. Less pressure on the pastures means healthier grasslands for all. The program is designed to benefit everyone involved. Community beekeepers contribute 20% of their honey sales to conservation efforts that protect both their livelihoods and local wildlife. This funding supports anti-poaching patrols, research cameras that monitor snow leopard populations and sustainable pasture management. In one community, rangers are even paid in liquid gold—honey serves as their salary.  Last year, seven communities in Kyrgyzstan maintained 200 beehives generating 1.75 tons of honey, and earning 40% above market rates for their snow leopard-friendly product. The beauty of this approach lies in its simplicity. By diversifying their income sources, families can improve their financial security and resilience against the impacts of climate change, such as unpredictable weather and shifting conditions. At the same time, snow leopards benefit from a healthier habitat that supports a greater population of wild prey, reducing the likelihood of livestock attacks.  It’s a win-win solution that helps everyone.   This is what successful conservation looks like: families earning sustainable incomes, landscapes healing and snow leopards roaming healthy habitats. If you’d like to sample a jar of snow leopard-friendly honey, you can bid on one in our Online Auction.  But hurry, this sweet offer ends on Friday, October 24! All proceeds support our snow leopard conservation programs. Photo credits: SLCF-Kyrgyzstan Acknowledgements: We express our gratitude to the United Nations Environment Programme and the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg for making the Vanishing Treasures project possible. This effort is also co-funded by IUCN Save Our Species, Chester Zoo and Seneca Park Zoo. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Snow Leopard Trust and do not necessarily reflect the views of IUCN. Thank you to Snow Leopard Foundation of Kyrgyzstan and Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program for being key partners in this project. Huge thanks are also extended to the local communities in the Ala-Too for their participation and partnership. The post Sweet Solutions: How Honeybees Are Helping Snow Leopards appeared first on Snow Leopard Trust.

Greenpeace activists hold a banner reading “Protect Oceans Protect Workers” in front of Taiwanese longliner Chyuan Shenq No. 226 in the North Pacific Ocean. © Ulet Ifansasti / Greenpeace Human trafficking remains entrenched in the global industrial fishing sector, where exploitative labor practices often overlap with destructive fishing operations. The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 128,000 fishers are trapped in situations of forced labor at sea, with high risks of injury, abuse, and death.  The 2025 U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons report, released this week, acknowledged the presence of systemic issues of forced labor in fishing, but failed to accurately rank some key actors in the global seafood supply chain that contribute to these issues. What is the TIP Report?  The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, published annually by the U.S. Department of State since 2001, is a primary U.S. government tool for assessing global anti-trafficking efforts. Each of the 188 governments is ranked according to its compliance with the standards in the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA): Tier 1: Full compliance with the minimum standards. Tier 2: Making significant efforts but still falling short. Tier 2 Watch List: Making significant efforts but with very high or rising number of victims and without increased government efforts.  Tier 3: Not meeting the minimum standards and no significant effort to improve underway. Combating human trafficking globally has for decades been a U.S. priority with bipartisan support. In principle, these rankings, considered the most comprehensive review of government action to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers, are meant to pressure governments to improve, as a low ranking carries the possibility of U.S. sanctions.  In practice, however, the report has long faced criticisms for its inconsistencies, political influence, and failure to reflect on-the-ground realities reported by workers and documented by human rights groups, and civil society organizations, including various entities in the Greenpeace network. In advance of the 2025 report, Greenpeace offices and civil society partners submitted detailed evidence on forced labor and trafficking in the fishing sector in Taiwan and Indonesia — two of the largest players in the global seafood industry — to the State Department to inform their understanding of these issues.   Keep reading for more information about the TIP Report, what information Greenpeace offices submitted, and why we believe Indonesia and Taiwan’s rankings were undeserved.  The Situation in Taiwan Greenpeace activists protest in front of the Fisheries Agency of Taiwan to push for the government towards progressive policy reform. Da Wang, a Taiwanese fishing vessel was charged of a human trafficking issue after the investigation and report released by Greenpeace. © Greenpeace / Chad Liu Taiwan operates one of the world’s largest distant water fishing fleets but has taken little substantive action to address issues that lead to systemic forced labor, according to comments submitted by Greenpeace USA, endorsed by Greenpeace East Asia – Taipei Office, to the State Department.  