Capture fisheries and aquaculture supplied the world with about 106 million tonnes of food fish in 2004, providing an apparent per capita supply of 16.6kg, which is the highest on record. Overall, fish provided more than 2.6 billion people with at least 20% of their average per capita animal protein intake. The share of fish proteins in total world animal protein supplies grew from 14.9% in 1992 to a peak of 16.0% in 1996, declining to about 15.5% in 2003 (FAO, 2006).

In 2004, an estimated 41 million people worked as fishers and fish farmers, the great majority of these in developing countries, principally in Asia. Significant increases in the most recent decades, particularly in Asia, are a result of the strong expansion of aquaculture activities. Total world trade in fish and fishery products reached a record value of US$71.5 billion (export value) in 2004 (FAO, 2006).

Despite this growth, a study by eminent fisheries scientists titled “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services” claims that seafood may disappear by 2048. The loss of ocean biodiversity is accelerating, and 29% of the seafood species humans consume have already collapsed. If the long-term trend continues, in 30 years there will be little or no seafood available for sustainable harvest (NY Times, 2006).

Fisheries play an important role in Malaysia's culture and economy. Malaysia is a nation with more sea than land and there are more than 120,000 licensed fishermen and aquaculture operators within the fisheries sector in 2007. The total fish production in 2007 was 1.65 million tonnes. The total revenue from the fisheries industry was RM5.8 billion (Department of Fisheries, 2007).

Despite increase in revenue over the years, the situation on the ground is worrying. Fisheries resources have depleted since 1970, so much so that fish biomass has declined as much as 90% between 1971 and 1997 in some fishing areas (Abu Talib et al. 2003b). This is based on the Department of Fisheries' decadal resource survey to assess demersal fish biomass, growth, mortality, yield and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) that concludes that the demersal resources in west coast and east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak was already over-exploited in 1997 (Abu Talib et al. 2003c).

The threats to sustainable management of fisheries are both terrestrial and marine-based. Some of the immediate threats are :

• Overfishing - where the fish resource harvested is more than the sustainable level.
• By-catch - where the use of non-selective gears such as trawl nets results in high catch of non-target species (non-commercial fishes, juveniles of commercial fishes, turtles, dolphins and others). This practice will deplete fish resources, as well as affect the food-chain and marine biodiversity.
• Destructive fishing practices - many fishermen use cyanide, bombs and electric gears to stun and catch fish easily, but the impact of these practices on the natural habitats of coral reefs, sea grass and the marine environment is devastating. (Chitra Devi et al. 2008)

What seafood you choose today can help improve the situation of our fisheries locally and globally. By your decision to stop buying threatened and undersized fish, the fishermen will have no reason to catch those fish. This will reduce the pressure on the species and allow it to restock. If we would like to continue to enjoy the variety of seafood as we do today and for years to come, we need to start making informed choices now.