The 'Feed the Future - Innovation Lab for Fish' is a USAID supported project based at the Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi. It had invited Stella Williams of Mundus maris as a keynote speaker on 27 February 2023 at day one of its last annual project meeting in New Orleans. Fittingly, the day's key programme topics were gender, youth, and advancing human and institutional capacity development.
This talk by Andrea M. Collins of the University of Waterloo in Canada provided a high-level overview of the various tools and perspectives for undertaking gender-focused analysis in resource sectors such as small-scale fisheries. Drawing from gender studies, feminist political ecology, feminist political economy, and political science, this talk dispelled the idea that gender analysis means only focusing on women. It showed how understanding the many dimensions of gender roles and relations can improve the analysis of resource management and economic activity, expand our understanding of vulnerability and empowerment, and advance policy-relevant outcomes.
This was the first flagship event of the Mission to restore the ocean and waters, a major European initiative to prevent pollution, protect biodiversity and develop sustainable activities in our ocean and waters by 2030. Forum attendees had the opportunity to get some impressions of the first year of implementation of the Mission, showcasing an initial portfolio of projects and actions to achieve the Mission’s objectives. The full day of plenty of short presentations was interrupted by rather long breaks to allow for discussions and networking. Mundus maris shares some impressions.
Te los puedes encontrar en cualquier paseo por la playa, pequeños trozos de redes de pesca rotas. Pero son solo la punta del iceberg. Probablemente haya decenas de miles de toneladas de redes fantasma en el fondo del mar Báltico o que se hayan quedado atrapadas en los naufragios. Estas redes no solo destruyen con su peso los a veces históricos buques naufragados, sino que también son una trampa mortal para peces, marsopas, focas y pájaros, que quedan atrapados en ellas y desgraciadamente mueren.
This talk dwells upon different research paradigms such as Hypothesis-oriented, Assessment-oriented, Action-oriented, Systems-oriented, Social adaptive (similar to V2V) frameworks. The motivation behind this talk is to discuss research that goes beyond the conventionally defined domains of science; the relevance of non-expert based knowledge to offer solutions to complex social and environmental problems, and the research that can bring significant impacts on people's behavior by small endeavors.
China no solo tiene la flota pesquera más grande del mundo, sino que con 1.400 millones de personas también es un gran mercado de personas a las que les gusta comer pescado y mariscos. Europa, como principal mercado de importación de dichos productos, claramente tiene interés en desarrollar sus relaciones con China de manera que respete los intereses de ambas partes. El Comité de Pesca del Parlamento Europeo se reunió para discutir el papel de China en la pesca mundial en su sesión del miércoles 25 de enero de 2023.
Gran alivio y mucha emoción: esas fueron las sensaciones predominantes para los participantes que se dirigieron a la edición 2023 de la plataforma 'love your ocean' coordinada por la Fondación Alemana del Océano en la feria internacional Boot en Düsseldorf, Alemania. Después de una pausa de dos años debido a la pandemia, Mundus maris estaba feliz de estar a bordo junto con Quantitative Aquatics, la organización científica sin fines de lucro que administra las bases de datos globales FishBase, SeaLifeBase y Aquamaps. Estábamos en buena compañía con otras organizaciones comprometidas con la difusión del conocimiento sobre el océano, su recuperación y su protección y haciendo una contribución a la Década de las Naciones Unidas para las Ciencias Oceánicas para el Desarrollo Sostenible, 2021-2030.
This was the last webinar in the 2022 series of monthly events of the research platform V2V (Vulnerability to Viability) to which Mundus maris is a partner. Dr. Friday Njaya, Director of Fisheries in Malawi, presented the key lessons from the development of Transboundary Fisheries Management (TFM) on Lake Chiuta. The lake is shared between Malawi and Mozambique. Since the mid-1990s, fisheries co-management was introduced on the Malawian side of the lake by establishing Beach Village Committees (BVCs).so as to address any issues through greater participation.
The rotating presidency of the long-standing G7++ gatherings of country representatives interested in the maritime safety of the Gulf of Guinea convened its Plenary session this year in Abidjan under the shared lead of Côte d'Ivoire and Germany. The presidency had invited this time also a few representatives of civil society with particular emphasis on the 'Blue Economy'. The SWAIMS project to which Mundus maris members had contributed in previous occasions in the form of presentations and meeting participations had proposed Prof. Stella Williams of Mundus maris as one of those speaking for civil society.
"Leading by examples", thus was the motto of the African regional gathering of the 4th World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress convened in Cape Town, South Africa, 21-23 November 2022. This congress concluded the series of five regional conferences, one for each continent, towards the end of the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022). Hosted by the University of the Western Cape together with the Fisheries Department and organised by the Too Big To Ignore global research platform led by Ratana Chuenpagdee, the congress attracted some 160 participants mostly on site, but also offered online participation. Moenieba Isaacs of UWC (pictured) chaired the opening together with Shehu Akintola of Lagos State University.
Sustainability at Scale: Connecting Small-Scale Fishers for the Mobilization of Local Knowledge, Solutions and Capital Opportunities - thus is the full title of the V2V November webinar presented by Dr. Maria José Espinosa, CEO of the Mexican non-profit organisation Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI). Through their field work, COBI found and documented that small-scale fishers and their organisations are flexible and make daily decisions to adapt to local, national, and international stressors.