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People in the world’s developed nations live in a post-industrial era, working mainly in service or knowledge industries. Manufacturers increasingly rely on sensors, robots, artificial intelligence and machine learning to replace human labor or make it more efficient. Farmers can and .

Commercial fishing, one of the oldest industries in the world, is a stark exception. , with and deep-sea trawlers that land thousands of tons of fish at a time, are still the dominant hunting mode in .

This approach has led to , , the senseless killing of unwanted and wastage of as much as . Industrial fishing has in Asia, Africa and the the Pacific.

The end product is largely a commodity that travels around the world like a manufactured part or digital currency, rather than fresh domestic produce from the sea. An average fish , according to sustainable-fishing advocates. Some is frozen, shipped to Asia for processing, then

But these patterns are starting to change. In my new book, “,” I describe how commercial fishing has begun an encouraging shift toward a less destructive, more transparent post-industrial era. This is true in the U.S., Scandinavia, most of the European Union, Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines and much of South America.

Fishing With Data

Changes in behavior, technology and policy are occurring throughout the fishing industry. Here are some examples:

• , an international nonprofit, monitors and creates open-access visualizations of global fishing activity on the internet with a 72-hour delay. This transparency breakthrough has led to the arrest and conviction of owners and captains of .
• , an international business-to-business initiative, creates voluntary industry standards for seafood traceability. These standards are designed to help harmonize various systems that , so they all collect the same key information and rely on the same data sources. This information lets buyers know where their seafood comes from and whether it was produced sustainably.
• Fishing boats in New Bedford, Massachusetts – the , based on total catch value – are rigged with sensors to develop a that will give fishermen data on ocean temperature, salinity and oxygen levels. Linking this data to actual stock behavior and catch levels is expected to help fishermen target certain species and avoid unintentional bycatch.
• , divvied up through individual quotas for each fisherman, have helped curb overfishing. Imposing catch shares can be , but since the year 2000, 47 U.S. stocks that were overfished and shut down have been , thanks to policy judgments based on the best available science. Examples include Bering Sea snow crab, North Atlantic swordfish and red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico.
• A growing “fishie” movement that mirrors the widespread “foodie” locavore movement has been gaining steam for more than a decade. Taking a page from agriculture, subscribers to pay in advance for regular deliveries from local fishermen. Such engagement between consumers and producers is beginning to shape buying patterns and introduce consumers to new types of fish that are abundant but not iconic like the cod of yore.

Growing Fish On Land

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing form of food production in the world, led by China. The U.S., which has , has a mere 1% share of the global market.

But aquaculture, mostly shellfish and kelp, , after lobsters and scallops. Entrepreneurs are also raising finfish – including salmon, branzino, barramundi, steelhead, eels and kingfish – mostly in large, land-based that reuse 95% or more of their water.

Industrial-scale ocean salmon farming in Norway in the 1990s was largely responsible for the perception that farmed fish were . Today this industry has moved to less dense or land-based recirculating systems.

Virtually all new salmon farms in the U.S. – in Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, and several planned for Maine and California – are . In some cases, water from the fish tanks circulates through greenhouses to grow vegetables or hemp, a system called .

There is over proposals to open U.S. federal waters, between 3 and 200 miles offshore, for ocean aquaculture. Whatever the outcome, it’s clear that without a growing mariculture industry, the U.S. won’t be able to reduce and may even widen its .

A Voracious China

This kind of progress isn’t uniform throughout the fishing industry. Notably, China is the , accounting for 15% of the global wild catch as well as 60% of aquaculture production. Chinese fishing . Observers estimate that China’s fishing fleet may be and its distant-water fleet may include up to 17,000 vessels, compared to 300 for the U.S.

According to a study by the nonprofit advocacy group using Global Fishing Watch data, between 2019 and 2021 Chinese boats carried out . More than 20% of this activity was on the high seas or inside the of more than 80 other nations. Fishing in other countries’ waters without authorization, as some Chinese boats do, . Chinese ships often target .

Most Chinese distant-water ships are so large that they scoop up as many fish in one week as local boats from Senegal or Mexico . Much of this fishing would not be profitable . Clearly, holding China to higher standards is a priority for maintaining healthy global fisheries.

The Ocean’s Restorative Power

There is no shortage of gloomy information about how overfishing, along with other stresses like climate change, is . Nonetheless, I believe it bears emphasizing that over 78% of current marine fish landings , according to the United Nations. And overharvested fisheries often can rebound with smart management.

For example, the U.S. east coast scallop fishery, which was essentially defunct in the mid-1990s, is now a .

Another success story is , a five-mile stretch of coast at the southeast end of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Once a vital fishing ground, Cabo Pulmo was barren in the early 1990s after intense overfishing. Then local communities persuaded the Mexican government to turn the area into a marine park where fishing was barred.

“In 1999, Cabo Pulmo was an underwater desert. Ten years later, it was a kaleidoscope of life and color,” ecologist , director of National Geographic’s , .

Scientists say that thanks to effective management, marine life in Cabo Pulmo has recovered to a level that makes the reserve that have never been fished. Fishing outside of the refuge has also rebounded, showing that conservation and fishing are not incompatible. In my view, that’s a good benchmark for a post-industrial ocean future.

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