There is a growing consensus that the world’s marine ecosystem is in deep trouble with overfishing, pollution and other human-assisted changes (e.g. global warming) having a disastrous effect on fish stocks (Erlandson and Rick 2010)

According to Charles Clover in his book The End of the Line, recently made into a successful documentary film, over-fishing will mean extinction for the most popular fish species over the next decades. He argues that the way we currently consume fish is completely unsustainable, especially since (as we saw in the last chapter) many fish are discarded due to EU quota legislation.

Declining fish stocks have become an international issue, the concern of the European Union as well as national governments and the subject of increasing political debate. It has led to heated arguments between environmentalists, campaigning journalists and representatives of the fishing industry. A review of the current situation can be found here

Debate continues because there are still uncertainties about what the ‘natural’ state of fisheries should be and this is where history and archaeology can help to provide important baseline data.

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