Three years after a controversial paper predicted the collapse of 90% of the world’s edible fish species by 2048, the original paper’s author and a main opponent have collaborated on a groundbreaking survey of the Earth’s oceans which finds hope for fish stocks and the millions who rely on them for protein — but only if overfishing is ended.
The paper, published today in the journal Science, comes after a 2006 Science paper by marine biologist Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Canada and colleagues. Its prediction of the destruction of fish populations because of overfishing and ecosystem destruction caused enormous controversy among marine ecologists and fisheries biologists.
But a 2006 radio interview that brought Worm and fisheries biologist Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington in Seattle together to debate the paper led them to launch an international research effort over two years involving 21 scientists who surveyed 166 areas where specific fish species are caught — called a fishery worldwide and looked intensively at 10 marine ecosystems.