Cyanide fishing on coral reefs. Mangroves cleared for prawn ponds. Bottom trawling on unsurveyed seamounts. Choosing imported seafood often means subsidising practices Australia banned decades ago.
Tropical shrimp aquaculture in SE Asia, Central America, and Africa has been one of the largest single drivers of mangrove loss — destroying coastal nurseries, increasing storm-surge risk, and emitting massive amounts of stored carbon.
Coral reef fish for the live-fish-trade and aquarium trade are still routinely caught using cyanide in parts of SE Asia. Dynamite fishing destroys reefs in seconds. Australian reef fisheries (coral trout, red emperor) operate under line-caught quotas.
Some imported seafood comes from deep-sea trawl fisheries operating on under-surveyed seamounts and sensitive habitats — fisheries that could not operate under Australian environmental law. Orange roughy stocks are a global cautionary tale.