These comments included: Noting the continued listing of fish from Taiwan in the U.S. Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, which indicates significant risks of forced labor in the industry.  Documentation of 10 confirmed cases of forced labor. Evidence of inadequate investigation of reports of forced labor and failure to identify victims. An analysis of policy failures, including no mandate for ships to return to port every three to six months, ongoing allowance of transshipment at sea, and no requirement for free, secure, and reliable Wi-Fi on vessels — gaps which leave fishers isolated, and limited in their ability to communicate, organize, report abuses, and file grievances.  Greenpeace USA recommended that Taiwan be downgraded from Tier 1 to Tier 2.  The Situation in Indonesia The Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI) together with Greenpeace Indonesia conducted a peaceful action in front of Presidential Palace in Jakarta, to encourage the President to immediately ratify the Government Regulation draft on the Protection of Indonesian migrant fishers. According to the SBMI-Greenpeace Investigation Report Paper regarding data during 2015-2020, there were at least 11 Indonesian crew members who were victims of forced labor and even died on foreign ships. It is not uncommon for their bodies to be thrown into the high seas. © Adhi Wicaksono / Greenpeace For the first time, Greenpeace Indonesia supported a joint civil society submission on Indonesia’s efforts to combat human trafficking. The comments were presented by Sumatera Environmental Initiative (SEI) along with the Union of Indonesian Migrant Workers (SBMI) and the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG).  Their comments noted: Persistent and egregious failures to identify victims, prosecute traffickers, and prevent recruitment abuses. Continued denial of justice to 12 migrant fishers from Aceh, whose experiences of human trafficking were documented in detail in a report presented to the Indonesian government more than a year ago. Consistent failure of local governments to prevent the trafficking of Indonesian nationals onto fishing vessels, including the presence of illegal recruiters in government-run vocational schools, where they are allowed to actively target students for recruitment in the fishing industry.  Police mishandling of trafficking cases and the government’s ongoing failure to properly identify and protect victims.  Based on the severity and persistence of these issues, the coalition called for Indonesia to be downgraded from Tier 2 to the Tier 2 Watchlist or Tier 3. 2025 TIP Report: Progress in Acknowledgment, Failure in Accountability The 2025 TIP Report, released three months late, made progress by including a section recognizing the link between forced labor and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It also acknowledged systemic failings in both Taiwan and Indonesia.  In the case of Taiwan, it noted fewer investigations and prosecutions, failure to fully implement victim identification, insufficient inspections, siloed responsibilities among ministries, and continued restrictions on migrant workers’ labor rights to change jobs. For Indonesia, it noted endemic corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes, particularly in the fishing, palm oil, and extractive industries, which severely inhibited law enforcement action.  Despite these findings, the State Department again awarded Taiwan a Tier 1 ranking – for the 16th such consecutive year – while Indonesia maintained its Tier 2 status. Why This Matters By refusing to downgrade Taiwan and Indonesia, the U.S. has sent a dangerous signal to governments that failure to protect workers and prosecute traffickers carries little consequences. For the thousands of fishers trapped in forced labor, this decision means more deferred action on systemic changes to address their isolation and exploitation and less hope of justice. For Big Seafood, it provides cover for them to continue to profit from a business model built on abuse and environmental destruction. Finally, it undermines the credibility of the TIP Report itself as a U.S. foreign policy tool for accountability in anti-trafficking policy. The late release of the TIP report, paired with the steep cuts to the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, the International Labor Relations Bureau, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), further weakens oversight and raises serious concerns about America’s commitment to addressing these issues. The evidence is clear. The stakes are high. Workers deserve better, and governments and industry must be held to account.  What You Can Do Contact your member of Congress. Demand US leadership in combating modern slavery and human trafficking in the fishing industry and support to ensure that key programs and agencies, such as the International Labor Relations Bureau, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and NOAA, are protected.  Sign the petition. Tell “Big Seafood” it’s time to stop profiting from modern slavery and to end isolation at sea.  The post The 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report: Progress in Acknowledgment, Failure in Accountability appeared first on Greenpeace.