Saving Fish by Wasting ThemA law to protect marine life had a deadly side effect.

From the show

When Rewards Backfire

Well-intentioned rules can have disastrous, unintended consequences. To combat overfishing, the EU set quotas on catches. This created a perverse incentive for fishermen to throw millions of dead, unwanted fish back into the sea. This massive waste, known as 'discarding', undermined the very sustainability the policy was meant to protect. A later ban on this practice also backfired, showing how hard it is to regulate complex systems without creating new problems.