A large contingent of India s 300 million fish consumers deliberately cut fish out of their diet in protest. In June 1993, traditional fishermen from the port of Trivandrum torched 14 foreign trawlers, seized four more, and took a boat operator hostage. By 1996, the government threw in the towel and canceled the sale of deep-sea fishing rights to transnational corporations. Though this story is often reported as an example of how India saved itself from disaster at the hands of the World Bank, it should also be noted that they saved the fish and a marine eco-system. Elsewhere, in African and Asian states where resistance to Bank or IMF policy has been weaker or less organized, the Bank is getting its way.
Fish is now the primary food export of the developing world.
Left unchecked, the end result of this trend is bound to have dire effects on a global scale.