Until yesterday, the academic-science-media crusade against alleged "overfishing," mobilized by the Pew Environment Group and the Environmental Defense Fund, suffered from a bad reputation in some circles.
The cause of the taint was the indictment of their science by Ray Hilborn, a professor at the University of Washington.
"The faith-based fisheries movement has emerged in the last decade," Hilborn wrote in 2006, leaving no doubt he was referring to the campaigns to limit or end commercial fishing, "and it threatens the very heart of the scientific process — peer review and publication in the top journals."