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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. The pressure to feed Asia's growing population has led to dangerous levels of overfishing near Pacific coastlines. An example can be found in Sindangan, a fishing town in the southern Philippines. Wild catches are falling while prices are rising. This fisherman says the area's once healthy fish stocks are in danger because of an increase in the number of fishing boats. Across the South China Sea, fish catches near shore have dropped since the nineteen eighties. That drop has pushed fishermen to go offshore with bigger boats. Benjamin Francisco is an official with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. He says some of the methods they use to increase their catches are destructive. "The use of fine mesh net, the use of dynamite explosives for fishing, and other fishing gear, that catches juveniles or those that harvest maturing spawning stocks." Fishing methods like these harm the ability of some species to reproduce. The fish warden in Sindangan, Julie Buot, says most of the local fishermen use fine mesh nets. Such nets have been banned for years because they catch very young fish. To deal with problems like this, Benjamin Francisco has been promoting the idea of licensing systems. The aim is to limit the number of boats on the water. Asia has the world's largest fishing fleets. They represent nearly three million of the world's four million fishing vessels. And most estimates show that the numbers are increasing. | 
