Declining Global Fisheries and Related Issues

Fisheries - Ph. Wikim. Commons

Earth's ocean fishes and myriad other organisms we use as "seafood" are experiencing varying levels of decline. These declines ripple though the earth's aquatic ecosystems and economies at large scales and smaller ones, affecting global trade, future fish populations and subsistence lifeways at either end of the economic and ecological spectrum.

Thai fish market - Ph. Wikim. Commmons

 

Learn more about how these multiple aspects affect humans and fish that we use in a series of resources linked below. Many people who consume fish, squid, shrimp and other seafood are not aware that some of these species are caught, processed, and transported by people trapped by the net of  21st-century slavery (scroll down).

 

 Declining Fisheries

Fishing trawler - Ph. Wikimedia Commons

http://thankyouocean.org/threats/declining-fisheries/

http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/cetaceans/threats/fishstocks/

 http://www.fao.org/newsroom/common/ecg/1000505/en/stocks.pdf

http://www.seaaroundus.org/sea-around-us-new-atlas-reveals-why-the-ocean-is-giving-us-1-2-million-mt-less-of-fish-every-year/

Rebuilding global fisheries under uncertainty

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15985

Orange roughy catch - Ph via Wikim. Commons - ScienceMag - Mark Lewus CSIRO

Evolution of global marine fishing fleets and the response of fished resources

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/25/12238.short
  
Global Fisheries Catch Declining, Despite Statistics

"Countries’ improvements to their fisheries statistics have been contributing to the false impression that humanity is getting more and more fish from the ocean when, in reality, global marine catches have been declining on average by around 1.2 million tons per year since 1996."

https://maritime-executive.com/article/global-fisheries-catch-declining-despite-statistics

Are your fish being caught and processed by people victimized by modern slavery?  

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/importing-risk/fishing/

http://keystonedialogues.earth/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Brief1-Slavery-in-global-marine-fisheries.pdf

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/01/582214032/was-your-seafood-caught-with-slave-labor-new-database-helps-retailers-combat-abu

Modern slavery and the race to fish

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07118-9

The sea is running out of fish, despite nations’ pledges to stop it

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/sea-running-out-of-fish-despite-nations-pledges-to-stop/