Tag: marine protected areas

Unexpected findings in West Africa

Sarah Popov and Dyhia Belhabib. Photo by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud

As we mentioned in a previous blog post, Dyhia Belhabib, Program Manager-Fisheries for Ecotrust Canada and a West Africa advisor to the Sea Around Us, and Sarah Popov, a research assistant at the Sea Around Us, were invited to Senegal by the MAVA Foundation with the aim of meeting a range of fisheries stakeholders and addressing the main challenges the subregion’s fishing sector is facing.

The pair left Vancouver on February 19, 2017 with their hopes high and a scheduled packed with workshops and community engagement activities.

However, it took them almost twice the estimated time to arrive in Senegal for their week-long stay.

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Cautious fish evolve out of marine reserves

Photo by Matana_and_Jes, Flickr

Photo by Matana_and_Jes, Flickr

New research supports the creation of more marine reserves in the world’s oceans because, the authors say, fish can evolve to be more cautious and stay away from fishing nets.

The research suggests that by creating additional “no-take” areas, some fish will stay within marine reserves where they are protected from fishing. While other fish will move around the ocean, these less mobile fish will continue to live in the protected areas, pass this behaviour on to their offspring, and contribute to future generations, increasing the overall stock.

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The looming extinction of the Maui dolphin

Maui’s dolphin. Photo by New Zealand Department of Conservation, Flickr

The world’s rarest and smallest known subspecies of dolphin, the Maui dolphin, is about to go extinct. Its population is down to 60 individuals from 2,000 in the 1970s.

Journalist Christopher Pala just launched a series of articles focusing on the reasons behind the disappearance of this subspecies of the Hector’s dolphin and the actions governments are taking (or not) to stop the death toll from rising.

Follow this link to read the first article of the series in Science.

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.