In a preview of its upcoming report entitled the Green Economy, the United Nations Environment Programme states that “mismanagement, lack of enforcement and subsidies totaling over $27 billion annually have left close to 30 percent of fish stocks "collapsed.”

“If the various estimates we have received ... come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish,” Pavan Sukhdev, head of UNEP’s Green Economy plan, told Agence France Presse on Monday.
The report estimates that 35 million fishers and 20 million boats are actively trawling the world’s waters, with fisheries supporting about 8 percent of the global population.

Currently, only 25 percent of fish stocks - consisting mostly of lower-priced species – are considered healthy or reasonably healthy, according to the UNEP report.

Achim Steiner, UN Undersecretary General, said that governments around the world need to take action in order to preserve fish stocks.

“The lives and livelihoods of over half a billion people, linked with the health of this industry, will depend on the tough but also transformational choices governments make now and over the years to come,” Steiner said in a statement.

The report outlined several steps that may potentially replenish global fish stocks, including the phasing-down of government subsidies for fisheries, enacting policies to protect depleted stocks, and cutting down on the amount of active fishing vessels and fishermen.

The report estimates that the plan will require “an investment of between $220 to $320 billion worldwide.”

Source: New York Daily News

Updated by Vietfish Community