Friday September 2, 2022
Vancouver Sun —
Global fish stocks can’t recover without strong actions to mitigate climate change and overfishing, suggests new UBC-led research.
In a study published in Global Change Biology, researchers from the University of B.C., the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, and the University of Bern projected the impact that different global temperature increases and ranges of fishing activity would have on the amount of fish in a given area, from 1950 to 2100. They used computer simulation modelling to analyze existing data about fish stocks, status and climate change projections, as well as how the fish stocks change under different climate-change scenarios.
And what they found was that in a worst-case scenario, where nothing is done to address climate change, and where overfishing beyond sustainable targets continues, fish stocks globally would drop to a third of current levels, said Dr. William Cheung, a professor at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.