May 8, 2014 — We hear a lot of grim stories about overfishing and the decline of fisheries around the world. Bluefin tuna is vanishing. Chilean sea bass is dwindling. Pretty soon, it sometimes seems like, all that'll be left is the jellyfish.
So it's worth highlighting a country that has actually done a lot to curtail overfishing and rebuild its fisheries in the past decade — the United States.
Back in the 1980s and '90s, many fisheries in the US were in serious trouble. Fish populations were dropping sharply. Some of New England's best-known groundfish stocks — including flounder, cod, and haddock — had collapsed, costing the region's coastal communities hundreds of millions of dollars.
But the picture has improved considerably in the last decade, thanks in part to stricter fishing regulations. Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its annual fisheries update for 2013 — and the news was encouraging. Yes, progress has been uneven. About one-fifth of assessed stocks are still overfished. But on the whole, US fisheries are steadily recovering.