REYKJAVIK, Iceland, October 3, 2026 (ENS) - Countries could get more fish from the oceans if they allowed overfished stocks to recuperate, reduce wastage and manage fisheries resources better, the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday at a meeting in Iceland.
Opening the "Reykjavik Conference on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem," Dr. Jacques Diouf warned that the world's oceans are exhaustible.
Too many fishing boats pursuing too few fish - that's one of the problems identified by the FAO conference (Photo by Kip Evans courtesy National Marine Sanctuaries)
"Despite the fact that the majority of all resources are now fully exploited, access to these resources remains open in far too many fisheries around the world. "Consequently today there are too many vessels chasing too few fish."
Over investment in the fishing industry by many countries has led to overfishing, Diouf said.
"Coupled with ever improving technology, that is becoming available to ever smaller fishing operators, man is really not giving the fish in the sea much chance of escaping the fishing gear and allowing time to grow and reproduce," he added.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the challenge is to determine how to manage the fisheries to ensure sustainable utilization of the food available in the oceans for the benefit of present and future generations, without harming the ecosystem's capacity to support human life.
The FAO says that about 50 percent of the world marine fishery resources are fully exploited, 25 percent are overexploited and about 25 percent could support higher exploitation rates. Despite such warnings, the trend towards more overfishing observed since the early 1970s has not yet reversed.
