Plenty of data...
http://www.conservationgateway.org/ExternalLinks/Pages/estim...
Reviewing the situation in 54 countries and on the high seas, we estimate that lower and upper estimates of the total value of current illegal and unreported fishing losses worldwide are between $10 bn and $23.5 bn annually, representing between 11 and 26 million tonnes. Our data are of sufficient resolution to detect regional differences in the level and trend of illegal fishing over the last 20 years, and we can report a significant correlation between governance and the level of illegal fishing. Developing countries are most at risk from illegal fishing, with total estimated catches in West Africa being 40% higher than reported catches. Such levels of exploitation severely hamper the sustainable management of marine ecosystems. Although there have been some successes in reducing the level of illegal fishing in some areas, these developments are relatively recent and follow growing international focus on the problem
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/oceans-fish-fishing-i...
- Fishless oceans could be a very real possibility by 2050.
- According to the UN, 30 percent of fish stocks have already collapsed.
- One billion people, mostly from poorer countries, rely on fish as their main animal protein source.
The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 without fundamental restructuring of the fishing industry, UN experts said Monday.
"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 the UN Environment Program's green economy initiative, told journalists in New York.
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/oceans-without-fi...
This estimate is similar to other recent estimates of the impact of overfishing, but really gains new resonance in light of the recent politicized CITES meeting which, due entirely to political pressure from Japan and other nations prioritizing short term financial gain over all else, failed to ban trade in the critically endangered bluefin tuna. At current catch rates (four times the official quota due to illegal, often Mafia-backed, fishing) Atlantic bluefin will be extinct in less than three years.
Overall, the report says that 30% of world fish stocks have already collapsed--meaning yielding less than 10% of their historic potential--with only 25% having healthy numbers of fish, and these are only the less desirable species.
As to one major factor contributing to the decline, the report says government subsidies encouraging bigger fleets is to blame. Annually $27 billion in subsidies, mainly from wealthy countries, are doled out. That compares to the entire value of fish caught being $85 billion.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120920-are-we-running-out-...
Last year, global fish consumption hit a record high of 17 kg (37 pounds) per person per year, even though global fish stocks have continued to decline. On average, people eat four times as much fish now than they did in 1950.
Around 85% of global fish stocks are over-exploited, depleted, fully exploited or in recovery from exploitation. Only this week, a report suggested there may be fewer than 100 cod over the age of 13 years in the North Sea between the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. The figure is still under dispute, but it’s a worrying sign that we could be losing fish old enough to create offspring that replenish populations.
Large areas of seabed in the Mediterranean and North Sea now resemble a desert – the seas have been expunged of fish using increasingly efficient methods such as bottom trawling. And now, these heavily subsidised industrial fleets are cleaning up tropical oceans too. One-quarter of the EU catch is now made outside European waters, much of it in previously rich West African seas, where each trawler can scoop up hundreds of thousands of kilos of fish in a day. All West African fisheries are now over-exploited, coastal fisheries have declined 50% in the past 30 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/ipso-2011-ocean-rep...
If the current actions contributing to a multifaceted degradation of the world's oceans aren't curbed, a mass extinction unlike anything human history has ever seen is coming, an expert panel of scientists warns in an alarming new report.
The preliminary report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) is the result of the first-ever interdisciplinary international workshop examining the combined impact of all of the stressors currently affecting the oceans, including pollution, warming, acidification, overfishing and hypoxia.
“The findings are shocking," Dr. Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director, said in a statement released by the group. "This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children's and generations beyond that."
The scientific panel concluded that degeneration in the oceans is happening much faster than has been predicted, and that the combination of factors currently distressing the marine environment is contributing to the precise conditions that have been associated with all major extinctions in the Earth's history.