Dr. Ray Hilborn visited IFOP from Washington University
September 18th, 2019
He is a marine biologist and fishery scientist, known for his work in conservation and natural resources management in the context of fishing. He is currently a professor of aquatic and fisheries sciences at Washington University . It focuses on conservation, natural resource management, fishery stock assessment and risk analysis, and advises several international fishing commissions and agencies. Ray Hilborn has written more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles and several books. https://fish.uw.edu/faculty/ray-hilborn/
On September 11th , in Valparaíso, Dr. Ray Hilborn visited Fisheries Development Institute on the occasion he signed a memorandum of understanding between the initiative he directs at the University (RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Data Base Initiative) and IFOP.
In the afternoon at the Museum of Natural History of Valparaíso Auditorium, he performed the talk “Impacts of fishing with bottom trawls in the marine ecosystem and how to mitigate them“. Professionals from IFOP, Subpesca and Sernpesca attended the conference. “Among the results presented by Dr. Hilborn, it is worth highlighting that the Chilean fishery with a bottom trawl that is carried out in the southern part of the country is one of the ones with the lowest impact on the seabed and covers a small portion of the platform continental. Meanwhile, other fisheries with the same fishing gear have a greater impact on the seabed, as is the case with the Mediterranean Sea, ”said Galvez.
Mauricio Gálvez, head of Technical Specialties Division explained “the agreement will allow us to continue with internships of four of our researchers at the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences of the Washington University all this at the cost of the Ram Legacy project, IFOP professionals can be trained for two months; IFOP, in turn, undertakes to finance the internships of two additional researchers in order to have more professionals improving.
IFOP will contribute to Dr. Hilborn’s initiative by supporting the Ram Legacy project with information; which focuses its work on compiling all the information of the world’s fisheries, regarding trend in their status. IFOP would be contributing this information to make a global analysis of fisheries and this collaboration also implies participating in scientific analyzes and publications on the state of world fisheries with Dr. Hilborn’s team. ”
Carlos Montenegro, head of Fisheries Evaluation Department, stressed out that “Ray Hilborn’s visit and the signed letter of understanding is another step in the extension of the national and international scientific collaboration networks that the Fisheries Development Institute is developing.”