Marine Life Declines for Another Year in Contested, Overfished South China Sea

Marine life in the politically disputed South China Sea took another hit over the past year, researchers said, due to overfishing and lack of international efforts to protect species. Vessels from multiple Asian countries are going farther out into the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea and casting deeper because coastal waters yield increasingly little, scholars and published research indicate. Giant clam harvesting, added to use of cyanide and dynamite bombing for fish, damaged coral reefs last year, the analysts said. Marine life in the sea that stretches from Taiwan southwest to Singapore comes into focus every May, when China declares a moratorium on fishing above the 12th parallel, which...