Overfishing News

The end of the 2010s will be remembered as the time when the world realized that we are in the midst of a global biodiversity crisis, as illustrated by the…

The coral reefs of the lesser Sunda-Banda seascape in southeastern Indonesia host some of the planet’s most biodiverse marine ecosystems, which remain relatively untouched even as overfishing ravages sea life…

To read about the artificial reefs of Jiquilisco Bay in depth, see the companion piece to this article: Salvadoran fishermen ditch blast fishing for artificial reefs JIQUILISCO BAY, El Salvador…

MUMBAI — Last month, the Indian government created its first ministry for fisheries. Although it clubs fishing together rather oddly with animal husbandry and dairy, the move fulfills a long-standing…

To read an interview with the man who sparked the artificial reefs of Jiquilisco Bay, see the companion piece to this article: Bringing back the fish: Q&A with a repentant…

Chances are the locally caught fish you bought down by the wharf was spawned thousands of miles away, migrating on ocean currents, a new study has found. An estimated 90…

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The Sierra Leone government closed the country’s waters to fishing during the entire month of April to give flagging fish stocks a chance to rebuild. During…

A blessed country of spectacular landscapes and the most diverse array of cultures on Earth, Papua New Guinea is also a global hotspot for biodiversity. Just in terms of species,…

How many ships and boats ply the world’s oceans for seafood today? Researchers have a new estimate: where there were about 1.7 million boats harvesting fish in 1950, the number…

JAKARTA — The widespread use of wooden fences to trap fish by coastal fishermen in tropical countries is causing extensive economic, social, and environmental damage, according to a new study.…

Among the fisheries of Latin America and the Caribbean, shrimp has the highest export value after tuna. Trawling, the most popular and efficient way to harvest shrimp, has been a…

Conventional wisdom holds that marine protected areas don’t offer much in the way of protections to highly migratory species of marine life, given that those species are unaware of the…

It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…

Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…

SUNGAI NIBUNG, Indonesia — The phone signal comes and goes and the electricity grid has yet to reach this patch of jungle on the west coast of Borneo. The quickest…

When fisherfolk in India’s westernmost state of Gujarat find a whale shark tangled in their fishing nets, it’s an unwelcome sight. They can’t legally harvest the protected species, yet the…

Illegal fishing, overfishing and pollution are common problems in the waters of South America. But the overarching problem, the one that enables the rest, is weak governance, according to experts.…

For more than three months, penguins living off the coast of Namibia have been battling an outbreak of bird flu. The worst of the disease seems to have passed, but…

Scientists have fretted over the expanding masses of plastic in the ocean for decades. Most have seen the rise with their own eyes, and yet the available datasets typically don’t…

Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.…