Overfishing - emptying our seas

More and more people are competing for less and less fish and exacerbating the existing oceans crisis, as today's industrialised fishing practices exceed nature's ability to replenish the ocean's fish stocks. We are also fishing in areas we could never reach before, and targeting species further down the 'food web' as familiar stocks disappear.

Portugese bottom trawler fishing off the Grand Banks, Canada, 2005

Giant ships, using state-of-the-art finding sonar, can pinpoint schools of fish quickly and accurately. The ships also have fish processing and packing plants, huge freezing systems, fishmeal processing plants, and powerful engines to drag enormous fishing gear through the ocean.

According to the United Nations, 71-78 per cent of the world's fisheries are 'fully exploited', 'over exploited' or significantly depleted'. Some species have already been fished to commercial extinction. More are on the verge of extinction. Regulation of fishing vessels is universally inadequate. More often than not, the fishing industry is given access to fish stocks before the impact of their fishing practices is known.

Overfishing doesn't only threaten the fish species we target for food. Other species - such as marine mammals and seabirds - are caught incidentally in fishing gear and killed. Moreover, the fishing practices are destructive. Bottom trawling, for example, can destroy entire habitats found on the ocean floor.

The impacts are felt throughout the marine ecosystems. Scientists are already warning that the oceans will suffer profound changes as a result of overfishing and destructive fishing practices.

Overfishing: an international perspective