Overfishing costs the world a high price

According to a series of studies released on Tuesday, overfishing over the past few decades has caused billions of dollars in lost revenue to the world food industry. The resulting reduction in fishery resources has also weakened poor countries’ efforts to fight malnutrition.

Researchers in Canada, the U.S., and the United Kingdom also stated that overfishing is often the result of government subsidies, and that related funds, such as those used for conservation of fishery resources, could have produced better results.

According to four research reports published in the Journal of Biological Economics, fisheries contribute 225 billion to 240 billion U.S. dollars annually to the global economy, but if they can be fished in a more sustainable manner, fisheries contribute to the economy. This may add another 36 billion U.S. dollars.

According to the researchers, these data show that protecting global marine fish resources and resisting unsustainable fishing behavior is not only of biological significance.

Research leader Rashid Sumaila, an economist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said: “The healthy fishing method has good economic significance, and overfishing is obviously a bad economic behavior.”

They said that most governments underestimated the economic cost of overfishing, such as the impact on related industries, which underestimated the government's lack of incentive to protect fish resources.

The researchers pointed out that overfishing is the most serious damage to developing countries, because it can not make up for lost nutrition and income through imports.