What Causes Overfishing?

A school of fish

Overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans. Economists claim that the fundamental cause of the depletion of fish stocks is the virtual "open-access” to all ocean fisheries, that is, fishermen small operations or large corporations can fish all they want. (Shakouri. B. etal. 2010) But the question remains; what else causes overfishing? 

The World Wildlife Fund states that with the rapid increased in the world’s population there is an increased demand for fish, which further perpetuates the problem of overfishing and lends to the depletion of oceanic ecosystems. (WWF, n.d.) Commercial fishing is one of the many industries used by humans, and is the fundamental factor to overfishing. The fish which live in the ocean are caught by drift netting and trawling; both of these techniques were designed to trap every creature in net that gets into its path. (Jetson, K., 2014) Though the techniques used commercial fishing contribute to overfishing, there are other causes. These include: (MoBox Marine, (2017); WWF, (n.d.))

1. The challenge of regulation. Keeping an eye on, tracking, and policing the oceans is a daunting and resource-consuming task. Hence, fishing fleets are barely monitored in many countries due to lack of resources, allowing them to overfish at will. Statistics shows that for every vessel stopped, 30 more make port.
2. Lawless international waters. Vessels enter international waters twenty miles off the coast of every country; a no man’s jurisdiction where there are little to no regulations.
3. Lack of knowledge of fish populations and quotas. There is no index to measure the number of species there is swimming around in the ocean. This makes it challenging for countries to know what types of quotas to place on the fishing industry.
4. Ignorance and corruption. Some customs officials are ignorant regarding the species of fish they’re allowing for import or are accepting bribes; allowing for many fishermen to get around fishing laws.
5. Illegal fishing. Some vessels can avoid detection by authority. They can make port and unload their catch without anyone being the wiser.
6. Subsidies. Many countries offer high subsidies for fisherman. These benefits, which in some places even include free housing, have thrown more kindling on the fire.
7. Unprotected waters. 98.5% of the oceans are unprotected and are left as fair game for fishermen. As such, large swaths of these areas are being harmed or depleted.

400 tonnes of spiked jacks are from the sea to land on our food plates

Through these are some causes of overfishing, there are other contributing factors to the depletion of fish population. Documents in the context of marine fisheries claims overfishing to be the first disturbance in the historical progression, followed by other factors including pollution and eutrophication, mechanical habitat destruction, introduced species, and climate change.(Berkle, K. etal, (2015); Jackson, et aI., 2001). 

REFERENCES

Berkle, K.; Fallis, B.; Maloney, M. (2015). The Repercussions of a Growing Society on Fish. 
Available: http://marinesciencetoday.com/2015/01/26/paper-mill-discharge-repercussions-on-fish/

Jackson JBC, et al. "Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems". Science 293: 1589-1591,200 I. 

Jetson, K. (2014). Impact of Overfishing on Human Lives. 
Available: http://marinesciencetoday.com/2014/04/09/impact-of-overfishing-on-human-lives/#ixzz5V0PIktXw

MoBox Marine (2017). Overfishing Is A Huge Problem. Here's What You Need To Know. 
Available: https://moboxmarine.com/blogs/mobox-marine-blog/overfishing-is-a-huge-problem-heres-what-you-need-to-know

Shakouri, B., khoshnevis Yazdi, S., & Fashandi, A. (2010, November). Overfishing. In Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering (ICBEE), 2010 2nd International Conference on (pp. 229-234). IEEE.

WWF. (n.d.). Our oceans are being plundered. Available:http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing

WWF. (n.d.). Saving a precious resource. 
Available:http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/marine/sustainable_fishing/