"If fishing was done on land and not miles off sea and underwater where the public can't see what's going on - I'm sure there would be much more care about how we fished and it wouldn't take a massive collapse in fish populations before something was done about it."

I think that's a but wishful. Just look at stuff like CAFOs. The majority of consumers don't give a damn as long as the price in the store is cheap enough. They're not thinking of where the stuff they're buying came from.