Daniel Pauly and Rashid Sumaila. Photo by Kim Bellavance, Tyler Prize.
The Africa-UBC Oceans and Fisheries Visiting Fellows Program is pleased to announce the selection of its inaugural laureates: Dr. Cynthia A. Adinortey (Ghana) and Dr. Antony Otinga Oteng’o (Kenya).
From left to right: William Cheung, Daniel Pauly and Rashid Sumaila.
The Sea Around Us principal investigator, Dr. Daniel Pauly, and Advisory Board Members, Drs. William Cheung and Rashid Sumaila, have been listed among the most highly cited investigators worldwide in 2024 by Clarivate Analytics.
Every year, on November 21st, World Fisheries Day is observed.
Launched in 1997 at a World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers meeting, which led to the creation of the World Fisheries Forum, this day is meant to bring awareness to the urgent need for sustainable fishing practices and measures.
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).
Hoi An fish market in Vietnam. Image by Jean-Marie Hullot, Flickr.
A recent study by researchers at the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, based at the University of Western Australia, the Changing Ocean Research Unit at the University of British Columbia and the University of Miami, shows that even with strong climate mitigation efforts, maximum catch potential is expected to fall by 58–92 per cent in the Pacific Islands and 65–86 per cent in Southeast Asia by the mid to end of the 21st century. These losses will likely result in fisheries failing to meet key micronutrient requirements in these regions’ coastal populations.
Measuring Baltic herring. Photo by Aleksey Kusnetsov, Wikimedia Commons.
As climate change continues to warm and deoxygenate ocean water, the size of fish, aquatic molluscs and crustaceans is showing a concerning reduction pattern. This pattern manifests a life history in which the animals exposed to rising temperatures grow fast when they are young but mature at smaller sizes than before and their final body sizes are also smaller than they used to be.
Farming Atlantic Salmon in Tasmania. Photo by Arthur Chapman, Flickr.
The growing appetite for expensive farmed salmon can leave coastal communities struggling to access affordable local fish like sardines and anchovies, new research published in Science Advances shows.
The paper, co-authored by researchers with Oceana and the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, exposes the global aquaculture sector’s growing dependence on wild, small pelagic fishes which are frequently caught, processed, and ‘reduced’ to fishmeal and fish oil. Almost the entirety of the production of fishmeal and fish oil, that is, 87 per cent and 74 per cent respectively, is used to feed farmed fish.
Robberg Peninsula, Bitou Local Municipality, South Africa. Photo by Elizaveta Kovaleva, Wikimedia Commons.
In mid-September, the Sea Around Us principal investigator, Dr. Daniel Pauly, and the executive director of the Marisla Foundation, Dr. Beto Bedolfe, took part in a conversation around ocean health organized by the Bitou Community Foundation Trust in New York’s Goodman Gallery.
The Sea Around Us PI, Dr. Daniel Pauly, and communications officer, Valentina Ruiz-Leotaud, have produced a new Fisheries Centre Research Report titled Marine and Freshwater Miscellanea V.
As its four predecessors, this document presents a diverse range of topics that offer substantial contributions to the field of fisheries science and which, if not published as an FCRR, might have remained stored away in individual researchers’ desks or computers.
Small-scale fisheries in Malaysia. Photo by Jamie Oliver – WorldFish, Flickr.
A week before Brussels’ Ocean Week and a few months before the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, a group of researchers published the results of an unprecedented scientific effort: they redefine the concept of ‘sustainable fishing’ and propose eleven ‘golden rules’ that radically challenge the flawed notion that currently prevails in fisheries management.
Dr. Wanja Nyingi, lead of the Freshwater Hub at the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean.
The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean at the University of Western Australia has just launched a Freshwater Hub — an initiative dedicated to investigating the sustainable management and conservation of freshwater resources in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.
After the collapse of herring and cod stocks in the western Baltic Sea, flatfish such as plaice, flounder, and dab now dominate the catch. However, they can’t replace the lost catch of cod and herring. Photo by Ilka Thomsen, GEOMAR.
