The Sea Around Us PI, Dr. Daniel Pauly.
The second week of September 2025 was an interesting one when it comes to ocean-related news.
On September 15, 111 World Trade Organization members – of the 166 that states that belong to the WTO – formally ratified the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, which had been two decades in the making and was adopted in June 2022.
The Sea Around Us initiative turned 25 years old in July 2024.
To mark this milestone, the team produced a large poster highlighting some of the research accomplishments that turned the project into a reputable voice when it comes to fisheries data, and fish population management and conservation.
Daniel Pauly at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, September 2024. Photo by Valentina Ruiz-Leotaud.
In the heat of summer in central Greece, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki hosted the 22nd FishBase and SeaLifeBase Symposium.
Titled “Fishes in Changing Ecosystems,” the two-day event started on September 2, 2024, with a full day dedicated to some of the overarching themes the Sea Around Us team is doing research on.
As of 2025, about 75 per cent of the Sea Around Us team is comprised of women and in the past 25 years, of the over 200 people from more than 40 countries who have worked for the project, 59 per cent have been women.
Participants of the EcoScope general meeting at the Balearic Oceanographic Centre of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography in Palma de Mallorca. Photo by EcoScope.
The Sea Around Us project manager, Dr. Maria ‘Deng’ Palomares, and Advisory Board vice-chair, Athanasios Tsikliras, participated in the 2024 general assembly of the project Ecocentric Management for Sustainable Fisheries and Healthy Marine Ecosystems (EcoScope).