PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi reddit, I’m Ben Halpern and my PLOS ONE study
investigates the health of the ocean of 220 coastal countries and
territories worldwide – Ask Me Anything!
Abstract
Hi Reddit, My name is Ben Halpern and I am a Professor at the Bren
School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara and
Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis. My
research focuses on a range of issues and questions related to effective
and efficient protection and sustainable use of marine species and
habitats. My colleagues and I recently published an article titled
Drivers and implications of change in global ocean health in the past
five years in PLOS ONE. In this paper we report five years of annual
assessment of the health of the ocean in all 220 coastal countries and
territories around the world, tracking how 10 different broad goals are
doing and what is driving changes in those goals. Most notably we found
that many countries have improved their overall score by substantially
increasing the amount of marine protected areas, while many other
countries have seen scores decline due to unsustainable management of
fisheries and other ocean resources. I will be answering your questions
at 1pm ET from the ESA 2017 Annual Meeting – Ask Me Anything!