Overfishing
Advocates against illegal fishing
What is overfishing?
Overfishing is a type of exploitation where fish stocks are reduced faster than they can naturally regenerate.
What is supply and demand?
The supply-demand model is a relationship that illustrates the quantity of a commodity that producers sell and how it is affected by the quantity of the commodity the consumers are buying.
How do these two connect?
As the global demand for seafood rises, fisheries are pressured to produce more product and take more fish out of natural populations at a time.
What are fisheries regulations?
Fishery regulations are used to protect and increase seafood supply and sustain community resilience and economies. This is achieved with annual catch limits, size limits, and seasonal restrictions on certain fish stocks.
Unregulated fisheries are leaders in the overfishing crisis and contribute to fisheries corruption across the globe. Unregulation comes from corruption as politicians and other government figures take bribes from fishing companies to allow them to break catch limits and seasonal restrictions.
A recent example being 2020 in Indonesia fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo accepted a 77,000 dollar bribe from a seafood supplier to gain permission to sell lobster hatchlings abroad, a practice that was banned in 2016.
Edhy Prabowo being escorted by police
"Countries with weak governments that lack oversight and accountability are more susceptible to corruption risk. And that is where fisheries corruption plays a pernicious role in overfishing. It can lead to the over-exploitation of natural resources.”
- Ben Freitas
Ocean Policy Manager, WWF
Many fisheries have started seeking laborers from middle to low income countries that are regularly mistreated and trafficked through the fishery. Migrant workers according to the International Labor Organization are often led to believe that these jobs are well-paying and are threatened to continue work on the boat. The laborers are often subjected to violence, illness, sexual abuse, and injury. Many of these cases come from the Global East: China, Thailand, and Cambodia where around 80 percent of the United States seafood comes from.