Three years ago, fisheries scientist Boris Worm was lead author of a paper that concluded overfishing was wreaking such devastation on ocean food chains that seafood species would virtually disappear from the oceans by 2048.
It turns out his prediction was overly simplistic, according to a paper published in today’s edition of the journal Science and written by Worm, a biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and University of Washington scientist Ray Hilborn.
Working with 19 scientists from around the world, Worm and Hilborn found that progress had been made, especially in developed nations, to control overfishing, and that continued vigilance and short-term sacrifices paid off in big economic gains as fish stocks recovered.