22 June 1992. March - June, Pages 42,46,74,86. 24 June 1984, v7, p. 18. Most fisheries are in areas that are considered to be Global Commons meaning all countries have rights to the resources, but few are liable for over exploitation. Economic issues concerning overfishing exist on a global scale.
Many countries rely on fisheries as a major source of food and income.
Since the 1950's, fishing has become a large scale industry, and Japanese fishing fleets now operate in all the world's oceans. This leads to countries like Canada shutting down their industries. Because many of the super powers, like Japan, overfish smaller countries water they are not able to catch as many fish which sometimes leads to poverty. Japan uses fish as a major source of food and is willing to pay higher prices for it. Because of the large demands for fish it has caused other countries to overextend the fish catch in order to enhance their economic status by selling the fish to countries like Japan.