Today, World Ocean Day, sees the premier in the UK of The End of the Line: Imagine a World without Fish. We have known since the 1950’s that our overfishing of the world’s oceans was leading to the collapse of fishing stocks, there have been ‘wars’ over access to fish.

We know what needs to be done to tackle the collapse of fish stocks – but the politicians and the regulators have failed, fish quotas have not worked. Governments and the fishermen undermine and render ineffective the required regulatory framework.

Mark Kurlansky (1997) in Cod described man’s successful war of annihilation In 1966 the spawning stock of cod in the North Sea was 213,361 tonnes by 2006 the spawning stock was 28,481 tonnes, an 87% decline – unsustainable consumption.

http://endoftheline.com

Our failure to protect the ocean’s fish stocks is jut one of the tragedies of the commons – we have the technical solutions, we cannot find the political will to destroy our asset base.

You can do your bit by only purchasing fish form sustainable sources – but the challenge can only be met by political, collective action.