As the abundance of global fish populations continues to deteriorate, top fisheries researchers are calling for simpler yet more accurate stock assessment models that avoid overly optimistic scientific advice, which ends up encouraging overfishing.
River fishing in Ontario, Canada. Photo from Pxhere.
The Sea Around Us has published the first product in a massive undertaking that started in 2022: reconstructing the world’s freshwater fisheries catches.
Angel shark on the cover of the journal Fishes.
Three potential Critical Angel Shark Areas or CASAs have been identified in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically in Türkiye’s Fethiye Bay and Antalya Bay, which are part of the Turkish Riviera, and the Çanakkale or Dardanelles Strait, in the northwestern part of the country.
Participants of the Fish Satellite Meeting at EuroEvoDevo 2024.
The Sea Around Us principal investigator, Dr. Daniel Pauly, presented his Gill Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT) at the 9th Conference of the European Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology held in Helsinki on June 24-28, 2024.
Cover of the Journal of Fish Biology. June 2024.
A recent paper authored by the Sea Around Us’ PI, Dr. Daniel Pauly, research assistant, Elaine Chu, and Dr. Johannes Müller from Leiden University, has made the cover of the June print issue of the Journal of Fish Biology, where it was introduced by a brief essay in the ‘Between the Covers’ section. The image that illustrates it is that of a large mythical sea creature known as an Aspidochelone, which appeared in a French bestiary around 1270 A.D.
Chinese fishing vessel FV Tian Yu 8 in the Indian Ocean. Photo by the U.S. Navy, Picryl.
Industrial fleets from top fishing countries operating in the Indian Ocean and targeting export-market species such as tuna and squid are likely to disable monitoring systems to fish more than allowed and evade authorities, new research has found.
Daniel Pauly receiving the 2024 Sartún Award at the Meeting of the Seas. Photo courtesy of Encuentro de los Mares.
During the 2024 Meeting of the Seas held in Tenerife, Spain, the Sea Around Us principal investigator, Dr. Daniel Pauly, was granted the Sartún Award, in recognition of his +40-year career working for the protection of the global ocean.
On July 1, 2024, the Sea Around Us initiative based at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries will turn 25.
Still in its young adult years, the project’s accomplishments are no small feat.
Common carp. Photo by Bernard Spragg. NZ, Wikimedia Commons.
Before Dr. Daniel Pauly, now the principal investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia, became a doctoral student, he spent two years doing fisheries work in Indonesia.
Having done his academic studies in Germany, he was surprised to discover a near absence of information on the growth of tropical fish. Thus, upon his return to Kiel University’s Institute of Marine Sciences, he decided to find out how fish grew; the idea was that if general patterns emerged, they could be applied to the many species in Indonesia and elsewhere in the tropics.
His doctoral dissertation was, consequently, built around identifying the factors that govern fish growth.
While pursuing her PhD studies with Sea Around Us, Veronica Relano-Ecija, engaged in an artistic project to raise awareness about climate change and sea-level rise.
Blacktip reef shark. Photo by Ray in Manila, Flickr.
Urea – the main component of human urine – plays an important role in the timing of maturation of sharks, rays and other cartilaginous fish.
A new study by researchers with the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries found that high urea concentrations common in cartilaginous fish, particularly oviparous marine species, allow them to mature and begin to reproduce at a larger fraction of their maximal size.
Under the campaign slogan of ‘Planet vs. Plastics,’ Earth Day 2024 is focused on environmental activists’ commitment to end plastics for the sake of human and planetary health, demanding a 60 per cent reduction in the production of all plastics by 2040.
Even though the Sea Around Us research doesn’t focus on ocean pollution, there is an evident connection between fisheries and the littering of our oceans.
To illustrate this connection, the above video presents some of the alarming figures related to gear abandoned at sea, which remains in the oceans and often continues to capture fish and other marine animals in a process commonly referred to as ‘ghost fishing’.
Gray snappers in Santa Cruz Beach. Photo by Laszlo Ilyes, Wikimedia Commons.
