Southeast Asia's Fisheries Near Collapse from Overfishing - The Asia Foundation

Southeast Asia's Fisheries Near Collapse from Overfishing - The Asia Foundation: Approximately 12 percent of the world’s population relies upon fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihood, and over half of the world’s people get a significant source of their animal protein from fish and seafood. In Southeast Asia, this proportion is significantly higher. The region’s seas not only serve as a major source of food and livelihood for hundreds of millions of people, they generate several billion dollars in GDP for the region. Southeast Asia has one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world, but overfishing and destructive fishing threaten its sustained existence. Across the region, 64 percent of the fisheries’ resource base is at a medium to high risk from overfishing, with Cambodia and the Philippines among the most heavily affected. Common methods of destructive fishing include poison fishing, which has become a pervasive commercial fishing method for live reef fish, using sodium cyanide to stun fish and make them easier to capture. Another method is blast fishing, which uses dynamite or grenades to indiscriminately kill fish in the immediate vicinity by rupturing their internal organs. While both practices are illegal in most Southeast Asian countrie