Global fisheries: Stock taking

The global fish catch is declining, something that would give cause for concern about the sustainability of fisheries and the ability of the world to feed itself. Or it would, were it not for systematic over-reporting by China in the mid-1990s. Because the Chinese catch is so large, the over-reporting biases estimates of the global catch, so that the overall trend in the 1990s was officially up, when in reality catches had already begun to go down.

Systematic distortions in world fisheries catch trends
REG WATSON & DANIEL PAULY
Nature 414, 534-536 (29 November 2001)
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29 November 2001 table of contents