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overfishing been prevented since the 1950s the increase in fish
catch in 2000 would be enough to cover the annual protein
need of 90 million people.
The increase in fish catch from the 1950s was a result of new
and more effective fishing technologies that made it possible
to fish further out and gain access to deep-sea fish stock. These
fish stocks, however, are long-lived and late-maturing which
makes them particularly vulnerable to overfishing (WWF 2012).
While improved technologies, such as bottom trawling, increase
yields in the short-term they can cause long-term and permanent
declines in fish stocks. The east coast of North America and
European Union fishing waters, in particular, have been severely
over-fished in recent decades. Many fish stocks, including
the cod off the east coast of Canada have been overfished to
the extent of depletion (MA 2005). Similarly, overfishing has
severely reduced the tuna stock in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
(Srinivasan
et al.
2010). Research has shown that fish stocks
are often highly resilient and capable of recovery even if
overexploited. However, overexploitation over a prolonged
period of time is detrimental for stocks, and recovery is highly
improbable for themajorityof theworld’sfish stock, including the
Canadian cod (Neubauer
et al.
2013). This is not only devastating
for the survival of the fish stock, but also for food security as
overfishing results in a permanent decline in fish catch.
Food loss and waste in the fishery sector
Overfishing has resulted in marine and freshwater
ecosystems losing their potential productivity. According to
Srinivasan
et al.
(2010), the total fish catch in 2004 could
have been 9.9 million tonnes higher had fish stocks not been
overexploited. From a regional perspective, the fish catch of
North America could have been 23 per cent higher, while Europe
and Africa could have had a 17 per cent higher fish catch.
Habitat destruction is another reason why fish stocks are
decreasing (Graham
et al.
2007; Paddack
et al.
2009). Coral reefs
serve as important nursery habitats for fish (Nagelkerken
et al.