WHAT IS OVERFISHING?

Courtesy of Greenpeace

What is overfishing?

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) defines overfishing as occuring:

"... when too many fish in a particular stock are caught and there are not enough adults to breed and sustain a healthy population."

Overfishing can be caused by Illegal, Unregulated or Unreported (IUU) fishing, and by fishing companies that focus their interest in short-term profits and not long-term sustainability

IUU fishing is said to cost the economy $10-23.5 billion US dollars, from how labour intensive and wasteful the practice is

How it affects the environment

Overfishing impacts marine ecosystems, by endangering key predators (and other key species) in marine food chains

Without these important species, the balance of an ecosystem can collapse, causing too many of one species to reproduce, or the extinction of a species important to creating a better climate, cleaner water, etc.

Overfishing can cause whole ecosystems to be wiped out in extreme cases

And in all cases, overfishing leaves fisheries with not enough fish to recover stocks (populations), and thus not enough fish for the future

How it affects us (food security)

Billions of people around the world benefit from seafood as a source of protein: seafood provides a fifth of the daily protein needs for over 3 billion people globally

If global fisheries were managed sustainably, 16 million more tonnes of seafood could be caught each year, helping to sustain a future increase in population

Overfishing would also cause a bigger demand from land-based agriculture, for when fish stocks are low and the population needs that protein

This would put more stress on farming and land use

How sustainable fishing helps us

Sustainable fishing ensures that there will be enough fish to catch long-term, generations into the future

By being sustainable with our fishing practices, we would be able to catch more fish, for longer into the future, to help sustain a growing population that depends on seafood for part of their daily protein requirements

By being sustainable we also help protect marine biodiversity and prevent ecosystems from collapsing, to keep our Earth healthy for generations to come

You can learn more about overfishing here