» THE SCENE IS A RECEPTION at the tact ic wit h a man who has published more than (Swahili and Russia n) and the one he never annual meeting of the American 500 articles and who - without any advance mastered (Indonesian). Association for t he Advancement of notice of the que stion from a reporter ­ Also entangled with those languages is a Science in St Louis, Missouri. Journalists, dem olished just such an attack on his research peripatetic life's journey of 60 years that has scientists, activists, publicists, officials and in a paper published just two days previously. taken the offspring of a white French mother party-crashers are crammed into a cordoned­ Yet even though estimates for and a black American father around most of off rectangle. like so many fish in a net. some species are little better than gues ses, the world: from a near-Dicken sian boyhood And gazing placidly above the thrashing Pauly contends that the world's can in Europe to worldwide acclaim in his crowd from his height of 195 em is the master still be put on a sustainable footing. current posit ion as dire ctor of the Fisheries nose-counter of all the world's fish himself. "Paradoxically,we can manage the fisheries. Centre at the University of British Columbia Daniel Marc Pauly. We know from the state of the stocks that th e in Vancouver, Canada. For a quarter of a century, the polyglot rate of extraction is in excess of what would For his pioneering research in estimating Pauly has been rising above the crowd in maintain the balance. So we'can intervene in the number of fish on a global scale, Pauly has the cosseted world of fish management ­ the right direction, even if we don 't know the been smothered in recognition and honours. initially by devoting his prodigious talents exact input and output." There have been flatt ering profiles in Science and ene rgies to understanding the fisheries But to get such intervention started, there and Nature, the world's pre-eminent scientific of poor developing countries while most of has to be a high-profile champion for fish. journals, and in leading newspapers. Last year his colleagues were occupied with the rich So imperilled are the world 's fisheries, Pauly he won Japan's substantial Cosmos Prize industrialised world. And then, during the told the St Louis meeting in February 2006, for research excellence, which promotes th e last dozen years, by coming up with credible that only someone with the public stature and concept of the "harmoniou s co-existe nce numbers for the total world - that is, activist commitment of a Nelson Mandela of nature and mankind'; worth A$4S0,OOO every tonne of every wiggling marine creature or a Bono would be able to save many fish (US$33S,OOO). This year he is one of three that's netted, speared, hooked, trawled from following the North Atlantic pioneers in marine eco systems sharing or otherwise scooped from every square to the br ink of ext inction. Sweden's Volvo Environment Prize, worth a cent imetre of the world's seven seas. By his Expanding on this point over the din of the total of A$27S,OO O(US$21O,000). calculations, that work s out to somewhere reception, Pauly explains why such charisma The Volvoannouncement pointedto Pauly's around 90 million tonnes annually. is an essential element in any salvage plan. grou nd -break ing efforts in popularising

"He's undoubtedly the foremost fisheries biologist in the world. He has been almost single-handedly responsible for changing the way that people in his profession look at the responsibilities of their profession."

In Pauly's view, the trends over time in "Essentially people perceive fisheries as modelling, in corporated in these numbers clearly show two things. First, boring, as a minor activity which is conducted the wid ely used software; the the total haul from all world fisheries - legal by romantic characters, fishermen, who are development of FishBase , an online and illegal,indu strial and artisanal- has been doing their own thing and are stewards of th e encyclopaedia of 25,000 fish species (see www. in decline since the late 1980s because fish resources," he said. "It is really a monstrous fishba se.org); and "his tirel ess communication stocks have shru nk to the point where fishin g industrial might that has been unleashed on with the broad realm of managers, fishers, fleets can no longer catch their quotas. the ocean, which has become a force that is politicians and the general public': Second, a ris ing percentage of the declining changing all . "He's undoubtedly the foremost fisheries catch is made up of ever smaller fish that " is not only gett ing fish for us to biologist in the world," says Josh Reichert, a occupy increasingly low levels on the food eat. It is really changing t he way that th e world senior official of th e Pew Charitable Trusts chain, because so many of the bigger predator under the sea is organised, and changing it for in Philadelphia. "He has been almost single­ species have been caught. Terming t his the worse. And to understand that, you need handedly responsible for changing the way phenomenon "fishing down the ': some sort of vision that people/paint'for you ." that people in his profession look at the Pauly often talk s about future generations Pauly ensnares his listeners with a soft , responsibilities of their profession ." of humans being reduced to dining on lilting accent that's simultaneously from Pew is a major financial backer of Pauly's plankton stew or jellyfish. nowhere and everywhere - a bouillabaisse current research focus , Th e Sea Around Us, Other fish biologists have challengedboth composed of hints from the four languages he a project that aims to display global fisheries statements , usually zeroing in on estimates for speaks fluently (English, French, German and trends in easy-to-grasp dynamic maps. just one or two speci es of fish. Th is is a risky Spanish), the two he once spoke almost as well Reichert's mention of responsibilities is an

