【单选题】

1 LAND, Switzerland, May 12 - The world’s cod stocks could be wiped out by 2020 because of overfishing, illegal catches and oil exploration, the World Wildlife Fund says.

2 In a report to be released on Thursday, the environmental group said the world’s largest remaining cod stock, in theBarents Sea, was under particular threat.
3 The world’s cod fisheries are disappearing fast, with a global catch that declined to 1 million tons in 2000, from 3.42 million tons in 1970, the report saiD、
4 "If such a trend continues, the world’s cod stocks will disappear in 15 years time," it saiD、
5 In NorthAmerica, the catch has declined by 90 percent since the early 1980’s, while inEuropean waters, the catch of North Sea cod is now just 25 percent of what it was two decades ago.
6 "Overfishing of cod continues because fisheries policies are driven by short-term economic interests," said SimonCripps, head of the group’s oceans program.
7 TheBarents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, is one of the world’s richest fishing grounds, accounting for half the global cod catch.But although numbers there appear healthy, this may not last, the World Wildlife Fund saiD、
8 High fishing quotas for 2004 are unsustainable, the group maintaineD、Some 110,000 tons of cod are also believed to be caught there illegally every year, further denting stocks, it saiD、
9 "The onus is on Russia and Norway to prevent theBarents Sea cod stock suffering a similar fate as theCanadian cod stock, which collapsed in the 1990’s and has not yet recovered," Mr.Cripps saiD、
10 The World Wildlife Fund said it believed thatBarents Sea cod were also threatened by expanded shipping and oil exploration plans.
11 on Tuesday, the Norwegian authorities said the potentially oil-rich sea would be reopened for exploration, after a pause to address environmental concerns about protecting the fragile ecosystem inArctic waters.
12 Russia, meanwhile, is planning to bolster shipping by developing a new export route via its ice-free, deep-water port of Murmansk, which would give supertankers an economical route to transport oil to theEastCoast of the United States.
The underlined word "denting" is closest in meaning to ______.
A、declining
B．being destroyed
C．threatened
D．disappearing