Introductory remarks on threats to commercial fish stocks

Abstract

      This introduction paper makes some general points about threats to fish stocks in global terms, aiming to provide a background, and an introduction to the workshop discussion on the Adriatic.

      The two most significant threats to fish fauna are first, excessive human exploitation, and sec­ond, pollution. In both cases the problems stem from the inability of human beings to manage their affairs properly, and in both cases the solution is largely in sight, if only we had the strength of will to grasp it. It is interesting that these two threats divide the millennium which is just about to fin­ish into two more or less equal parts, at least with respect to the times that we became aware of them and began to take them seriously as problems to be dealt with. The overfishing problem began to become an issue about the year 1900, while marine pollution came into focus in the 1950s.