Alexandra and Juan interned for National Geographic’s Pristine Seas program in Galápagos, Ecuador. The intershnship centered on gathering critical data from the Galapagos National Park and conducting surveys with tourists and tour operators in order to complete several key objectives of her Group Project, GeoMar. The internship provided the opportunity to attended a conference held by Pristine Seas’ EAST-GI Project in late July, where interdisciplinary researchers presented information regarding conservation and the re-zoning of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. The work completed by Juan, Alexandra and other teammates helped to inform the rezoning process of the Galápagos Marine Reserve by demonstrating the benefits of greater conservation. 

This internship in Marine conservation, Science and Policy supported the establishment of a new office to focus on ocean policy for the Waitt Foundation in 2012. The primary focus of the internship was to assess the ocean conservation landscape for the foundation’s evolving philanthropic strategies, and conduct a preliminary prioritization assessment for the foundation’s engagement in the “Blue Halo” initiative across the Caribbean. Furthermore, the internship supported the Science and Solutions Program officer and Foundation Board on the process of reviewing proposals and prospective grantees of the foundation, as well as representing the foundation in congressional briefings, and synthesizing scientific insight relevant to trends in understanding ocean environmental problems. 

In July and August of 2012, Aristo Stavrinaky (MESM 2013) worked with Belize’s fisheries department and the Environmental Defense Fund on the design and development of lobster and conch territorial-use-rights fisheries (TURFs) for Belize’s artisanal fishing fleet. Aristo worked closely with local fishermen, sailing with them to their fishing grounds and sharing knowledge about sustainable fishery management practices. In this picture, he joins a pair of fishermen to weigh a lobster. Gathering and accumulating data on the size of lobster is an important component of assessing the relative health of the fishery. The TURF program will soon expand to include fish.

In 2012 Renato completed an internship at the Universidade do Vale do Itajaí (UNIVALI) in southern Brazil as a visiting researcher. He worked with professors, researchers, and students to design and apply methods for the bioeconomic modeling of the industrial fleet in the region. This collaboration led to direct contributions to three graduate dissertation projects from the oceanography department at the same university, as well as contributing to further collaboration between Renato’s home institution, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV) and UNIVALI in the subsequent years. Collaboration between the two institutions is expected to continue in the future as an active network of academic and technical exchange.

This internship comprises two parts: in the first one (6 weeks) Edaysi worked as a project specialist in COBI’s office based in Cancun, with a focus on their Yucatan programs. Her role also focused on advancing her GP objective, namely helping to modify the fisheries refuge national regulation with COBI’s strategic effort. The internship deliverables were to document with the fisheries refuge national regulation proposal, and to develop a plan for assessing optimal sustainable pricing for fisheries products within COBI’s Yucatan programs. For the second part, Edayso collaborated with the Claudia y Roberto Hernandez foundation in Jalisco, Mexico with a team of PhD and Post-doc LAFF fellows to assess and evaluate the feasibility of the creation of a No-Take marine reserve in the community of Arroyo Seco, as well as a plan for prioritizing the future advancement of sustainable marine resource management and coastal protection for the coastal stretch of Jalisco, known as Costa Alegre. 

During the summer of 2015, Juliano completed an internship with the Environmental Defense Fund’s Mexico program. Juliano provided technical insight regarding optimal territorial use-rights for fisheries (TURF) design. TURFs are area-based fishing rights in which individuals or groups of people are given the exclusive right to fish in a designated area. Juliano provided design support for TURFs in a region with a complex fishing network (multi-species, highly productive, and low value fisheries) and high dependency on marine resources. The product will be nested within a broader management framework, “The Fisheries Management Plan” for the region.

During her graduate internship with Conservation International, Mary Luna conducted literature and field research, as well as meetings with stakeholders to create a best practices guide for fishers operating in the Corumbau Marine Extractive Reserve in Brazil. While in Brazil, Mary attended meetings with stakeholders and traveled to field locations where she learned more about the fishing gear and vessel types. She also sought to find solutions to challenges related to supply and demand – this included looking for opportunities posed by national and international markets. In addition, she sought solutions for infrastructural challenges that she learned about while completing her research. 

Diana Flores (Peru) and Maria Ignacia Rivera (Chile) teamed up for this internship with the Peru office of The Nature Conservancy. This collaborative summer project had the goal of supporting TNC’s ongoing initiatives in Peru’s coastal communities through designing a methodological framework of evaluation to assess the social, economic and ecological performance of community-based resource management and sustainable development initiatives. The framework was developed and tested using the specific case study in the community of Ancon, Peru, which has implemented several strategies for self-governance applied to resources management. The interns’ focus was to conduct a rigorous analysis of key indicators that can help understand how different coastal communities perform and respond to a suite of sustainable development approaches. Such a framework can be used by the authorities to efficiently guide and design policies that target and encourage proper management in coastal communities. The internships were based in Lima, Peru with extensive site visits to selected communities. The project was in collaboration with Matías Caillaux (LAFF Alumnus and Humboldt Current Fisheries Specialist for The Nature Conservancy).

In connection to his Directed Research, Daniel Viana (Class of 2013, current Phd student) spent his internship split between the Galápagos and Santa Barbara, California. Through Conservation International and SFG, Daniel visited the Galápagos to assist the national park with the marine spatial planning of the region. He spent time in meetings with park managers presenting the model proposed to improve zoning of the park. Additionally, he gained exposure to a variety of park departments while gathering data for future use in the spatial planning of the region. With new data and a better understanding of the region, he returned to Santa Barbara where he worked with SFG compiling the data and helping with the analysis.

The goal of this internship was to design and implement fisheries data collection protocols for length data of target species, and integrate fisheries landings information into a national database. In addition, the internship involved close collaboration with the Montserrat National Trust to help determine and establish mechanisms that can be used to sustainably finance fisheries enforcement. The internship involved collaborating with the Sustainable Fisheries Group (SFG) to conduct data-limited fisheries analyses, and model management scenarios under their close mentorship. Activities also included conducting a literature review on gear-based management relevant to Montserrat’s fisheries to support SFG’s gear-based impact analysis, and an assessment of sustainable finance scenarios to fund fisheries enforcement in the Blue Halo initiatives. Key deliverables from the summer included a report on finance mechanisms for enforcement, as well as write-ups for the quantitative analysis parameterized for fisheries enforcement options in Blue Halo sites. The internship was field based in Montserrat.