From the Sea to Your Plate The Impacts of the Global Fishing Industry by Nicole Inaba From toxic pesticides to animal cruelty, efforts to increase transparency within the agricultural industry have led to a budding movement to transform food systems and grocery markets. Despite a global appetite for seafood, few know about the process behind how seafood makes it to their plate. Fishing is a major industry with an annual value of over $171 billion. The process behind the harvest of seafood is an incredibly intensive one: according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the number of overfished stocks globally has tripled in half a century, and today one-third of the world’s assessed fisheries are currently pushed beyond their biological limits.
Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing According to the Environmental Justice Foundation, 90% of fisheries are overexploited or fully exploited. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major contributor to overexploitation: IUU fishing is roughly estimated to be an industry worth $36 billion, providing 20 to 50% of the seafood in global markets. Illegal fishing occurs when fishing activity goes against laws of the seas or fisheries management measures. Sometimes fishing activity is not accurately reported or reported at all, while unregulated fishing occurs in the high seas or outside of the jurisdiction of regional fisheries management. 27 Fall 2020 / Perennial
