IF I asked you to picture the ocean right now what would you see? A crystal blue paradise teeming with tropical fish or a dull, lifeless plain with only an echo of what used to be a bustling metropolis of life?
The latter is a harsh but increasingly accurate description of what many oceans worldwide are now facing.
Destructive methods of fishing all over the world are having a terrible impact on marine life and the seabed itself.
In the Philippines, dynamite is thrown into the ocean to kill the fish, which decimates everything from the coral reefs to fish so young they're worthless.
All across the Indian Ocean huge nets are cast and dragged for miles, nothing but sand can get through the tiny holes in these nets, so everything will be brought up and if it cannot be sold it is thrown back in. Dead.
This isn't just a crisis for fish as dolphins, turtles, manta rays and sharks all get caught up in these nets.
Off the coast of Orissa, India, there's an island where fishermen go to bury all the dead turtles killed in their nets so the authorities don't find them.
A major problem with the over-fishing issue is that policing in protected areas is really poor, so hundreds of illegal trawlers don't get stopped and continue to fish in areas where species are supposed to be allowed time to restock.
There are many countries in the world where quotas were put into place to try to prevent people from taking too much fish from the oceans. This has led to fishermen throwing the dead fish back into the ocean when they have filled their quota but still fishing for the same amount.
We'll never know how much dead stock has been thrown back into the sea, but my guess is it's astronomical.
Not to mention a huge waste of food, as currently about half the world is impoverished.
There's one particular type of fishing I hate and hopefully when more people realise what is happening, they will prevent it from happening in the future.
This is shark fishing off the coast of Africa.
It's a regular occurrence for fishermen and it involves cutting the fins off sharks and then throwing their dead carcases back into the ocean. These fins are then transported to China and made into shark-fin soup – it's not even a nice-tasting dish!
The only reason it's eaten is because it makes those ordering it seem wealthy and powerful.
However, progress has been made in illegal shark fishing, and in February the first fisherman was convicted for killing a great white shark. Conservationists of the world unite!
I'm not asking people to stop eating fish, at a time when obesity figures are soaring that's definitely not what we need.
However, I am asking people to look at what they're buying. Simply buying fish caught in a sustainable way is a way that we can prevent our ocean life from being wiped out.
The Government should establish more marine reserves around the UK, which will prevent our fish stocks from vanishing.
You might think that the UK has more safeguards in place against over-fishing but actually it's one of the worst places in the world for depleted fish stocks.
More advanced technology in fishing is allowing vast quantities of fish to be pumped out the sea in alarming quantities leaving devastating consequences for the future of our fish.
Over-fishing as a crisis probably only seems like an issue to a handful of us but we as a community cannot ignore it any longer.
At the current rate of fishing, two-and-a-half times more fish are being taken out of the ocean than it can replenish.
This staggering figure means that there will come a day when there are no fish left, at a time when resources all over the world are diminishing.
Can we really afford to be wasting this one?
Coming from a town built on the fishing industry, I know I don't want to live in a world where fish and chip shops are something from history. Do you?
