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Studium oecologicum is a core programme in support of sustainability organised by a group of student representatives at the University of Potsdam for students from any branch of studies. Cornelia E Nauen of Mundus maris was invited in this context to give a talk on 19 November 2021 on the meaning of overfishing and its relation to the globally accepted Sustainable Development Goals. Overfishing is often associated with unsustainable or even criminal practices and has far-reaching negative effects on marine biodiversity, the capacity of the ocean and its ecosystems to cope with climate change, our seafood supplies and on the lives of people depending on a healthy ocean in artisanal fisheries.

The Director General of FAO, QU Dongyu, opened the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022) in a virtual event organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on 19 November 2021. In attendance were senior government officials and representatives of small-scale fishers and aquaculturists.

Ocean Philosophers and Mundus maris teamed up for a workshop on sustainable fisheries in Kiel, 17 November 2021, to cast some light on the difficulties of small-scale fishers in Europe and seek ways to support their low impact activities with high potential to lead to sustainable forms of fishing. That was intended to be a contribution to the Fisheries Week organised as part of the Ocean Summit in Schleswig Holstein, northern Germany. In particular, the event was to highlight World Fisheries Day, which is celebrated the world over each year on 21 November.

CAMLR’s Role for Climate Change Mitigation, Biodiversity and Fisheries

The Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR Convention) originates from the Antarctic Treaty and is thus firmly linked to a political treaty. It also has its own well established convention principles, including the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as a standing agenda item since 2002.

The October 2021 Thematic Webinar of the V2V Programme was delivered by Cornelia E Nauen of Mundus maris on the topic 'The Small-Scale Fisheries Academy as an operational support to the SSF Guidelines'. The talk places the emphasis on some empirical experiences with how it is possible to act on the rich analyses and diagnostics on SSF that have become available. It is focused principally on strengthening the capacities of women and men in SSF to partake actively in shaping the implementation of the Guidelines.

Prof. Alexander Proelss is Chair of International Law of the Sea and International Environmental Law, Public International Law and Public Law, at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His research focuses, among aspects of general international and European Union law, on the international Law of the Sea, international environmental law as well as international aspects of German constitutional law. Prof. Proelss is involved in several legal and interdisciplinary research projects and has advised public agencies, international organisations, private companies and NGOs.

The September 2021 thematic webinar of the V2V Project was delivered by Derek Johnson of Manitoba University in Canada. He heads the international collaboration "Dried Fish Matters" with a research focus on East and South East Asia. His lecture focused on the common strands of thinking and questioning between this and the V2V research cooperation. He raised questions about how social-ecological systems, political economy and social economies intersect and whose vulnerability and whose viability counted and what was being studied in this context.

Fridays for Future and a large cross section of organisations mobilised for perhaps the biggest climate strike so far for Friday, 24 September. In preparation of the German parliament elections two days later and as a wake-up call to governments, companies and civil society around the globe in view of the forthcoming Conference of the Parties to the Climate Agreement (COP26) in Glasgow, some 620,000 people in Germany alone took to the streets demanding decisive climate protection NOW.

The World Fisheries Congress this year in Adelaide, Australia, was convened in hybrid format - a mammoth task to make sure the three parallel streams of on-site lectures and 4 parallel on-demand sessions could all take place and be catered for. Thumbs up for the local scientific and organising teams for an interesting mix and smooth operation. But because there was so much going on, it was difficult to follow even the streams of sessions most relevant to our work.

The first steps have been made to start dialoguing from one shore of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. It all started with a conversation about the Small-Scale Fisheries Academy in Senegal at the Slow Fish event in Genova in 2019. That had peeked Ana Isabel Marquez Perez' interest. As she organised the 3rd Festival of Traditional Navigation in the Caribbean with her team on her native Providencia Island for September 2021, she invited Mundus maris and members of the Academy in Yoff to exchange about the conditions of artisanal fishers and their boat building traditions.

Covid got the better of the anniversaries - 30 years of FishBase and 15 years of SeaLifeBase - with celebrations originally scheduled for 2020. But this year, the FishBase and SeaLifeBase Symposium could take finally place in Paris from 6 to 7 September and was all the more diverse and informative. Thanks to the team of Patrice Pruvost of the Museum National de l'Histoire Naturelle and reinforced by Fabrice Teletchea of Loraine University and Valérie Gaudant of Cybium it was beautifully organised in the Auditorium of the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution of the Museum.