through the 1990s, pauly’s work centered on the effects of overfishing. the author of several books and more than 500 scientific papers, pauly is a prolific writer and communicator. he developed the concept of shifting baselines in 1995 and authored the seminal paper, fishing down marine food webs, in 1998. for working to protect the environment, he earned a place in the "scientific american 50" in 2003, the same year "the new york times" labeled him an "iconoclast". pauly won the international cosmos prize in 2005, the volvo environment prize in 2006, the excellence in ecology prize and ted danson ocean hero award in 2007, the ramon margalef prize in ecology and environmental sciences in 2008, and the nierenberg prize for science in the public interest from the scripps institution of oceanography in 2012. in 2015, pauly received the peter benchley ocean award for excellence in science. in 2016, he was honored in paris with the albert ier grand medal in the science category. in 2017, he received, together with dirk zeller as part of the "sea around us" leading team, the ocean award in the science category.