Speaking on the subject of ‘Rebuilding harvest - trends in fish stocks around the world,' Ray Hilborn's presentation will focus on trends in fish stocks around the world, and on where rebuilding and sustainable harvest is happening and where it is not. He will explore the relationship between fisheries management and fisheries outcomes and will briefly discuss results of recent work on the impact of bottom trawling on marine ecosystems, the need for marine protected areas to protect ocean biodiversity and the relative environmental impact of capture fisheries relative to alternative sources of animal protein and nutrients.

A fellow of the American Fisheries Society, the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Ray Hilborn is a professor in the school of Aquatic and Fishery Science at the University of Washington and author of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers and several books. He is a marine biologist and fisheries scientist and well known for his work on conservation and natural resource management in the context of fisheries.

He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in food sustainability, conservation and quantitative population dynamics. He authored several books including “Overfishing: what everyone needs to know” (with Ulrike Hilborn) in 2012, “Quantitative fisheries stock assessment” with Carl Walters in 1992, and “The Ecological Detective: confronting models with data” with Marc Mangel in 1997. He has served on the Editorial Boards of numerous journals including 7 years on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science Magazine. He has received the Volvo Environmental Prize, the American Fisheries Societies Award of Excellence, The Ecological Society of America's Sustainability Science Award, and the International Fisheries Science Prize.

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