Checking the Earth: Ocean’s Over-Exploitation (2007)

For centuries, fishing was done in an environmentally friendly way; fewer fish were extracted from the water than those that could reproduce. With the advent of industrial fishing in the 19th century, northern European coasts started to show the first signs of unsustainable fishing activity. Since then, succeeding decades have witnessed a drop in worldwide fish populations. The effects of over-exploitation have grown to such an extent that today half of all commercially available species have run out and only one quarter of fish resources are constantly available.