The number of overfished stocks has been growing for years, but the commonly cited statistic that 90 percent of stocks are in peril doesn’t accurately reflect the health of the world’s oceans.
Manual Barange, the policy and resource director at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Fisheries and Aquaculture division, carefully differentiated maximally fished stocks and overfished stocks during his keynote address at FAO’s International Symposium on Sustainable Fisheries in Rome, Italy this week.
Today, 33 percent of stocks are overfished, a figure that has been rising as the number of underfished stocks has dropped. The large number of fish stocks in the third category — maximally fished — are fundamentally healthy, according to Barange…