Commercial fishing in Myanmar has resumed after a three-month ban for the fish breeding season, a senior agricultural official said. U Tun Lwin, deputy permanent secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, said the government banned all commercial fishing from June through August to allow the fish to breed undisturbed. He said the drastic move was needed to save fish from extinction and to protect fishery resources. In previous years, only a percentage of commercial fishing boats were not allowed to sail during the breeding season. Joint research conducted by the Myanmar Fishery Department and the Norwegian-operated research vessel RV Dr Fridtjof Nansen, showed that the fish in the surface waters of the country declined by 80 percent between 1980 and 2018. It also noted a steep drop in commercially important fish on the seabed. It said that while the volume of commercially important fish on the seabed declined, the number of short-lived and low-priced species increased, including puffer fish and red lionfish. It also noted a huge increase in plastic particles in seawater, especially in shallow water in Rakhine State’s coastal area. It found low plastic content in the delta. The research assumed that the high amount of water run-off from the land during the rainy season was responsible for the high plastic content. Over-exploitation of fish and climate change were among the factors behind the decline of the country’s fishery resources.