As discussed in the mass extinction chapter of the book, over-fishing is a gigantic threat in the world’s oceans. At the current pace of industrial fishing, the oceans will soon be stripped bare. And China is one of the key offenders when it comes to over-fishing:

Giant Chinese fishing fleet depletes stocks around world

China’s exploitation of the world’s fish stocks is far greater than previously thought, with research showing the country has more than 12,000 vessels fishing beyond its waters, three times more than previous estimates.

The Chinese fleet is the biggest contributor to the “global fisheries crisis”, which has resulted in two thirds of the world’s commercial stocks being overfished or fished to the limit, according to a report by the Overseas Development Institute, a think tank.

One approach described in the book would be to ban industrial fishing to allow ocean species to recover and to switch to aquaculture. See the mass extinction chapter of the book for details.

This article desrbes the kinds of policies that accelerate Earth’s sixth mass extinction event:

‘Quietly Putting Hundreds of Species at Risk,’ Trump Opens 5,000 Square Miles of Atlantic Ocean to Commercial Fishing: “Ancient and slow-growing deep sea corals, endangered large whales and sea turtles, and an incredible array of fish, seabirds, sharks, dolphins and other wildlife—these are the species and habitats that will pay the price.”

In a move that environmentalists warned could further imperil hundreds of endangered species and a protected habitat for the sake of profit, President Donald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation rolling back an Obama-era order and opening nearly 5,000 square miles off the coast of New England to commercial fishing.

“We’re opening it today,” Trump said during a roundtable talk in Maine with commercial fishermen and the state’s former governor Paul LePage. “What reason did he have for closing 5,000 miles? That’s a lot of miles. Five thousand square miles is a lot. He didn’t have a reason, in my opinion.”

“Opening up the nation’s only marine national monument in the Atlantic will help no one but a handful of fishers while risking irreparable damage to the marine wildlife that have no other fully protected areas off our eastern seaboard.” —Bob Dreher, Defenders of Wildlife

The reason behind the establishment of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2016, conservation groups hastened to point out, was to shield endangered species and their ecosystem from harmful intrusion and permanent damage by commercial interests.

This move is the opposite of what humanity should be doing to prevent the sixth mass extinction event from occurring. Instead, we should be protecting more and more of the ocean and ending commercial fishing altogether. See the mass extinction chapter of the book for details.

The latest article raising the alarm about the upcoming mass extinction event:

• Animals and plants are dying off at the fastest rate since the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago – with more than 500 land-based vertebrates expected to disappear by 2040

Animal and plant species are dying off around the world at the fastest rate since the mass-extinction event that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, scientists warn. A new study, by an international team of researchers, found more than 500 land-based animal species will be on the brink of extinction within the next two decades.

• Earth accelerating towards sixth mass extinction event that could see ‘disintegration of civilisation’, scientists warn

“When humanity exterminates populations and species of other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system,” said Professor Ehrlich.

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