There has never been a more urgent time for seafood businesses and fishing nations to make a commitment to sustainability. The world’s oceans are in trouble, with marine life plummeting and the people who are dependent on the sea for income and food left increasingly vulnerable. Data shows populations of fish and other marine vertebrates, including marine mammals, reptiles and birds have halved since 1970.

Fourteen years ago when I was based with WWF in the Pacific – where most of Australia’s tuna is sourced – I saw first hand the stress that was being placed on the ocean ecosystems. Valuable fish stocks were declining as foreign fishing nations began eyeing the western and central Pacific’s tuna stocks as their next goldmine.

I saw local fishermen returning at the end of each day with fewer fish to feed their families. I watched as they unloaded their diminished catches, made up mostly of juvenile fish, and it brought home to me the fact that overfishing is not just a threat to ocean biodiversity. It is as much a humanitarian issue and one with profound implications for food security as demand for seafood grows and the world’s population marches towards 9 billion by 2050.

This is not just a problem for the Pacific either, as WWF’s Living Blue Planet report revealed last year. It showed a decline of 49% in the size of marine populations globally over the course of a single generation, largely as a result of overfishing and destructive fishing practices.

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