While in some areas whole fish populations are blown up with dynamite and then scooped up from the waters surface. It seems that here, as with other forms of environmental degradation, that technology is the worst enemy. The biggest problem is how to successfully manage stocks of commercial fish, of which many are migratory, for a long-term sustainable yield. An open access market simply breeds over-exploitation. Property rights must be assigned to the worlds high seas to curtail this problem.
Individual people are generally to greedy to cut back on their own consumption.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is trying hard to regulate and control overfishing, by reducing boat numbers, and by discovering more efficient ways to manage and harvest the stocks. Governments lack of managing the oceans, raised a big question. Industries pay the government to drill for oil, cut timber in national forests and mine coal on public land. Commercial fishing's biggest problem is that it not structured, so individuals take advantage of it. International law grants commercial fisherman the right to have freedom of the high seas.