Overfishing is prevalent along most of the world’s coasts. The consequences:
1. Fishing fleets target increasingly small species so that they no longer have enough time to mate.
2. Fishing now takes place further away from the coast, in deep waters. Lots of species of fish in the deeper waters reach sexual maturity later because they grow more slowly and they produce less young each time.
3. Fishing fleets move to other waters, for instance along the coasts of developing countries. Changing fishing locations produces profit for developing countries but poverty for the local communities and above all for local fishermen.