Nereus Program Manager Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor was a panelist at the seminar “Charting A Sustainable Course: Exploring Canada’s Fisheries” hosted by OceanCanada and the Vancouver Aquarium on April 11, 2017. The event was in the format of a casual panel discussion; the panelists provided insight on current issues and future projections for local, Indigenous, recreational and commercial fisheries in Canada.
Caddell delivered his presentation — “After the Thaw: Ice Retreat and the Emerging Regulation of Newly Exposed Marine Areas” — during the first session of the conference. He discussed Antarctic ice shelves, anthropogenic activities and management, as well as future issues with thawing land areas and collaboration on these issues between the Antarctic and Arctic.
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”.
The Nereus Program hosted a side event at the 3rd Preparatory Committee Meeting on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), March 27 to April 7 at the UN Headquarters, in New York. The side event entitled “Adjacency: How legal precedent, ecological connectivity, and traditional knowledge inform our understanding of proximity” was held on April 4.
Pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), all States have customary and treaty obligations to protect and preserve the marine environment and its resources. Several countries have expressed an interest in the question of whether States could properly assert priority over the conservation of areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) adjacent to their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). The term “adjacency”, with respect to maritime coastal boundaries, refers to a State’s spatial proximity with the open ocean and deep sea in ABNJ.
On March 16, the Nereus Program hosted the last lecture of its 2016/2017 UBC Green College Seminar series with guest speaker Douglas McCauley, Assistant Professor at the University of California Santa Barbara. His talk, entitled “Managing Marine Wildlife: The Extinction of Fauna in the Ocean” looked at the differences between extinctions on land and in the oceans.
The main focus of the 2017 symposium was small pelagic fisheries, which includes species such as herring, capelin, anchovy, sardine, and mackerel. Small pelagic fisheries provide about 25% of the world catch and are important for the socio-economic well-being of many coastal societies. The symposium sessions contributed to the goal of revitalizing international cooperation to develop frameworks addressing issues such as the impacts of climate and fishing pressure on small pelagic populations.
Nereus Director of Science William Cheung (UBC) was an invited speaker at the Regional Symposium on Climate Change hosted by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) March 13 to 16 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Nereus Steering Committee Chair Daniel Pauly (UBC) participated remotely. Cheung presented on the relationship between marine biodiversity and climate change.
Conservation International (CI), The Center for Biodiversity Outcomes (CBO) at Arizona State University, and the Nereus Program are pleased to invite applications for a post-doctoral fellow position in sustainable fisheries. The Fellow will support three focal areas for the ASU-CI Knowledge Partnership: Protecting essential natural capital for human well-being; Transitioning to sustainable production; and, Training the next generation of conservation leaders.
Nearly 4000 people attended the Association of the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) annual conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, from February 27 to March 3, making it the largest conference of the beginning of the year. All fields of ocean science were covered, from freshwater biochemistry to management, from satellite use to DNA and genomics. As well, species at each trophic level, including bacteria, viruses, plankton, fish, and mammals, and all the new models were looked at.
