The immediate impact of this closure threw 40,000 people out of work, in the fishing communities of Canada. This has cost the Canadian public more then 2 billion Canadian dollars in unemployment assistance and retraining programs. In every fishing nation the situation is nearly the same. There are too many fishing boats on the water and too much fishing pressure on already stressed stocks of fish. This increased pressure is rapidly accelerating the decline of fisheries production throughout the world. .
Now that we have looked at some of the problems associated with over fishing, lets look at some of the reasons it is continually taking place. Growth of the fishing industry is largely uncontrolled by current management systems. According to the National Marine Fisheries Institute, the enactment of the fishery conservation act in 1976 reduced foreign over harvesting of fish in U.S. waters. While this act has successfully reduced foreign over harvesting, the U.S. alone has seen a 40% increase in the number of fishing vessels and a 60% increase in the number fishermen employed in the commercial industry. As a result, since 1976 there has been a 50% increase in catch size throughout the U.S.'s commercial fishing industry. Not only has the growth of commercial fishing led to decline in fish stocks, it is often supported and encouraged by various governments.
In an article "sinking fast" at www.greenpeace.org it states that overall, the worlds fishing fleets receive direct or indirect government support in excess of $50 billion dollars every year. In the United States alone, 1.6 billion dollars in government and private investment was used to build up the domestic factory trawler fleet to fish Alaskan waters. By 1990 Japan had extended an estimated 19 billion dollars worth of credit to its already overbuilt commercial fleet. Continued enhancement of fishing methods has also had a great affect on fish populations.
