There are many ways to solve the specific problem of overfishing, mostly to set aside zones where fishing is not allowed so the population can recover. This is at the level of government and states, having little to do with anything within my power.
Changing the industry overnight isn't in any one person's power any more than electing the next president, but the sum of our collective votes does decide the victor.
Large scale boycotts of the industry will drop demand, and so production, and finally the impact on the fisheries.
You can already see this at work with the decline of the milk industry in the US as consumers have lowered their consumption by about 49% since 1970.[1]
All done by the power of consumer choice.
Millions of people are already voluntarily choosing to engage in these boycotts against these destructive industries, without waiting to have a gun put to their heads. It's worth considering taking part in order to have some positive impact on the world, while also continuing to push for systemic change, in my opinion. It doesn't have to be either/or.
That's talking about people drinking milk or milk with cereal. Overall dairy consumption has increased ~20% over the same time period, mostly due to cheese and yogurt[0].
Changing the industry is not in one person's power, but it is a small number of people (owners of the several large producers and the regulatory guys) who do change it; this (overnight) cancelling of the season is a counterexample to your point.
Sorry, I'm having trouble parsing that historical spreadsheet. If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like per capita (consumption?) was 564 pounds in 1970 and 603 pounds in 2010, a 6.9% increase.
Either way, if that is actual consumption then that's an increase in total dairy use and I appreciate the correction.
I would argue my point still stands in terms in drinking milk consumption, it at least has dropped by nearly 50%, and that means that we would be producing a lot more dairy overall today if consumer habits hadn't shifted away from milk (and the growth in cheese and yogurt consumption had increased in the same fashion as it has, which admittedly may not have been the case).
Another example would be the massive growth of plant based milks and vegan/vegetarian products and restaurants into multi billion dollar industries over the last few decades, displacing a commensurate amount of demand from animal based industries.
My point is also not that governments, corporations, and the powerful don't have any influence over the state of the world. It was that large scale boycotts and pressing for systemic change can be done simultaneously, and do not have to be mutually exclusive.
I'm going off the 2021 numbers, 667 pounds/capita/annum. I'll confess I was too lazy to pull up the calculator app and get ~18% increase. This wasn't due to a conscious consumer boycott, people just decided that drinking milk is kinda gross (see: McPoyle)
A better example to illustrate your point might be the grape boycotts of the 1960s, when Cesar Chavez/Dolores de la Huerta/UFW & company successfully appealed to the American working man to boycott (specifically California) grapes until the growers agreed to basic labor rights.
In any case, my point is that industry/the powers that be aren't actually to blame, as evidenced by their readiness to cancel the season. As this is most likely caused by climate change, we should be boycotting the fossil fuel industry, if only we could
Creating zones is one thing, enforcement is another. Hopefully technology can help solve this because I honestly don't see any other way - the oceans are too vast.
Enforcement is a solved problem - ships can be tracked by various means, ports where catches can be offloaded can be audited, crews can be arrested and ships impounded when in port. No one is going to overfish if they can't economically get their catch to market and get paid for their troubles. The issue is getting everyone to enforce the policies consistently - the leaders of different jurisdictions may not see eye to eye on what level of protection is optimal, and the people actually doing the enforcement may be willing to turn a blind eye to violations depending on circumstances.
I suspect the difference between you and those being sanctimonious to you are that they lie about their indiscretions. They probably have cars or pets or don't live in dense residential areas.
Whatever plastic particles you're eating in fish flesh really are a drop in the bucket. You'd get a lot more benefit by throwing away all your clothing, carpets, bedding, etc that contain synthetic fibers and replacing them all with pure cotton, wool, silk or flax but I doubt you're in a rush to do that. Unless you're willing to go that far, nothing else you do will make a difference.
