How our favorite fish could recover in a decade

UBC fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly commented on new U.S. research (featured in National Geographic) that showed adopting sharing rights could restore most of the world’s fish populations in just 10 years and protect fishermen’s livelihoods.

Pauly, who was not involved in the research, praised the new work and noted that it was large-scale, whereas most previous studies only looked at a few hundred fisheries.

However, another UBC expert expressed skepticism. In a Yahoo article, fisheries economist Rashid Sumaila said rights-based management works if carefully managed and monitored. In B.C., the experience has been that stronger fishing companies simply bought out the less efficient ones, often causing other issues such as unemployment.