New fisheries global catches reconstruction shows stocks being exploited faster and above what has been officially reported.
That fishing puts a lot of pressure on marine ecosystems is nothing new. However, an article just published in Nature Communications , by Pauly and Zeller, showed that catches officially reported by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) are about 30% underestimated. Much of this is believed to be due to the underestimation of artisanal and subsistence fisheries; however, the non-inclusion of recreational fisheries, discards, by-catch and illegal fisheries are also to blame. This article brings the results of a herculean work by over 400 researchers from all over the world, who collected data for about 15 years for the Sea Around Us Project . Daniel Pauly, the first author of this study, is the principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project and a professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia (Canada). He co-authored over 500 scientific articles, book chapters and shorter contributions, and author