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Vicky Lam

Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries

For the past ten years, Sea Around Us has been constructing a more accurate view of world fishery catches, finding, among other things, that 30% of catch goes unreported. Now the work of 400 researchers from 273 countries, led by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller, has been compiled in a comprehensive 520-page book called the Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries.

IUCN Explaining Ocean Warming report

Explaining Ocean Warming is a comprehensive report produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) looking at the impacts of warming on ocean life, ecosystems, and goods and services. The report is the work of 80 scientists from 12 countries, launched during the IUCN World Conservation Congress, September 1-10 in Hawaii. Nereus Program research was contributed to two chapters within the report.

International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC4)

The International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) took place from July 30th to August 3rd in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. The congress brings together marine conservation professionals and students in order to “develop new and powerful tools to further marine conservation science and policy”. Under the theme of “Making Marine Science Matter”, this year’s conference dealt with strategies to influence policy-makers and stakeholders, and was divided among several topics of interest, including marine food security, ocean science technology, and marine policy.

International Marine Conservation Congress

The Nereus Program will have a presence at the International Marine Conservation Congress taking place from July 30th to August 3rd in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Following the theme of…

7th World Fisheries Congress in Busan, Korea

The Nereus Program is participating in the 7th World Fisheries Congress in Busan, South Korea, including organizing the session “Future of marine fisheries under climate change: Exploring uncertainties, future scenarios…

Ask an Expert: Why is the global fishing industry given $35 billion in subsidies each year?

OceanCanada Research Director Rashid Sumaila and his collaborators from the UBC Global Fisheries Cluster (Sea Around Us and the Nereus Program) have published an updated estimate of global fisheries subsidies in the international journal Marine Policy. The researchers found that the global fishing industry is being supported by $35 billion yearly in government subsidies, the majority of these, upwards of $20 billion annually, promote increased capacity that can lead to harmful impacts such as overfishing.

A computer model is used to show projections of how fish species may move towards the poles and into deeper waters in a high CO2 emissions scenario. Source: Jones and Cheung 2015.

Where do we go from here? Building confidence in climate change impact projection models

Climate change is expected to have major impacts on the ocean, the species that live there, and the people who rely it for their food and livelihood. Since the beginning of the 20th century, CO2 emissions from human activities have altered physical and chemical properties of the ocean. The ocean has become warmer and, in some areas, less oxygenated, which has caused changes in the productivity and distribution of marine species.

Climate change effects on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

A range of human pressures is threatening the sustainability of marine fisheries. Amongst those, overfishing, partly driven by Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, is a major stressor. Thirty percent of global fish catch goes unreported, found a recent study by Nereus Program collaborator Sea Around Us.

But the relationship between IUU fishing and climate change is a new topic. I speculate that climate change impacts on fisheries may indirectly increase IUU fishing.