Academic fora are full of discussions about fishing as a lifestyle, tradition and culture – something to be cherished and preserved. What is left unstated, or perhaps even forgotten, is that people fish to make a living, not by eating all the fish they catch but by selling most of it to others who want it but are not in a position to catch it themselves. Any such transaction needs two parties: a willing seller and a willing buyer. In today's rich and specialized societies, the potential buyers of fish can satisfy their needs by buying fish of many different kinds and from many different sources, and perhaps not buying any fish at all but, rather, some other foodstuff they like better. Sellers of fish had better make sure they have a competitive product in terms of quality and price. If they do not, they will be unable to sell their product, and, if their culture and lifestyle are a hindrance, that will have to change.

We are all familiar with how technological progress has changed the way of life, the things we use and even our food beyond recognition. This has happened in fisheries no less than in other industries or occupations. A little over 100 years ago the most prominent British biologist at the time, Thomas Huxley, could maintain that fishing had no effect on the viability of fish populations (see Smith 1994). He was very soon to be proved wrong. Yet Huxley's thesis was entirely to the point for earlier times, before the English invented trawl fisheries and got imitated by others. Our present ability to overfish stocks so that they nearly vanish is attributable to technological progress. We touched upon this in Chapter 5, when we told the story about the Norwegian spring-spawning herring. Rapid technological progress made it possible to almost wipe out the entire fish population over just a few years.

The solution is not to reverse technological progress; that has never been a winning strategy anywhere. Rather, fish stocks must be carefully monitored and fishing activity limited to what the stocks can support.