It’s Kind of Insane How Much Of The World’s Seafood Is Unreported

Overfishing is a huge problem; it can lead to local or global extinction of species, which can have gigantic, horrible effects on the oceans as a whole and in turn on the planet’s health. There are some laws in place, but studies like this new one from the University of British Columbia show that they’re both ineffective and often play into a circular problem: the laws restricting illegal fishing are weak in part because the data is inaccurate, and the data is inaccurate in part because the laws are weak.

This new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, looks at the total number of reported fish caught in 2010, and estimates the total number of fish that ended up in markets worldwide. That estimation is very tricky to do; it involves in-depth reporting on everything from World Health Organization nutrition figures to “documentation of fish catch by tourists.”

But eventually the number they came up with is startling: The total estimated number of fish caught that year is 110 million metric tons, a whopping 30 percent more than the officially reported number of 77 million metric tons reported by 200-plus countries and territories.

Not all of that is necessarily insidious illegal fishing; some would include fishing that just isn’t reported, like tourists or very small fishing trips. But certainly a large portion of that is willfully illegal activity, and that illegal activity very literally puts the entire planet at risk. This happens around the world; a 2013 NOAA paper listed a few of the worst offenders, which include countries as disparate as Colombia and Italy. But the researchers are especially hoping this new study will help poorer countries, as they may have fewer resources to go after illegal fishing.