The Sea Around Us PI, Dr. Daniel Pauly.
The second week of September 2025 was an interesting one when it comes to ocean-related news.
On September 15, 111 World Trade Organization members – of the 166 that states that belong to the WTO – formally ratified the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, which had been two decades in the making and was adopted in June 2022.
Bluefin tuna. Image by Tom Puchner, Flickr
Extractive activity in international waters – including fishing, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploitation – should be banned forever, according to top scientists.
The high seas, the vast international waters beyond national jurisdiction, cover 43 per cent of the planet’s surface and two-thirds of its living space. Yet they remain largely unprotected and increasingly threatened by overfishing, climate disruption and the rising interest in deep-sea mining.
Chinese fishing vessel FV Tian Yu 8 in the Indian Ocean. Photo by the U.S. Navy, Picryl.
Industrial fleets from top fishing countries operating in the Indian Ocean and targeting export-market species such as tuna and squid are likely to disable monitoring systems to fish more than allowed and evade authorities, new research has found.
By mapping the growth and spread of industrial fisheries using the Sea Around Us data, the researchers found that these global trends were dominated by the heavily subsidized fleets of a small number of countries that have increased the total area fished from 60 per cent to 90 per cent of the world’s oceans.