86 COSMOS 12 allusion to Pauly's repeated complaints that at the University of Washington in Seattle, Protected areas needn't be a last resort, says fisheries biologists have focussed for too long acquaintance of Pauly's for almost two decades Pauly."Our studies show that ifonly five to 10 on how to take the maximum amount of fish and one of the trio of VolvoPrize winners. per cent of the North Atlantic cod's range had out of the sea rath er than on conservation Hilborn is especially caustic about Pauly's been protected in the 1970S, that would have of the marine resources. Which is oddly championing of a proposal to designate by been enough. Then the protected figure went self-defeating: if you don 't conserve some fish 2020 one- fifth of the world's oceans as marine up to 30 to 40 per cent. Now to rescue the cod, stocks now, there won't be any to take later. protected areas - effectively no-fish zones. we need a total ban on the fishery.And nobody Colleagues variously describe Pauly as "If you have to use protected areas as your knows if that will work." brilliant, inspiring or arrogant - sometimes main tool, it means Only about 0.6 per cent of the world's all three simultaneously. He's been called "the you've abandoned all hope. Youneed to change oceans are currently marine protected areas, proph et Daniel" and criticised as "the lead the incentive structure so it is in the individual and barely half of that is effectively policed. instrument in the Pew Trusts symphony': interest of the person who is fishing to reduce "So 99.7 per cent of the ocean is fishable.Ifyou Respected fish scientists like their fishing,"says Hilborn . look at agriculture on land, it 's far less than also complain that Pauly has become a broken Although the source of this criticism isn't that. As well, many countries have set aside record with his constant piscine jeremiads. revealed during our interview, Pauly instantly between 10 and IS per cent of their terr itory as "He's a smart guy. I can't believe he's going assu mes it was Hilborn, suggesting that the protected natio nal parks." to spend another 10 years telling us how bad continuing battles over fishery management Another criticism that other fish scientists the world's fisheries are with out talking about resemb le hand-to-hand combat much more level at Pauly is that it 's often difficult to ways to move forward,"says Hilborn,professor than artillery barrages. distinguish between when he is speaking in a >:

COSMOS 12 " >> strictly scientific role and when he is speaking American father disappeared and Pauly did like a pet " than a child, and being forced to as an advocate for . not meet him until 1969 when he visited the work as an unpa id domestic servant. "I didn't "The science gets distorted in the advocacy," for the first time. return to Paris. These people sent my mother says Mike Sissenwine, current presi dent of "He became a good grandfather for my threatening lett ers, which I later read. She was the International Council for th e Exploration children," says Pauly, speaking of his son Ilya, poor and could not imagine anyon e helping of the Sea and former chief scien tist for the now 29, and daughter Angela, 25. her to recover her son:' u.s. Natio nal Marine Fisheries Service. Pauly also met his wife Sandra on those The year after Pauly was, in effect, In Pauly's life, passionate advocacy has filial visits. A teacher and now education kidnapped, his mother married. Seven always been bubbling up to the surface. The administrator, she was one of three daughters brothers and sisters followed. "They grew up concern for social justice that runs throughout of a friend of Pauly's father. in the shadow of a bigger brother who would the scientist's career obviously stems from his Before reaching those happy days,however, come at any time . My birthday was celebrated own personal experiences. Pauly lived out his Horatio Alger story. At the every year, even th ough I was never there." The Pew Trus t 's Reichert calls Pauly's age of two, he was spotted'on a Paris stre et (His siblings and mother all st ill live in France. upbringing "a Horatio Alger story': Yet that by a family visiting from Chauxdefonds, Pauly goes there at least once a year.) American writer's dime novels about boys then a centre of the traditional Swiss watch In Chauxdefonds, Pauly's Swiss family from poor families triumphing over adversity industry."They had lost a son. They somehow dissolved, leaving him alone and homeless at pale in comparison with this real-life story. convinced my mother that I would be treated the age of 16.He ran awayto Germany,working "My father was essentially an American well in Switzerland for a visit ." brie fly in a factory before putting himself soldier on the make," Pauly says. With his He wasn't. Even today, Pauly's voice has through high school and gaining entrance French mother pregnant in Paris in 1945, the an edge to it as he recalls being trea ted "more to th e University of Kiel, where he earned a »

