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.
The article, published today in the journal Science, is in direct response to investigative reports by the Associated Press, the Guardian, the New York Times and other media outlets that uncovered glaring human rights violations on fishing vessels. The investigations tracked the widespread use of slave labor in Southeast Asia and its role in bringing seafood to American restaurants and supermarkets, chronicling the plight of fishermen tricked and trapped into working 22-hour days, often without pay and while enduring abuse. Subsequent investigations have documented the global extent of these abuses in a wide array of countries.
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.
