Nereus Program fellow Jessica Spijkers attended the 2017 EAT Stockholm Food Forum, hosted between June 12 and 13, 2017. At the conference, 500 of the world’s leading experts from the science, business, politics, and civil society fields gathered to collaborate on transforming the food system to solve the interconnected challenges of climate, sustainable development, and health.
The United Nations Ocean Conference to “Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14” was held in New York at the UNHQ between June 5 and 9, 2017. On Friday June 9, the Nereus Program hosted a side event, ‘The Role of the Oceans in Sustainability: Benefits of Achieving SDG 14 for all Sustainable Development Goals,’ at the conference. This side event introduced recent research that evaluates how achieving ocean SDG 14 targets contributes to- and in some cases is required for – the achievement of other SDG targets.
The third day of the UN Ocean Conference continued with plenary discussions between member state representatives on making fisheries sustainable and increasing benefits to small island developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs).
Continuing on the tone set during the first day of the UN Ocean Conference, day two showed the engagement and commitment of many nation states, NGOs, businesses and other stakeholders to achieving SDG 14 ‘Life Below Water’. It featured two important plenary meetings and partnership dialogues addressing targets 14.2 and 14.3: managing, protecting, conserving and restoring marine and coastal ecosystems, and minimizing and addressing ocean acidification. During those meetings, the need for enhanced international cooperation to address the common challenges were emphasized; with, for example countries such as the Soloman Islands, Israel, Tuvalu and Estonia expressing commitments to minimize ocean acidification.
Today was the first day of the UN Ocean Conference, which is the first conference specifically focused on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water. The day started with a cultural programme and plenary meeting then a partnership dialogue on addressing marine pollution. The conference will include dialogues on each of the seven targets of SDG14. Interspersed were a number of interesting and informative side events.
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.
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 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.