All the fish in the sea

EARLY IN HIS CAREER, Pauly past catch data, and these are in populatio n size and reproductive and the effect of marine established new methods for turn used to set harvest quotas. rate. However, population size protected areas on the growth estimating fish populations, and But catch data is not a reliable and growth-rate can depend not rate of populations. helped develop FishBase - a indicator of maximum only on how fast the fish can Ecosystem-wide models have comprehensive online sustainable harvest - so reproduce, but also on factors been useful in research, but slow encyclopaedia of more than fisheries managers often such as the amount of food to be adopted by fisheries 29,000 fish species and their make a best guess. available, the prevalence of managers - partly due to the 222,300 common names in In light of this, some predators, water temperature, difficulty in estimating fish hundreds of languages. scientists, includ ing Pauly, and whethe r there are enough populations for various species Along the way, he developed advocate protecting a proportion nest sites available. All the plants in an ecosystem, especially the concept of ecosystem of the fish's range. Inside these and animals in an ecosystem are those not regularly fished. modelling of fisheries that is now 'marine protected areas' ­ bound up in a food web, and a One method is to count fish incorporated into a sustainable ideally rich feeding grounds such change in one part of the food larvae. Most fish go through a fisheries management program as reefs or s - fish are web could have repercussions juvenile stage during which they known as Ecopath. Managing a not harvested at all. Here they throughout the whole. float along in the ocean currents is a bit like breed, and some then spread out Pauly leads a grow ing band of as plankton. By determining the putt ing all your money into a into other parts of the ocean marine scientists advocating an relative abundances of the fish savings account and living off the where they can be caught. ecosystem-wide approach to larvae in an area, researchers interest: in other words, harvest Ma rine refuges also protect an fisheries management. Ecopath, can get a reasonable idea of only the amount of fish that can entire ecosystem, not just a the ecosystem-modelling the adult fish numbers from a be replaced every year via single fish species. program developed by Pauly and wide range of species. reproduction in that area. The difficulty with refuges is colleagues, tries to make sense Regulatory bodies are slowly In theory, this should be that every type of fish has a of these complex systems. It catching on to benefits of straightfo rward; if you know how different populati on size and divides species in an ecosystem ecosystem-based modelling. many fish are in a population, growth rate, both of which are into funct ional groups (predators, The Gulf of Mexico Fishery and how quickly those fish important in determining what herbivores, and so forth), and Management Council - a reproduce, it should be easy to percentage of the fish's range uses the relati ve numbers of Florida-based fisheries authority figure out how many fish can be needs to be protected to ensure animals in each group to provide made up of five U.S.states sustainably harvested . . a snapshot of the whole system. - recently said it would look Unfortunately, it's not. Traditionall y, fisheries Recent upgrades allow scientists at ecosystem-based modelling In fisheries, populat ion sizes managers have designated to model the effects of various as a way of regulating fishing. are generally extrapolated from quotas based solely on management policies over time , - Benjamin Lester

