When Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) were first introduced, they were sold as a fix to overfishing — a way to protect stocks, bring order to chaos, and make fishing more efficient. But decades later, the tide has turned. Beneath the surface of economic “efficiency” lies a quieter transformation: coastal towns hollowed out, working fishers turned into renters of their own livelihoods, and ecosystems reshaped by policies that changed who could fish — and who couldn’t. The Unseen Currents explores how the ITQ experiment, from abalone and lobster to the fisheries of tomorrow, has rippled through Australia and the world — exposing the gap between what was seen, and what was never meant to be.