Overfishing: A bane for the oceans

World production of fish and seafood has quadrupled over the last 50 years. Not only has the world population more than doubled over this phase, the common person now eats almost double as much seafood as half a century ago. This has increased force on fish stocks across the globe. Since the 1980s, there has been a more than twofold increase in the proportion of overexploited fish stocks worldwide. The world produces around 200 million tonnes of fish and seafood every year. This comes from a combination of wild fish catch and fish farming. In fact, rapid growth of aquaculture over the last few decades means we now produce more seafood from fish farms than we do from fisheries. China is the world’s largest seafood producer, producing more than 60 million tonnes in 2019.