In addition to the direct impact on the fish stocks, overfishing has very bad effects in social, economic and environmental terms. The excess of capacity in the fleet leads to very poor profitability as much fishing capacity is wasted by spending time, money, effort and fuel in looking for fish that are not there. And if there are too many boats fishing, we are left with having to use measures that reduce the amount of fish each boat can catch. In social terms, one consequence of overfishing in addition to poor economic performance is added instability. This instability causes insecurity and high risk in the fishing sector.
Environmental degradation is less obvious in the sea than on land.
However, public desire to maintain a healthy marine ecosystem is increasing. Massive overfishing to catch the last few remaining valuable fish does result in depletion of all other marine resources, as well as physical disturbance to the sea bed. This is why the Commission is bringing fisheries management concepts closer to the ideas of maintenance of biological diversity, as well as seeking sustainable economic development. Forthcoming Solutions To tackle this problem head-on, the Commission is focussing on measures to make a very substantial reduction in capacity by removing vessels permanently from the fishery, possibly with some public subsidy in the short term. We have only recently adopted a Communication on that subject To increase the selectivity of fishing gear so as to reduce discards and reduce damage to the marine ecosystem.