Global Fish Crisis | Still Waters, National Geographic Magazine: Waterside Reef Fish Salesman | Hong Kong, China

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Dockside in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district, customers choose seafood, which they take to nearby restaurants to be prepared for the table. Here, shellfish mingle with live reef fish. Divers capture live fish using cyanide or traps, leaving coral reefs devoid of valued species such as grouper, wrasse, and coral trout. The global trade may top a billion dollars a year, but little of the profit reaches the fishers, and coastal villages are left with depleted reefs. An increasingly affluent China, along with expatriate Chinese communities in the U.S. and elsewhere, are the primary market for exotic reef fish.