Study rebuffing '2048' collapse praised

Industry representatives, government officials and conservationists were quick on Friday to chime in on a new study rejecting fears that world's fish stocks will collapse by 2048.

The two-year study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, was conducted by a team of 21 scientists led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington.

It was Worm's 2006 study predicting the collapse of the world's fish stocks by 2048 if nothing is done to prevent overfishing that ignited a firestorm of media coverage and criticism from industry representatives and government officials, who called the study misleading and alarmist.

Friday's study, which is also garnering a lot of media attention, provides a much more optimistic outlook on the world's fisheries, though it found that 63 percent of global fish stocks remain below desired levels. The study identified Alaska and New Zealand as regions to be exemplified for responsible fisheries management.

The National Fisheries Institute, U.S. government and Pew Environment Group were among the groups that weighed in on the study.

"This will go a long way in closing what has been a rhetorically sad chapter in fisheries science," said NFI President John Connelly. "In this effort Worm and [Hilborn] shed important light on some areas where better management and conservation of stocks is needed, but also acknowledge the robust sustainability efforts that are working and have proven that old 2048 statistic to be fiction."

"This study clearly demonstrates that in both developing and developed parts of the world, if fishery exploitation rates are reduced sufficiently, species and their ecosystems have the capacity to recover," said Steve Murawski, chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "The study drew together two scientific approaches, one focused on conservation of marine communities and the other focused on the science of fishery population dynamics. The result is a product that has profound importance in the design of management systems to achieve diverse goals for conserving and using marine ecosystems."

The Pew Environment Group also applauded the study.

"Two scientists who once held opposing views about the state of ocean fisheries now agree about the significance of global fisheries declines and the solutions needed to reverse these trends," said Rebecca Goldburg, Pew's director of marine science. "If fishery managers worldwide heed these important scientific findings, then we have an extraordinary opportunity to restore ocean fisheries."

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