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.

Sea Around Us updates real catch numbers

The Sea Around Us team is pleased to announce that the marine fisheries catch data and derived indicators on its website have been updated from 2010 to include information from 2011, 2012, and 2013.

This means that time series with 64 years’ worth of data (1950-2013) are available for free on www.seaaroundus.org, as is our catch mapping tool.

The documentation of data, methods, and assumptions made for this update will be presented for each country and territory in early 2017, after a further update to 2014 has been completed.

sau-updated_19117611_01a3118f59e5051cdb44c86c516e5d7e6e044720 Continue reading

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.

 

Dr. Daniel Pauly (Photo from http://cars.fisheries.org/

Daniel Pauly awarded the 2016 Albert Ier Grand Medal

Photo: M. dagnino – Institut océanographique.

Photo: M. dagnino – Institut océanographique.

Just a day after World Fisheries Day, Sea Around Us Principal Investigator, Dr. Daniel Pauly, was awarded the 2016 Albert Ier Grand Medal in the Science category during a ceremony held at the Maison des Océans in Paris.

The Albert Ier Grand Medal is the most prestigious prize given by the Oceanographic Institute to great names of the marine world. It takes the form of a medal in gilded bronze bearing the embossed profile of Prince Albert Ist, a pioneer of modern oceanography and founder of the Institute.

Dr. Pauly is acknowledged as one of the greatest specialists of marine resources and the effects of overfishing in the world.

Besides attending the gala, Dr. Pauly is set to participate in the conference “Only One Ocean: Issues and Solutions,” which was organized by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Institute also with the idea of honouring him.

Continue reading

Sea Around Us discusses future during annual retreat

sea-around-us-november-2016

Photo by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud.

The setting was ideal: The ocean on one side, the forest on the other.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard except that of a few seagulls, a sea lion somewhere, the waves lashing back and forth, and the enthusiastic team of the Sea Around Us talking about plans and projects for the coming years.

It was all part of the Sea Around Us’ annual retreat, which took place on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast on November 4th-6th, 2016.

Leaders Daniel Pauly, Dirk Zeller, and Deng Palomares traveled with associated faculty, staff, and students with the idea of updating everyone on everything: from finances to exciting new initiatives and potential new directions.

Photo by Deng Palomares.

Photo by Deng Palomares.

Continue reading