63 percent of world fisheries need to be rebuilt. Catch limits, other restrictions key to recovery. Climate change, ocean acidification could have impact.
A fisheries expert who in 2006 predicted total global collapse of fish and seafood populations by 2048 is more optimistic of recovery, based on a wide-ranging two-year study by scientists in North and South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. "I am somewhat more hopeful that we will be in a better state … than what we originally predicted, simply because I see that we have the management tools that are proven to work," said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a co-author of a paper in the journal Science and also an author of the pessimistic 2006 report.
Still, 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide need to be rebuilt, the researchers said.