Economic Issues In Overfishing

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Having food security means having access to a reliable food source that ensures that an individual has the required amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals to live a healthy lifestyle. An area or household is classified as secure when the people living in it are not starving or living in fear of becoming starved. Food security is becoming a major global problem as poverty rates and food prices are rising. Many factors contribute to these events and one of them is overfishing.
Overfishing is a global environmental, social and economic issue which affects the population of fish available as a renewable food source in an area. Overfishing involves the catching of fish in surplus amounts, faster than they can reproduce. As a consequence,
It has been estimated that by 2050, all the fisheries in the world will have collapsed and there will be approximately 9 billion people on the earth, meaning that food will be in high demand. With the already high dependency on seafood, meeting the needs of a rapidly increasing population will be very hard, considering that 87% of global marine fisheries are either being exploited. The requests for fish are increasing at the same time many fish stocks are decreasing, meaning that dramatic increases in fish and seafood prices may arise.
Overfishing is usually the result of unsustainable fishing and consumer needs.
• Unsustainable Fishing/ by-catching: when fisherman use nets and heavy duty equipment for their fishing, more fish than what was needed get caught and usually are misused or discarded. In the process, sometimes other sea animals can also be caught. This is called By-catch and most of the time the fish and animals are already dead by the time they are discarded.
• Consumer Needs: most fisherman work for large production industries which export and sell their fish stocks to the market for profit. With the high demand for fish such as the Blue Fin Tuna and the fear of going out of business, industries go to great measures to meet consumer needs and this can very easily lead to

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