Each year up to 39 million tons of bycatch are thrown back from fishing vessels into the sea dead and unused. Bycatch is defined as inedible or too little fish as well as turtles, sharks, rays, seabirds, seals, whales and dolphins.

The ratio between wanted fish and bycatch is often totally absurd. For 1 ton of sole about 11 tons bycatch has to die and for 1 ton of shrimp up to 14 tons of bycatch get killed.

Huge amounts of CO2 are naturally stored in the seabed. Bottom trawling for plaice, sole, shrimp and other crustaceans, by stirring up the seabed, releases more CO2 each year than the global civil and military air traffic combined.

Around 70 percent of the plastic waste in the world’s oceans consists of abandoned fishing nets.

Because of their fins for shark fin soup or as bycatch over 60 million sharks are killed annually. As sharks are global spread it must be assumed that after their extermination the consequences will also appear global.

More than three-quarters of the worldwide fish and seafood population are already fully overfished and exploited.

The oceans are one of the most important ecological systems on the planet. They regulate the climate and produce about 70% of the oxygen we need to live. The oceans are the blue lungs of the earth!