The Legislature further finds and declares that the fisheries of this state are affected with a public interest, in that, among other things:

(a) The harvesting, processing, manufacturing, and distributing of fishery products constitute a paramount industry of this state, which not only provides substantial and required revenues for the state and its political subdivisions and employment and a means of livelihood for many residents, but which also furnishes essential foods that are vital to the public health and welfare.

(b) It is through commercial fishermen and receivers that more than 90 percent of this state’s citizens have access to these healthful foods which are resources that belong to all of the residents of the state and country.

(c) The stabilization, maintenance, and expansion of the California commercial fisheries, and of the state, nationwide, and foreign markets for its products are necessary to ensure the consuming public access to, and an adequate supply of foods which are indispensable in, a proper human diet, to protect, for the state and its political subdivisions, a necessary source of tax revenue, to provide and maintain an adequate standard of living for a segment of the population of this state, to maintain proper wage scales for those engaged in the California commercial fisheries, and to maintain existing employment.

(d) The essentiality of fish, low in fat and calories, to proper human nutrition and to the maintenance of a high level of public health is such as to require that the public be made thoroughly aware thereof, and be protected against misrepresentation and deception, through the dissemination of accurate and scientific information relative to the healthful qualities of fishery and seafood products, their various classifications and the food values and industrial and medicinal uses thereof, the methods, care, and precautions necessary to their proper harvesting, processing, manufacturing, and distributing, and the necessary costs and expenses thereof, and the necessity and desirability on the part of the public of using and consuming fishery products of the highest standards of quality.

(Added by Stats. 1990, Ch. 1151, Sec. 1.)