
There's widespread agreement among nations on the need to conserve fish stocks but often disagreement on the details of how to do it. And the need for harmony in the European Union process allows a handful of Mediterranean countries to put the immediate interests of fishing crews before the fish stocks themselves. It all means that globally about 85% of stocks are said to be fully exploited, over-exploited, depleted or slowly recovering. The US, Australia and the UK have created marine reserves to protect their shores.

And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”