A healthy ocean will benefit global sustainable development in a number of ways, finds a new report published today by the Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program. With climate change and social inequity addressed, restoring the ocean will help alleviate poverty, provide livelihoods, and improve the health of millions around the world.
Bangladesh is a world leader in aquaculture production, ranking sixth after China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Due to the nation’s favourable physical characteristics, Bangladesh is highly suitable for coastal aquaculture, especially the tiger shrimp sector. Shrimp culture has diversified livelihood opportunities for coastal communities, as over two million people are involved in fish farming, market, processing, and exporting.
Between May 10 and 14, 2017, the Environmental Drivers of Fishing Effort Workshop was held at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Nereus attendance at the workshop included participation from Director of Science William Cheung (UBC), Principal Investigator Pat Halpin (Duke), Research Associate Derek Tittensor (Cambridge/UNEP-WCMC), Fellow Daniel Dunn (Duke), fellow Guillermo Ortuño-Crespo (Duke), Fellow Gabriel Reygondeau (UBC), and Fellow Vicky Lam (UBC).
The 18th meeting of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea was held between May 15th and 19th, 2017 in New York. At the meeting, Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program’s Director of Science, William Cheung, delivered a presentation on the effects of climate change on fisheries.
The global oceans provide hundreds of millions of people with livelihoods, food and nutritional security, and are crucial for employment, economic development, and export earnings in many countries and coastal communities around the world. The status of these important ecosystems and its fisheries resources are however rapidly declining, following decades of unsustainable exploitation patterns, overcapacity, and unsuccessful governance interventions.
Seafood is one of the highest valued food items traded among countries around the world. Seafood exceeds the trade value of sugar, maize, coffee, rice and cocoa combined. But where is this seafood going and who is most benefiting?
Nereus Fellow Tiff-Annie Kenny (University of Ottawa) attended the Inaugural Planetary Health/GeoHealth Annual Meeting at Harvard University from April 29 to 30, 2017. Planetary Health is defined as “the health of human civilization and the state of the natural systems on which it depends” (Rockefeller Foundation – Lancet Planetary Health Commission Report), and is related to GeoHealth, which stands for Global Environmental and Occupational Health.
The world is intuitively divided by the existence of recognizable, bounded units of landscape with characteristic climatic regimes and land cover that drives the distribution of existing life on earth. On a global scale, terrestrial ecosystems are grouped into major biomes such as boreal forest, savannah, desert, tundra and grasslands, each with distinct climates, landscapes, species, and vegetation.
The position is expected to work closely with Global Fishing Watch (GFW), a partner of Nereus Program, to support research projects using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. Global Fishing Watch has a database of over 20 billion positions from hundreds of thousands of ocean going vessels between 2012 and today. GFW is using big data and machine learning techniques to identify vessels and where they are fishing. This positions will work closely with the data scientists at Global Fishing Watch and Nereus’ network of researchers.
The Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance seeks to fill a position for a Postdoctoral Researcher in the field of public international law, with a focus on international fisheries law. The successful candidate will be part of the Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea (NILOS) as well as the Utrecht Centre for Water, Oceans and Sustainability Law (UCWOSL). NILOS is one of the leading law of the sea institutes in the world, with collaborative links with most other significant law of the sea institutes.
