A quarter of the world’s oceans will be protected from fishing boats which drag heavy nets across the sea floor, South Pacific nations have agreed. The landmark deal will restrict bottom-trawling, which experts say destroys coral reefs and stirs up clouds of sediment that suffocate marine life. Observers and monitoring systems will ensure vessels remain five nautical miles from marine ecosystems at risk.

The measured effects today should be enough for sensible people to realise the tragedy of the commons applies to fishing and obviously governments need to regulate the fishing to assure that fishing is sustainable. This is a serious problem exacerbated by scientific and economic illiteracy. The obvious scientific and economic solution is regulation. Determining the best regulation is tricky (and political and scientific and economic) but obviously regulation (and enforcement) is the answer.