» 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 population 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 fisheries 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 fishery - 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 populations from following the North Atlantic pioneers in marine eco systems sharing or otherwise scooped from every square cod 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 ecosystem modelling, in corporated in these numbers clearly show two things. First, boring, as a minor activity which is conducted the wid ely used Ecopath 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 ecosystems. "He's undoubtedly the foremost fisheries catch is made up of ever smaller fish that "Fishing 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 food web': 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 fisheries management 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 Ray Hilborn 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 marine conservation. 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," United States 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.