Julia Mason is lead author with Larry Crowder as a co-author on a new study published in Biological Conservation, “Fishers’ solutions for hammerhead shark conservation in Peru.”

Nereus Fellow Julia Mason (Stanford University) will serve as a John A. Knauss fellow in Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey’s office in Washington D.C. starting in February, where she will work on a variety of important ocean and environmental issues and policies for the upcoming 2019 year.

By Julia Mason, Nereus Program fellow at Stanford University

There’s a tendency among conservation scientists to attribute the world’s environmental crises to the growing global population. Fisheries science is no exception—the issue of overfishing is often condensed to one of “too many fishers chasing too few fish,” leading to inevitable fisheries declines.

Paris tends to relate to fisheries through its gourmet cuisine, which every so often includes fish. However, in December 2015, Paris was the epicenter of the renowned United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21), which aimed at setting a target to curb Carbon emissions at a global scale.