Illegal, fine-mesh push nets used in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere can wipe out entire populations in small areas in a short time. With desperate fishing fleets roaming the world looking for fish that aren't there, and rising social stresses caused by quick development, international tensions are on the rise. Last year Canadian patrol ships used military force to capture and impound a Spanish vessel in international waters. The Canadian government was concerned that fishing in the area was depleting the spawning stock of turbot, a bottom fish that straddled the 200-mile limit. In the interest of conservation, Canada laid claim on fish outside its territorial waters.
Big democracies can usually work out their differences, as Canada and Spain did a few months later.
But most nations lack their political stability. Often they make management just too difficult,'' said Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, director of a University of Toronto project on Environmental Scarcities, State Capacities, and Civil Violence. In South Asia, with beefed-up international fleets scouring the seas, government officials looking to cash in, and nationalistic disputes about territorial rights, the pot is boiling. Thai fishers are routinely detained for fishing illegally in neighboring countries' waters. A group of Thais recently killed five Burmese fishers they were partnered with.