Nereus Program Manager and Research Associate Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor (UBC) presented at the North American Association of Fisheries Economists Forum in La Paz, Mexico, from March 21 to 24, 2017. The conference included forum sessions and paper presentations that followed the theme of “Economics of Aquaculture, Fisheries and Seafood Trade: Managing the Socio-Ecology of Sustainable Marine Resource Use”.
Coastal Indigenous people eat, on average, 15 times more seafood per person than non-Indigenous people in the same country, finds a Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program study published today in PLOS ONE. This highlights the need to consider food sovereignty and cultural identity as part of fisheries policy and Indigenous human rights.
By Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor
Mexico recently released its budget for 2017, and among the top five largest cuts were environmental protection (down by 37%), culture (-30%), and education (-11%). Political rhetoric aside, these cuts reflect a continuing view of these issues as minor, long-term, or otherwise less important or pressing. The problem is, these views also directly contradict a growing recognition in international policy of the importance of the environment, culture and education, in and of themselves, but also as part of an interdependent suite of human development goals.
The Nereus Program will have a presence at the International Marine Conservation Congress taking place from July 30th to August 3rd in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Following the theme of…
