Fishing was humankind’s earliest exploitation of natural resources. By the 19th century, fish supplies were rapidly diminishing, and, as the narrator of the program states, "The hunt had become a frenzy." This program examines the problem of overfishing by tracing international controversy over fishing rights from 16th-century Dutch herring fleets, and Grotius’ treatise on Freedom of the Seas, to the 1975 war between Britain and Iceland over cod fishing rights off the latter’s coast. Rights granted by an international tribunal allowing Iceland to set coastal fishing limits were eventually granted to other nations—a pattern that has reduced overfishing and promoted better commercial fishing management. (26 minutes)