Journalist Anna Badkhen Sails to Where Humanity Meets the Sea in ‘Fisherman's Blues'

The global fishing market is more lucrative than ever — 2017 yielded record profits amid a growing infusion of multinational conglomerates. Yet the world's fish stocks hover near the point of collapse. Decades of aggressive fishing, rising ocean temperatures and the introduction of industrial "super-trawlers" have so depleted marine stocks that an estimated 70 percent of fish species are fully used, overused or in crisis. When first reminded of this reality, we're likely to think in environmental terms — the implications for ecosystems across the globe. But consider the effect on the world's 12 million artisanal fishermen, who venture daily beyond their shores in low-tech, rehabbed boats, trying to subsist on a product growing more scarce by the day. It's here, in this crippled corner of the fishing economy, that Anna Badkhen begins her sixth work of nonfiction, Fisherman's Blues: A West African Community at Sea.   Continue reading...