Sea Around Us study finds 30 per cent of global fish catch is unreported

Fish basket on head
Countries drastically underreport the number of fish caught worldwide, and the numbers obscure a significant decline in the total catch .

The new estimate, released today in Nature Communications, puts the annual global catch at roughly 109 million metric tons, about 30 per cent higher than the 77 million officially reported in 2010 by more than 200 countries and territories. This means that 32 million metric tons of fish goes unreported every year, more than the weight of the entire population of the United States.

Researchers led by the Sea Around Us, a research initiative at the University of British Columbia supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and Vulcan Inc., attribute the discrepancy to the fact that most countries focus their data collection efforts on industrial fishing and largely exclude difficult-to-track categories such as artisanal, subsistence, and illegal fishing, as well as discarded fish. Continue reading →

Nation of Palau protecting 80 percent of its ocean waters

(Photo: LuxTonnerre/Flickr)

(Photo: LuxTonnerre/Flickr)

Midway through December, 2015, the Pacific Island nation of Palau created a marine protected area (MPA) the size of California, helping to conserve tuna populations and a host of other marine species.

“We will not restore the health of our planet without repairing the well-being of the ocean,“ wrote Tommy E Remengesau Jr. – Palau’s president – in a column in The Guardian newspaper. Continue reading →

The Sea Around Us: A successful trip to Tunisia

Tunisia is the southern Mediterranean country where the events collectively known as the “Arab Spring” started in 2011, and the only country where these events lead to a democratic outcome, for which four major Tunisian political groups recently received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Between late November and early December 2015, Daniel Pauly went to Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, for a period of 5 days, to present lectures and to meet researchers and Tunisian government representatives working on fisheries and marine resources conservation. Dr. Pauly was accompanied by his Tunisian graduate student, Myriam Khalfallah, who co-organized the lectures and the meetings. This visit aimed not only to present the catch reconstruction results for Tunisia and the world, but also to assemble a team of Tunisian experts to improve and update the reconstruction work done for Tunisia. Continue reading →