Callum Michael Roberts is a British

marine conservation Marine conservation, also known as ocean conservation, is the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas through planned management in order to prevent the over-exploitation of these marine resources. Marine conservation is i ...

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

, oceanographer,

science communicator Science communication encompasses a wide range of activities that connect science and society. Common goals of science communication include informing non-experts about scientific findings, raising the public awareness of and interest in sci ...

, author and research scholar at the

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of ...

. He was formerly at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

. He is best known for his research and advocacy related to marine reserves and the

environmental impact of fishing The environmental impact of fishing includes issues such as the availability of fish, overfishing, fisheries, and fisheries management; as well as the impact of industrial fishing on other elements of the environment, such as bycatch. These issu ...

Career

Roberts' work examines the impact of human activity on

marine ecosystem Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in Saline water, waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 7 ...

s, particularly

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

s. His research output has examined the benefits of marine reserves and no-fishing zones on

sustainable fisheries A conventional idea of a sustainable fishery is that it is one that is harvested at a sustainable rate, where the fish population does not decline over time because of fishing practices. Sustainability in fisheries combines theoretical disciplines, ...

and biodiversity. He began his career studying reefs of the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, and has also worked in the

Maldives The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in South Asia located in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, abou ...

and on the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

. Roberts is also an active supporter of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. He is the Chief Scientific Advisor to Blue Marine Foundation and an Ambassador for

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named th ...

. Since 2011 Roberts has written occasional opinion editorials for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' on various marine conservation topics, including

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

. He has also appeared in the documentary films ''The End of the Line'' (2009) and '' Seaspiracy'' (2021) and was chief scientific adviser to the BBC's 2017 documentary series '' Blue Planet II''. 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, and ''Ocean of Life'' (Mountbatten Award, 2013), which covers more recent changes in the ocean and proposes reforms to facilitate their recovery. His latest book is ''Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir'' (2019).

Other work

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

*
The Unnatural History of the Sea
'.

Island Press Island Press is a nonprofit, environmental publisher based in Washington, D.C., United States, that specializes in natural history, ecology, conservation, and the built environment. Established in 1978, Island Press generates about half of its ...

, 2007. *
The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea
'.

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer and then acqu ...

, 2012; Penguin, 2013. *
Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir
'.

Profile Books Profile Books is a British independent book publishing firm founded in 1996. It publishes non-fiction subjects including history, biography, memoir, politics, current events, current affairs, travel and popular science. Profile Books is distribu ...

; Profile Books, 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Callum English marine biologists Conservation biologists British oceanographers Fisheries scientists British nature writers British non-fiction environmental writers Academics of the University of York Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century British zoologists 21st-century English writers