Is best practice science actually best practice? As Australian fisheries contract under increasingly precautionary policy, seafood imports continue to rise. This article examines whether domestic closures are strengthening sustainability or simply shifting environmental pressure offshore.

When “overfishing” became the crisis of the 1970s, governments turned to market logic to save the sea. The Individual Transferable Quota promised order and sustainability, but instead it changed who could fish, who couldn’t, and who owned the ocean. The Birth of the Quota explores how a policy built on good intentions transformed an industry and the people behind it.