"Many environmentalists believe that the world's overexploited and ailing oceans will soon replace tropical rainforests as the most pressing global ecology issue." "Biologist Michael Berrill explores this simmering crisis with thoroughness and authority. The Plundered Seas opens with a lucid overview of world fisheries and their historical pattern of discovery, exploitation, depletion, and death. Berrill goes on to survey the evolution of international laws governing exclusive fishing zones, the efforts at governmental regulation of the fiercely independent industry, the problems with predicting stock size, and the connected implications for management." "Berrill reviews the progress to date in addressing these critical concerns. Favorable developments in international agreements, notable strides in co-management, and new ideas for individual quotas and binding enforcement all offer reasonable hope that oceanic ecosystems can be sustained."--BOOK JACKET.