August 19, 2016 — Anyone with internet access and a passion for seafood will soon be able to track commercial fishing trawlers all over the world, with a new tool that its developers hope will help end the overfishing that has decimated the world’s fish stocks.
Millions of people depend on fish to survive, and fish will be vital to feeding the world’s growing population that is predicted to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, the United Nations says.
But overfishing has diminished fish stocks, and illicit fishing is threatening people’s access to food in many poor countries, according to the United Nations.
“We currently have around 450 million people globally who get their primary source of food from the ocean. This is 450 million meals a day under threat,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana in Europe on Wednesday.
“To solve the overfishing problem, including illegal fishing, we want to create transparency in the oceans,” Gustavsson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Madrid.