I saw local fishermen returning at the end of each day with fewer fish to feed their families. I watched as they unloaded their diminished catches, made up mostly of juvenile fish, and it brought home to me the fact that overfishing is not just a threat to ocean biodiversity. It is as much a humanitarian issue and one with profound implications for food security as demand for seafood grows and the world’s population marches towards 9 billion by 2050.
This is not just a problem for the Pacific either, as WWF’s Living Blue Planet report revealed last year. It showed a decline of 49% in the size of marine populations globally over the course of a single generation, largely as a result of overfishing and destructive fishing practices.
With many commercial fish stocks already in serious decline, it is clear we have an enormous challenge on our hands, made all the more urgent by the fact that global seafood demand is expected to grow another 50m tonnes by 2025.
As with climate change, people living in Pacific Island nations are on the frontline of this environmental crisis. They now source between 50 and 90% of their protein from fish, and for millions in the region, fishing is their only source of income.