Coral reef fish –like the fish in other marine and freshwater ecosystems – are likely to reach smaller maximum sizes and start reproducing earlier with smaller and fewer eggs as climate change continues to warm up the ocean.
Stolephorus indicus or Indian anchovy. Image by Hamid Badar Osmany, FishBase.
A recent Fisheries Centre Research Report reviews two Indo-Pacific anchovy genera (Encrasicholina and Stolephorus) with respect to their fisheries, contribution to food security and as important baitfish for tropical pole-and-line fisheries.
Sailing away from Bamfield aboard the MV Frances Barkley. Photo by Anna Luna Rossi.
By Anna Luna Rossi.
It takes about six hours, departing from Vancouver, to reach the Bamfield Marine Science Centre, where was held the 45th annual Pacific Ecology and Evolution Conference (PEEC). Three of those hours consist of sailing on the MV Frances Barkley – a 65-year-old heritage ship originating in Norway that started its current route in 1990 – through the Alberni Inlet from Port Alberni to Bamfield, almost reaching the open ocean in Barkley Sound.
As the French city of Nice begins preparations to host the high-level 2025 United Nations Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources), over 100 non-governmental organizations, academic units, celebrities, and civil society collectives have joined forces to launch the Citizens’ Coalition for the Protection of the Ocean.
Snappy, a snapper living in tropical waters, is the protagonist of a video created to observe World Water Day 2024.
Through his story and in very simple terms, we explain how warmer water than that to which fish are used becomes an aggressor of sorts that impacts internal biochemical processes and forces the fish to stop growing at a smaller size than it would normally do in optimal habitat conditions and move poleward.
For International Women’s Day 2024, we want our audience to get to know the women in the Sea Around Us in a context that goes beyond science and their professional selves.
Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila have launched the Africa-UBC Oceans & Fisheries Visiting Fellows Program. Photo by Kim Bellavance, Tyler Prize.
University of British Columbia researchers Dr. Rashid Sumaila and Dr. Daniel Pauly have launched the Africa-UBC Oceans & Fisheries Visiting Fellows Program, whose goal is to inspire exceptional young African researchers to develop ocean and freshwater sustainability solutions.
The fellowship is aimed at early-career academics from sub-Saharan African universities and research institutes who are interested in engaging with leading researchers at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries to facilitate diverse, equitable, mutually beneficial research collaborations.
Shrimp trawler. Photo by Stephanie Lee, Flickr.
Fisheries scientists and marine biologists working in all corners of the world, from Canada to Australia, from Malaysia to Nigeria, and from Brazil to Monaco, are once again making a call to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to approve additional regulations that eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies.
Fishing village in the Northern Bintan Island, Indonesia. Photo by Anup Phayal.
Certain policies and policing measures taken by countries to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing drive local actors to engage in piracy, new research has found.
In July 2024, the Sea Around Us turns 25 years old.
During this quarter-century, the project has been dedicated to examining the impacts of fisheries on the marine ecosystems of the world. It has been and remains instrumental in ocean conservation.
The Sea Around Us project manager, Dr. Maria ‘Deng’ Palomares, with Belizean fishers. Photo by the Belize Fisheries Project.
Belizean fishers’ experience in the water confirms the declining trends in fishery catches – and, therefore, in fish populations – uncovered by the Belize Fisheries Project (BFP), of which the Sea Around Us is a member together with Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI), the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative (HRI) and MRAG Americas.
Melanogrammus aeglefinus or haddock. Photo by Salesjö, A., FishBase.
An international team of researchers gathered in the FISHGLOB Consortium has released a new dataset that presents standardized information from publicly available scientific bottom trawl surveys conducted in the waters of 18 countries from 1963 to 2021 and covering over 2,100 fish species.
Hammerhead sharks. Photo by Masayuki Agawa, Ocean Image Bank.
Sharks have persisted as powerful ocean predators for more than 400 million years. They survived five mass extinctions, diversifying into an amazing variety of forms and lifestyles. But this ancient lineage is now among the world’s most threatened species groups due to overexploitation in poorly regulated fisheries and the proliferation of wasteful finning practices.
