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Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries

Global fisheries trends in one book

The Sea Around Us team recently launched the Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries, the first book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery data.

In just a few months since it was released to the market by Island Press, the Atlas has become an indispensable resource for researchers, students, fishery managers, professionals in the fishing industry, environmentalists, and so on.

It has also gathered attention from the press in Canada, the US, Spain, and Venezuela.

On the below video, Dr. Daniel Pauly, the Sea Around Us principal investigator, expands on the findings published in the book regarding reported vs. unreported global catch and the challenge of dealing with unreliable statistics from certain countries, among other topics.

 

Daniel Pauly on the importance of the Albert Ier Grand Medal

As we mentioned in a previous post, last November Sea Around Us principal investigator Dr. Daniel Pauly was conferred the 2016 Albert Ier Grand Medal in the Science category.

In a ceremony held at the Maison des Océans in Paris, Pauly was handed the award by Albert II, Prince of Monaco, and M. Robert Calcagno, General Director of the Institute Océanographique.

Feeling hugely proud and very pleased by the honour, he said that the importance of the distinction is that it helps bring attention to the urgent issues affecting the world’s oceans.

Indigenous people eat 15 times more seafood than non-Indigenous people

indigenous-coastal-environments-landscape-map-center-01-660x465

Researchers from the Nereus Program at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries developed a global database of over 1,900 Indigenous communities and estimated seafood consumption at 2.1 million metric tonnes per year or 2% of global catch.

In other words and as the infographic above shows, coastal First Nations consume 74 kg of seafood per capita, whereas the global average is 19 kg. Continue reading →

The plan to ban fishing in more than half the world’s oceans

Fishes eye view of the Island Star. Photo by Derek Keats, Flickr.

Fishes eye view of the Island Star. Photo by Derek Keats, Flickr.

This analysis was originally posted in New Scientist, and can be found here.

By James Randerson.

IT IS one of the planet’s last true wildernesses, yet a handful of the world’s wealthiest nations are plundering its riches to satisfy the appetites of luxury consumers – all with the help of billions in public money. Continue reading →

Impacts of climate change on contaminants in fisheries

Dr. Elsie Sunderland (left). Photo: Valentina Ruiz Leotaud.

Dr. Elsie Sunderland (left). Photo: Valentina Ruiz Leotaud.

By: Valentina Ruiz Leotaud.

On November 17th, the Nereus Program hosted a talk with a VIP guest speaker: Dr. Elsie Sunderland, the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University.

In an hour-long presentation, which took place at UBC’s Green College, Dr. Sunderland summarized part of the work that her research group is undertaking on the biogeochemistry of global contaminants.

Many environmental contaminants biomagnify in marine food webs, reaching high concentrations in top predators, which means that they are posing health risks to humans and wildlife.

Sunderland started by saying that focusing just on carbon pollutants provides a very narrow view that ignores the vast array of substances affecting the environment. Even when policymakers think they are choosing the greenest options when it comes to energy generation, they might be doing quite the opposite.

Dr. Elsie Sunderland.

Dr. Elsie Sunderland.

Continue reading →