The BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology has gone in this twelfth edition to marine biologists Carlos Duarte, Terence Hughes and Daniel Pauly for “their seminal contributions to our understanding of the world’s oceans, and their efforts to protect and conserve marine biodiversity and oceanic ecosystem services in a rapidly changing world,” in the words of the award citation.
The three laureates, through their independent efforts, have transformed our vision of the ocean, revealing its potential as an intense and effective carbon sink, while drawing the world’s attention to the fragile state of coral reefs, and providing critical tools to ensure the sustainability of global fisheries. For committee chair Emily Bernhardt, Professor of Biology at Duke University (United States), they are “at the absolute forefront” of the scientific drive to understand and confront three of the biggest threats to the world’s oceans; threats that they were the first to highlight and around which they would help to launch a global research enterprise. “Their work is cross-disciplinary and cross-border,” she adds, “and does not stop at certifying the damage, but goes beyond that to seek and propose solutions.”
Spaniard Duarte, currently Tarek Ahmed Juffali Chair in Red Sea Ecology at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Saudi Arabia), has experimentally established that coastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows and mangroves have a striking capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon, exceeding even that of the Amazonian forest. The committee noted that his research was at the roots of the Blue Carbon Initiative, a global program focused on mitigating climate change through the conservation and restoration of coastal and marine ecoystems.
Hughes, Director of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at Australia’s James Cook University, is recognized for “his efforts to describe and draw attention to the global loss of fragile coral reef ecosystems as a result of widespread warming, acidification, pollution and disease.”
Pauly, University Killam Professor and founder of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia, in Canada, has spent his long career exploring the worldwide decline in fish stocks. His method for obtaining records of global fish catches includes data at times overlooked in the official statistics, such as artisanal fishing or discards, which turn out to have far more weight than first suspected to the extent that they have significantly worsened the global tally of overfishing. “Professor Pauly’s research,” the citation reads, “demonstrates the interdependencies between fisheries science, marine ecology and conservation around the world.”
The three scientists stand out, says the committee, for their contributions to our “fundamental understanding” of marine ecology, and their leadership in applying such knowledge to guide “effective conservation management of critical marine habitats and fisheries.”
2020 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)