In spite of many local and international restrictions, overfishing continues to be a glaring reality, even escalating at an alarming rate. Countries have been breaking their environmental pledges in this regard, creating a huge gap between what countries promise to do to end overfishing and what actually happens in the seas, oceans, and coastal waters. A recent study published in PLoS Biology boldly states this conclusion.

The study is authored by renowned marine biologists Ransom A. Myers and Boris Worm. It is the ‘first global assessment of human management of fisheries — designated areas where fish and aquatic animals are caught.’

According to Worm, “The consequences of overexploiting the world’s fisheries are a concern not only for food security and socioeconomic development but for ocean ecosystems. We now recognize that overfishing can also lead to the erosion of biodiversity and ecosystem productivity.”

The contents of the assessment report are shocking to say the least, pointing to the fact that ‘many of the world’s major fisheries are in shocking decline.’ Earlier findings had already been alarming. About 90 percent of the world’s big fish, such as bluefin tuna, blue marlin and Antarctic cod, have almost disappeared from the oceans since the advent of industrial fishing in the 1950s. And by 2048 the world’s supply of seafood will likely simply run out. As of 2008, 80 percent of the world’s fish stocks were considered either vulnerable to collapse or already collapsed.’

Today, ‘only 7 percent of coastal states did rigorous scientific assessments to generate fishing policies; a pitiful 1.4 percent have a participatory and transparent process for turning that science into policy; and fewer than 1 percent had strong mechanisms to insure enforcement with fishing policies.’

One researcher noted, “Perhaps the most striking result of our survey was that not a single country in the world was consistently good with respect to all these management attributes. So which countries are doing well, and which are not, is a question whose answer depends on the specific attribute you are looking at. In poor countries, there was a lot of corruption going on. In rich countries, there were more political and economic pressures on the policymaking. The end result of that is that in both cases, science is not converted into proper regulation.”

But while rich countries did a better job than poor countries enforcing anti-overfishing regulations and policing fishing in their own coastal waters, as opposed to no enforcement undertaken at all in some poor countries, rich countries are actually ‘globalizing overfishing by sending their industrial fishing fleets to hoover up the catch near poor countries. Thirty-three percent of the poorest countries in the world sell the right to fish in their waters to some of the richest countries in the world, including those in the European Union, the United States, Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea.’

Via salon.com