Callum Roberts (biologist)

Summary

Callum Michael Roberts is a British marine conservation biologist, oceanographer, science communicator, author and research scholar at the University of Exeter.[1] He was formerly at the University of York.[2] He is best known for his research and advocacy related to marine reserves and the environmental impact of fishing.

Callum Roberts
Alma materUniversity of York
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Exeter
ThesisAspects of coral reef fish community structure in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea and on the Great Barrier Reef (1986)

Career edit

Roberts' work examines the impact of human activity on marine ecosystems, particularly coral reefs. His research output has examined the benefits of marine reserves and no-fishing zones on sustainable fisheries and biodiversity.[3][4][5][6] He began his career studying reefs of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia, and has also worked in the Maldives and on the Great Barrier Reef.[7]

Roberts is also an active supporter of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. He is the Chief Scientific Advisor to Blue Marine Foundation[1] and an Ambassador for World Wide Fund for Nature.[8]

Since 2011 Roberts has written occasional opinion editorials for The Guardian[9] on various marine conservation topics, including overfishing.[10] He has also appeared in the documentary films The End of the Line (2009) and Seaspiracy (2021)[11] and was chief scientific adviser to the BBC's 2017 documentary series Blue Planet II.[1][8]

He is the author of two award-winning books, The Unnatural History of the Sea (Rachel Carson Award, 2007), which examined the impact of human activity and fishing on marine ecosystems over the last thousand years,[12][13] and Ocean of Life (Mountbatten Award, 2013), which covers more recent changes in the ocean and proposes reforms to facilitate their recovery.[14][15] His latest book is Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir (2019).[1][7]

Other work edit

1999-2003. Member of editorial board of Conservation Biology, published by the Society for Conservation Biology.

1997-2000. Member of Editorial board of journal Animal Conservation, published by Cambridge University Press.

1996. Senior editor of the proceedings of a symposium: "Marine reserves: Function and Design" held at the 8th International Coral Reef Symposium, Panama.

1991-1996. Co-editor of Reef Encounter, Newsletter of the International Society for Reef Studies.

Bibliography edit

  • The Unnatural History of the Sea. Island Press, 2007. ISBN 9781597261029, 9781597265775
  • The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea. Viking Press, 2012; Penguin, 2013. ISBN 9780670023547, 9780143123484
  • Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir. Profile Books; Profile Books, 2019. ISBN 9781788162159, 9781788162159

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d "Profile | Biosciences | University of Exeter". biosciences.exeter.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
  2. ^ "Callum Roberts". The University of York. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  3. ^ Gell FR, Roberts CM (1 September 2003). "Benefits beyond boundaries: the fishery effects of marine reserves". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 18 (9): 448–455. doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(03)00189-7. hdl:1834/546. ISSN 0169-5347.
  4. ^ Roberts CM, McClean CJ, Veron JE, Hawkins JP, Allen GR, McAllister DE, et al. (February 2002). "Marine biodiversity hotspots and conservation priorities for tropical reefs". Science. 295 (5558): 1280–4. Bibcode:2002Sci...295.1280R. doi:10.1126/science.1067728. PMID 11847338. S2CID 25927433.
  5. ^ Roberts CM, Andelman S, Branch G, Bustamante RH, Carlos Castilla J, Dugan J, et al. (2003). "Ecological Criteria for Evaluating Candidate Sites for Marine Reserves". Ecological Applications. 13 (sp1): 199–214. doi:10.1890/1051-0761(2003)013[0199:ECFECS]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1939-5582.
  6. ^ Roberts CM, Hawkins JP, Gell FR (January 2005). "The role of marine reserves in achieving sustainable fisheries". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences. 360 (1453): 123–32. doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1578. PMC 1636100. PMID 15713592.
  7. ^ a b "Reef Life by Callum Roberts review – miraculous and threatened". The Guardian. 16 November 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
  8. ^ a b "Professor Callum Roberts". WWF. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
  9. ^ "Callum Roberts". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  10. ^ Roberts C (21 January 2016). "We knew fish catches were too high. But it's much worse than we thought". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  11. ^ McVeigh K (31 March 2021). "Seaspiracy: Netflix documentary accused of misrepresentation by participants". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
  12. ^ Roberts C. The Unnatural History of the Sea. Island Press. ISBN 978-1-59726-102-9. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
  13. ^ "There were walls of fish, so many you could hardly see the corals". RSB. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  14. ^ Radford T (18 November 2013). "Ocean of Life: How our Seas are Changing, by Callum Roberts – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
  15. ^ "Callum Roberts' Ocean of Life is a manifesto for marine management | Leo Hickman". The Guardian. 7 June 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2021.