UBC fisheries professors Daniel Pauly and Carl Walters have been awarded the 2006 Volvo Environment Prize for their contribution to understanding the human impact on the world’s fisheries and oceans.
Established in 1988 by an independent foundation, the Volvo Environmental Prize’s recipients are selected by a jury of international scientists appointed by Sweden’s Royal Society of Arts and Sciences.
Pauly is honoured for developing important models and tools — including the global fish database Fish Base with information on more than 28,000 species of fish — and for his extensive communications with fishers, policy-makers and the public.
Known for his prediction that current fishery practices would leave future generations with only “jellyfish and plankton soup,” Pauly was awarded the International Cosmos Prize last year by the Expo ’90 Foundation of Japan.
Walters is honoured for his analysis of fishery stocks and harvest management, and key contributions in the area of adaptive management, now widely used by ecologists and fishery managers worldwide. Walters is also this year’s recipient of the American Fisheries Society’s Award of Excellence.
The laureates will each receive SEK$500,000 (CDN$77,000). An award ceremony will be held in Stockholm on Oct. 26, 2006.
The Volvo Environment Prize is also awarded to Prof. Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington. For more information and a list of previous winners, please visit www.environment-prize.com.
Images of Profs. Pauly and Walters are available at www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/download.
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