The Marine Stewardship Council, the fisheries eco-certification taken most seriously by consumers and scientists around the world, is failing to fulfill its promise, write six scientists, including the Sea Around Us Project’s Jennifer Jacquet and Daniel Pauly, in last week’s issue of Nature. Read their opinion piece, Seafood stewardship in crisis, or some of the media coverage, such as Why your sustainable fish may not be as guilt-free as you think at The Independent, Scientists criticize system of certifying fisheries at The New York Times Green Blog, or Sustainability certification fails to protect environment: report in the Vancouver Sun.
Category: New & Notable
Daniel Pauly Talks Catch Shares
Whale Watching: Worth a Lot
A new study by authors from the Fisheries Economics Research Unit and the Sea Around Us Project shows that whale watching is a booming industry and a good alternative to whaling. Based on ecological and socio-economic criteria, whale watching could generate an additional US$413 million in yearly revenue, supporting 5,700 jobs. Together with current global estimates, this would bring the total potential for the whale watching industry to over US$2.5 billion in yearly revenue and about 19,000 jobs around the world. The research was covered widely during the IWC meeting. Read, for instance, this piece at Discovery News.
Reference: A.M. Cisneros-Montemayor, U.R. Sumaila , K. Kaschner , D. Pauly (in press) The global potential for whale watching. Marine Policy.
March/April 2010 Newsletter
Read about sea turtles, sharks, and Sea Around Us member research in the March/April newsletter.
Biodiversity in Trouble
Sea Around Us Project members Daniel Pauly and Reg Watson contributed to a recent paper in Science that shows failure to achieve reductions in biodiversity loss by 2010 at outlined by the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Most indicators of biodiversity show further declines while indicators of pressure, including spatial expansion of fisheries, show increases.