Dirk Zeller talks about the new Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean

Starting in the summer of 2017, Dr. Dirk Zeller will be leading the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean as Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Western Australia.

While continuing with the project’s global approach towards the study of the impact of fisheries on the marine ecosystems of the world, the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean will focus on issues affecting this particular region and surrounding areas, and how those issues need to be taken into account when addressing global ocean conservation.

Belated contributions on the biology of fish, fisheries and features of their ecosystems

Photo by Lisa Norwood, Flickr.

Photo by Lisa Norwood, Flickr.

A report (Belated contributions on the biology of fish, Fisheries and features of their ecosystems, Fisheries Centre Research Report 25(1), 2017) edited by Daniel Pauly and Lincoln Hood of UBC’s Sea Around Us and by Konstantinos I. Stergiou of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, in Athens- Greece, has just been released which contains mainly contributions initially written several years or even decades ago, but not formally published. They are now because they contained ideas and/or data that may still be valuable.

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Photo by Tak, Flickr.

Thought Antarctica’s biodiversity was doing well? Think again

Photo by Tak, Flickr.

Photo by Tak, Flickr.

Twenty-three experts involved in the study “Antarctica and the strategic plan for biodiversity,” recently published in PLoS Biology, debunked the popular view that Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are in a better environmental shape than the rest of the world. In fact, the difference between the status of biodiversity in the region and planet Earth as a whole is negligible.

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The Sea Around Us at Vancouver’s March for Science (PHOTOS)

Photo by Deng Palomares

Photo by Deng Palomares

“It was the most organized, punctual march I’ve ever attended,” the Sea Around Us‘ Graduate Student Madeline Cashion said about the March for Science that took place in Vancouver on April 22, 2017.

Some 500 people gathered at Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza and, at 10 a.m., they started walking towards Creekside Park near Science World. Once there, an array of figures such as Dr. Scott Sampson, Paleontologist & CEO of Science World; Erin A’tman Ryan, Research Coordinator with the BC SPCA and member of the Syilx (Okanagan) Nation; and Marine Biologist Abby Schwarz, among others, gave speeches that touched upon the importance of academic freedom and evidence-based policy making, the cuts to scientific research funding proposed by the U.S. government, and climate change denial.

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