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» doctorate in fisheries biology and bio logical oceanography in 1979. This was followed by 15 years with a fisheries institute in Manila that few scientists had heardof before Paulyjoined. From this base at the Inte rn ational Centre for Living Aquatic Resources Management, he sailed the tropical seas , lived with local fishermen and churned out an avalanche of research publications. Many of those appeared in non-peer- reviewed publications, dismissed by some scientists as 'grey literature: But Pauly felt it was the surest way to reach t hose who would most ben efit. Asked wha t drives him. Pauly at first mulls over Freudian interpretations of guilt stemming from his privileged position when so many other "persons of colour" are suffe ring deprivation. Then he says his ethos stems from wanting "to be respected by the peop le that I respect" "I don't want to help rich countries get richer. I constantly think abo ut levellin g the playing field." And th en, once again, his Throughout our many interviews and conversations, wry, self-deprecating hu mour bubbles to the surface. "Actually it could be that I have the once cautiously optimistic and cheerful scientist become a complete workaholic and t hat has become increasingly wracked with pessimism. I don't know any better." Pauly's profe ssional colleagues, incl uding those who disagree wit h him on the appearances, and the difference jumps out campaign that urges people not to eat some interpretation of fish pop ulation data or on at you afte r listening to interviews with him kinds of fish , and to eat others on ly if they the best strategy for curbing , all recorded before the stroke. have reached a certain minimum size. marvel at his capacity for work. "He's probably What makes this especially poignant is "Yeah, that's going to help a lot. What got the best knowledge of fisheries lite rature that, two years ago, Pauly looked to be well we should do [for sustainability] is so much of anyone I've ever talked to,"says Ray Hilborn. on the way to being recognised as a present­ bigger than what we can currently conceive of "The guy work ed like a maniac." day Jacques Cousteau, a charismatic figure as measures. Separate your trash. Vote for the That is, until a Saturday night in late who could surmount the background clamour right guy. It all makes zip difference. January 20 0 5, when Pauly had a stroke serious and din of various ecological catastrophes "It's as if we are in 1940, the Nazis are at enough to be a potential career-ender. "That and plant the plight of the world's fish in the the door, and Neville Chamberlain is waving day I sent the proofs of two articles back to public con sciou sness. a piece of paper and proclaiming 'peace in London. I had worked so crazy, so much that Instead, he is now leading a life of quiet our ti me '. Absolute monsters are ready day that I could not get out of it. I was like a car despair, fearing that the world is incapable of to destroy our civilisation, and we're not that was idling too fast ." making the profound changes necessary to prepared to deal with it,"he lame nts. The stroke hit as he was dining with his avoid major ecological disaster - not only So why has he not spoken out like this wife Sandra and some of her colleagues. It left in th e oceans, bu t even more importantly in before? "I would marg inalise myself if I really much of his right side paralysed. "I'm left ­ and energy sustainability. came out strongly. They would say I'm a kook handed, which came in handy, because t he Thr ou gh ou t our many interviews and ... The gap between the enormity of the reality right side was kaput," he says with a laugh. conversations over the past three years, and what I'm supposed to say to be regarded Pauly has still not fully recovered t he use of the once cautiously optimistic and always as a co-operative player is so immense that his right arm and hand, but he's learnt how to cheerful scientist has become increasingly I prefer to remain silent. conceal most of the effects. "I can fool people wracked with pessimism. "Allmy life, if you can see the are, I've been who don't know me." "Thevarious things that are beingproposed trying to live a normal life. And in my science What Pauly can't hide - and what is a to improve sustainability are nothing better I've been trying to become mainstream."t!i much crueller blow - is the resid ual slur in than bandages on a cancerous limb,"Pauly says. his speech and the occas iona l need to grope That comment was followed by a prolonged PETER CAlAMAI is a science writer for Canada 's around for words . In face-to-face encounters, outburst, minus the usual stroke-related delay Toronto Sta r. His previous article for Cosmos his ebullient personality mostly masks this in finding the correct words. He began with reported on the feverish search ofphysicists for deterioration . But it's apparen t in public a caus tic comment about the conservation the Higgs boson - the so-ca lled 'God particle :

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