Hungry People Beat Healthy Oceans Everytime

China recently told the United Nations that they were looking forward to more "openness of the oceans." 

Nowhere to go. Chinese fishing boats surround a reef.

They used the word "harmony", too, but maybe they should have used the word access.  They have over a billion people to feed after all.

South Korea said recently that China was tagged for 4,600 illegal fishing violations in the past decade.

Illegal Chinese fishers move in harmony to avoid capture.

In a wild story from the New York Times, a small band of barefoot seamen in the Philippines are shackled with the ridiculous duty to protect their nation's outermost island reaches from China.  The article was aptly called The Game of Shark and Minnow.

It's not all about China.  Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing happens all over the world because there is a demand for the fish.

Healthy oceans lose in all of these cases, international violations and regional dominance aside.  When sustainability goes, the health of the oceans follows.  When the oceans go, we all better duck.

The ocean feeds billions of people each day.  Can it keep up?