As demand for seafood has increased, the number of fish caught from the wild has also increased. Unfortunately, the number of fish the ocean can supply has not. Overfishing can be extremely destructive to the overall health and biodiversity of an ecosystem as oftentimes the fish that are caught are all from one step in the food chain before they are moved on from (Pauley, 2006). 

A simple, proposed solution to this is aquaculture which are basically fish farms. They may not have all the same environmental impacts as wild fishing, but they don't reduce the amount of seafood caught from the wild as much as would be expected since the food fed to the farmed fish is often caught from the ocean (Pauley, 2006).

The best solution for the overall health of our oceans and for maximum possible yield is sustainable fishing in which the total amount of fish caught is less than the amount that can be naturally replenished.

There are several ways in which fishing and other marine operations can harm the surrounding environment. For example, some methods of fishing like dredging and bottom trawling can harm the seabed as nets are dragged along the bottom (Ritchie & Roser, 2024). Additionally, even the boats themselves can be harmful as boat strikes can kill or injure the animals they hit, and the noise pollution from ships can cause stress to nearby animals affecting their health and behaviour (World Wide Fund for Nature, 2021).