Currently only a quarter of fish stocks - mostly the cheaper, less desirable species - are considered to be in healthy numbers.
The main scourge, the UNEP report says, are government subsidies encouraging ever bigger fishing fleets chasing ever fewer fish, with little attempt made to allow the fish populations to recover.
The annual US$27 billion ($37.72 billion) in government subsidies to fishing, mostly in rich countries, is "perverse," Sukhdev said, since the entire value of fish caught is only US$85 billion.
As a result, fishing fleet capacity is "50 to 60 per cent" higher than it should be, Sukhdev said.
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