Overfishing Quotes

The ocean is like a checking account where everybody withdraws but nobody makes a deposit. This is what's happening because of overfishing. ~ Enric Sala

There is simply no issue more important. Conservation is the preservation of human life on earth, and that, above all else, is worth fighting for. ~ Rob Stewart

I argue against purism not because I want a devastated world, the Mordor of industrial capitalism emerging as from a closely aligned alternate universe through our floating islands of plastic gradually breaking down into microbeads consumed by the scant marine life left alive after generations of overfishing, bottom scraping, and coral reef–killing ocean acidification; our human-caused, place-devastating elevated sea levels; our earth-shaking, water poisoning fracking; our toxic lakes made of the externalities of rare-earth mineral production for so-called advanced electronics; our soul-and-life
destroying prisons; our oil spills; our children playing with bits of dirty bombs; our white phosphorus; our generations of trauma held in the body; our cancers; and I could go on. I argue against purism because it is one bad but common approach to devastation in all its forms. It is a common approach for anyone who attempts to meet and control a complex situation that is fundamentally outside our control. It is a bad approach because it shuts down precisely the field of possibility that might allow us to take better collective action against the destruction of the world in all its strange, delightful, impure frolic. Purism is a de-collectivizing, de-mobilizing, paradoxical politics
of despair. This world deserves better. ~ Alexis Shotwell

The Ocean Health Index is like the thermometer of the ocean. It will allow us to take the temperature to know what is going on at the global level, trying to integrate different impacts, including overfishing, invasive species, coastal development, and climate change. ~ Enric Sala

Our oceans are facing innumerable threats - from overfishing and pollution to ocean acidification and invasive species - yet we haven't had a blueprint for its use and development, incredible as that seems. ~ Philippe Cousteau, Jr.

Today, our incentives aren't set up well - you can make a lot of money burning fossil fuels, digging up wetlands, pumping fossil water out of aquifers that will take 10,000 years to recharge, overfishing species in international waters that are close to collapse, and so on. ~ Ramez Naam

The ocean is the lifeblood of our world. If we were to lose our fish that we appreciate so much by overfishing; or if we were to lose some of our favorite beaches to overbuilding and pollution, then how would we feel? It's become a case of not knowing what you've got until it's gone. ~ Aaron Peirsol

If you're overfishing at the top of the food chain, and acidifying the ocean at the bottom, you're creating a squeeze that could conceivably collapse the whole system. ~ Carl Safina