So, what is this going to be about?

Ok, enough babbling discussion, let's get down to it: what am I going to write about? Well, as a matter of fact, I am interested in fisheries management, so I think that's going to be the main topic.

After trying to explain what I do to thousands of people, I realized that almost nobody knows s**t about fisheries management. Most of the fisheries knowledge rests within fishing communities or gathering dust in those boring books and papers only scientist read, so I thought that I could try something else. I'll try to explain a few fisheries concepts in the way I would like them to explain me.

I will try to write about several things on the subject, and that includes explanations of basic ideas and concepts of fisheries management, explanation of some current (and not-so-current) debates and my opinion, maybe some news that I see somewhere else, and also some more babbling discussion of my own.

Just to give you an idea, current debates include marine protected areas (MPAs), open access and rights-based systems and individual transferable quotas (ITQs), application of the FAO Precautionary Approach, assessment-driven management strategies or model-driven management strategies, etc. I'm not going to explain any of those here (yet, here=this post not this blog), but if you cannot resist your curiosity, just google it and you'll get tons of info.

That said, I'm not sure what the "real" first post will be about, not because I don't have ideas, but because I have quite a few. Here's a preview of things to come (in no particular order):

• what does "recruitment", "stock", "maximum sustainable yield (MSY)" and a few more things mean?
• how do population models work? how is assessment conducted?
  
• the Interamerican Tuna Commission (IATC) and Colombia
• "traditional" management strategies (like MSY) and why are they wrong (are they?)
  
• ITQs pros and cons
• ITQs debate in Japan (could ITQs destroy community-based management)
• current status of the world stocks
• the MPA narrative
• Japanese scientific whaling: what's all that about?
  
• etc.

See? there's a lot to talk about.

Ok, so I started a blog...

I have always thought blogs were a complete waste of time. Everytime I thought about blogs, I thought of cooking recipes, movie reviews, travel spots, computer geeks, teenagers posting their latest myspace-pictures, amateur journalists and writers, and frustrated poets. I mean, not exactly the kind of things I would be interested in doing, right?

Wrong! I've been lazy, that's all. There are thousands of things you could write about, things that could (actually) interest other people, things that could mean something for someone. During this last year I've been seeing a lot of blogs of researchers explaining their research, so I thought "I could have some of that". But then again, my research is not something that you can easily make a conversation about. I'm not sure how many people could be interested in knowing if I could estimate this population parameter, simulate that population behavior or finally maximized catches and minimized risk at the same time... Nah, that sounds boring, I'd rather go and read the cooking recipes.

So, you may be wondering why did I start this in the first place. Well, the thing is that I love explaining things to people. I cannot tolerate those arrogant scientists that always speak in technical terms that only them can understand. I believe that science is fun and as such, should be taught in a fun way, which leads me to my second motivation: since a lot of people think science is boring, they tend to ignore it and widen the gap that already exist between scientists and non-scientists. If everything in science was abstract or stayed in the lab, that would be ok (well, not really) but let's face it, this world is going to hell and the least we could do is at least try to know why. That's why I believe in the concept of 'popular science' (remember Carl Sagan?) and the huge responsability that we, scientists, have with people. We need to reach out and let people know what we're doing.

And then I started a blog...