Increasingly, we will be faced with a choice: whether to keep the oceans for wild fish or farmed fish. Farming domesticated species in close proximity with wild fish will mean that domesticated fish always win. Nobody in the world of policy appears to be asking what is best for society, wild fish or farmed fish. And what sort of farmed fish, anyway? Were this question to be asked, and answered honestly, we might find that our interests lay in prioritizing wild fish and making their ecosystems more productive by leaving them alone enough of the time.

Fish farming, even with conventional techniques, changes fish within a few generations from an animal like a wild buffalo or a wildebeest to the equivalent of a domestic cow.

Celebrity chefs are the leaders in the field of food, and we are the led. Why should the leaders of chemical businesses be held responsible for polluting the marine environment with a few grams of effluent, which is sublethal to marine species, while celebrity chefs are turning out endangered fish at several dozen tables a night without enduring a syllable of criticism?

Increasingly, we will be faced with a choice: whether to keep the oceans for wild fish or farmed fish. Farming domesticated species in close proximity with wild fish will mean that domesticated fish always win. Nobody in the world of policy appears to be asking what is best for society, wild fish or farmed fish. And what sort of farmed fish, anyway? Were this question to be asked, and answered honestly, we might find that our interests lay in prioritizing wild fish and making their ecosystems more productive by leaving them alone enough of the time.

The Romans believed that what no man controls, no man can own. Justinian, writing in the sixth century AD, said that the air, flowing water, the sea and the seashore were common to all.

The availability of fish is a food security issue. We need to stop our first world fleets taking fish from the mouths of the poor. The EU fleet goes all up and down the coast of Africa. The same thing goes on in the Pacific.

I believe citizens are beginning to realize that their birthright, a healthy ecosystem, has been stolen, and they want it back.