AUDIO: Professor Jeremy B. C. Jackson discusses research showing that Pacific coral reefs protected from fishing and pollution appear to be most resistant to the effects of climate change. Click here for more information.

Doom and gloom has become such a standard refrain when discussing the state of ocean ecosystems that it is easy to forget that some real progress is being made, says Jeremy B. C. Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.

Marine-science success stories in public policy and species conservation will be highlighted by Jackson and other experts during the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting, 12-16 February 2009 in Chicago, Illinois.

Jackson, a professor of oceanography, will present research showing that Pacific coral reefs protected from fishing and pollution appear to be most resistant to the effects of climate change. This research may not offer a solution to climate change, but making biodiversity protection a management priority could buy time until the climate situation is resolved.

Presenting newly published research, AAAS speaker Joshua Cinner, a senior research fellow with James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, will discuss small-scale success in managing fish stocks in Pacific communities that allow villages to meet the needs of the residents while maintaining biodiversity. Andrew Rosenberg, a professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, will review the small number of examples where fishing has been halted or sufficiently reduced to allow stocks to recover. Most fisheries could recover within a decade if sufficiently stringent limits were set and enforced, he says Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar of Greenpeace USA in Austin, Texas, will highlight a bold agreement among eight Pacific nations to close fishing in the open seas, as well as highlight three previous conservation policy success stories on the high seas involving whaling, nets, and garbage dumping.

These speakers will take part in a AAAS Annual Meeting press briefing at 10:00 a.m. CST Friday, 13 February, and Jackson also has offered remarks in a AAAS podcast being made available on EurekAlert!. The press event is related to a symposium, entitled “Beyond the Obituaries: Successful Fish Stories in Ocean Conservation,” Friday, 13 February 2009, from 1:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. in the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Grand Ballroom B.

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