Richard Caddell, Senior Nereus Fellow (International Law, Utrecht University), presented a paper at the annual Arctic Circle Conference, convened at the Harpa Centre, Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 17, 2015. The Arctic Circle Conference has rapidly established itself as a major event in Arctic scholarship and diplomacy, featuring a series of presentations by heads of state, senior diplomats and scholars.
Yoshitaka Ota (Nereus Director, Policy, UBC) moderated a seminar titled “Who owns the ocean? Equity and conservation in the global ocean commons” on October 23, 2015, at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, UBC. A presentation was given by Dr. Majro Vierros who is a Senior Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) and its Traditional Knowledge Initiative (TKI). The seminar addressed important issues of high sea governance and benefit sharing of marine resources.
Ocean Conservancy has published a post titled “The Future Ocean” on their Ocean Currents blog that examines the key findings from the Nereus Program report “Predicting Future Oceans: Climate Change, Oceans & Fisheries”.
Richard Caddell, Senior Nereus Fellow (International Law, Utrecht University), presented a paper on September 23 2015 at a workshop on “Persistent Challenges and Recent Developments in International Fisheries Law” at the K. G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø.
Canada has gone from being a world leader in ocean management to a country failing its oceans due to a lack of federal leadership in implementing ocean policy, the cutting of funding and resources to government ocean science, and the silencing of government scientists.
These findings are part of a new study in Marine Policy, co-authored by Nereus Program researchers, which states that “federal ocean policy and management have diverged substantially from marine science in the past decade”.
Ryan Rykaczewski, Nereus Program alumnus and assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, recently participated in the “School on Ocean Climate Modeling: Physical and Biogeochemical Dynamics of Semi-Enclosed Seas” in Ankara, Turkey, from September 28 to October 1, as an invited expert on upwelling ecosystems. Additionally, Ryan participated in a CLIVAR workshop on upwelling from October 2 to 3 in Ankara.
On October 5th, twelve countries reached an agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would create the world’s largest free-trade zone. The countries involved — Canada, Japan, the USA, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Vietnam, Australia, Peru and Malaysia — represent 40 percent of the world’s economy. The TPP would see tariffs on fish and seafood being eliminated, allowing for potentially more exports and imports between partnering countries, and new environmental and labour standards put in place.
Yoshitaka Ota (Nereus Director, Policy, UBC) gave a lecture to students visiting the University of British Columbia to study sustainability on September 16, 2015.
Dr. Ota gave the lecture on ocean sustainability and the role of international corporations to Hokkaido University, Nitobe College students visiting from Japan. The lecture with working dinner was organized by Dr. Kaeriyama (Nitobe College), Dr. La Fay (Nitobe College) and Dr. Sumaila (UBC) and included a discussion about sustainable energy and peace keeping.
“Global overview of the applications of the Ecopath with Ecosim modeling approach using the EcoBase models repository” has been published in Ecological Modelling by Mathieu Colléter, Nereus Fellow (UBC), Audrey Valls, 2011-2014 Junior Research Fellow (UBC), and Daniel Pauly, Chair of the Nereus Steering Committee and a member of the Advisory Board.
