Still reversible though.

Hot on the heals of the publication of the Stern Review, a new paper published in this week’s Science magazine plots a gloomy future for wild fish living in oceans: at current trends, by 2050 the researchers predict that wild-living marine species will have collapsed (defined as 90% depleted). The good news is that although the rate of decline is getting faster, the trend is still reversible.

Says lead author Boris Worm, "Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems." This sad picture emerged over four years of analyzing 32 controlled experiments, observational studies from 48 marine protected areas, and global catch data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) database from 1950 to 2003. The scientists also looked at a 1000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archeological data.

What makes recovery harder is that in areas where there are already few species (like the Arctic), the depletion of another species has serious consequences. Fortunately recovering a species has a profound positive impact.

Fortunately, "The data show us it’s not too late,” says Worm. “We can turn this around. But less than one percent of the global ocean is effectively protected right now. We won’t see complete recovery in one year, but in many cases species come back more quickly than people anticipated - in three to five to ten years. And where this has been done we see immediate economic benefits."

[tags]fish, environment, extinction, marine, oceans[/tags]