Unsustainable Fishing Quotes

The industrial way we fish for seafood is harming the marine habitats that all ocean life depends upon. Indiscriminate commercial fishing practices that include miles of driftnets, long lines with thousands of lethal hooks and bottom trawls are ruining ocean ecosystems by killing non-seafood species, including sea turtles and marine mammals.

Our oceans have been the victims of a giant Ponzi scheme, waged with Bernie Madoff-like callousness by the world's fisheries.

For too long we have placed an irrational burden upon our oceans by demanding only a narrow selection of species, which has led to unsustainable fishing and economic practices. If we instead ask the ocean what it is willing to supply, we engage in an inherently more sustainable relationship.

In the Java Sea in Indonesia, I have seen fishers going out in the morning, six of them going out and coming back with five pounds of fish. That is the end point, a pound of fish per person per day to sell for rice. That's where fisheries go if you let it happen. That's where it stabilizes. These people cannot feed their families.

It's mainly the high-end luxury market now that drives much of the fishing in the sea. It's not feeding the starving millions. It's feeding a luxury market.

Cheap fish has usually been caught in careless ways.

I spent 39 days in the Amazon, and I could not even find a fish to catch.

Seventy percent of the fish we eat is black market, fished in violation of international laws. Our ignorance makes us unwilling partners in crime. Rogue economics is turning the global market into our worst nightmare.

Why are fish unsustainable? Because they're popular. What makes restaurants work? Popular dishes that people come back for.