In less than two minutes, learn why fish catches are declining

Photo by Nat Van Egmond, Flickr.

Photo by Nat Van Egmond, Flickr.

As the Sea Around Us team revealed in its 2016 Nature Communications paper, global fish catches have been declining, on average, by 1.2 million metric tons per year since 1996.

This decline has resulted in lower per capita seafood availability and threatens food security in poor, developing countries. In fact, a group of scientists, among them the Sea Around Us Senior Scientist Dirk Zeller, has predicted that 11% of the global population could face micronutrient and fatty-acid deficiencies driven by fish declines over the coming decades.

That is 845 million people living with extremely low levels of iron, zinc or vitamin A.

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Sea Around Us’ work leads top 10 conservation wins of 2016

nat-geo-top-10
The Sea Around Us team couldn’t be more honoured. Today, National Geographic‘s Ocean Views published the “Top 10 Ocean Conservation Victories of 2016” and our program took the first spot.

“Future (fishery) management will have a more solid scientific foundation thanks to a decade of research by the Sea Around Us Project,” Marine Biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wrote.

In 2016, the Sea Around Us compiled most of its findings in two major publications: The Nature Communications paper “Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining” and the Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries.

The main discovery? Countries drastically underreport the number of fish caught worldwide, and the numbers obscure a significant decline in the total catch .

Follow this link and read more on NatGeo’s article.