Hilborn, a Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences specialises in resource
management and conservation and has been visiting New Zealand in a professional capacity since
the early 1990s.
He has praised New Zealand’s Quota Management System which is in its 30th year, saying that New
Zealand’s fisheries management is among the best in the world.
Professor Hilborn was involved with a global study of the 28 largest fishing countries around the
world.
The results, presented at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit 2016 in Malta, showed that New Zealand
came in among the top five countries with a score of nine out of 10.
The SeaWeb Seafood Summit brings together global representatives from the seafood industry with
leaders from the conservation community, academia, government and the media.
Hilborn is the co-author of several books including “Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know” in
2012, “Quantitative Fisheries Stock Assessment” in 1992, and “The Ecological Detective: confronting
models with data” in 1997 and has published over 200 scientific peer-reviewed reports.
He has received the Volvo Environmental Prize, the American Fisheries Societies Award of
Excellence, the Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award and the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists Outstanding Achievement Award.