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.

The internship focuses on developing a fishers' apprenticeship program for Belize's national sustainable fisheries reform. It includes conducting literature review of similar programs, curriculums, manuals and tools used in the region for small-scale fisheries. Resposbibilities also include conducting a planning workshop with Belize’s Managed Access Technical Team to align the program with the country’s broader fisheries management framework, as well al conducting brainstorming session with fisher committees, associations and cooperatives on the structure of the program. A core deviverable, supervised by Nicanor Requena (EDF Country Coordinator) is to develop a draft framework for a national fisher’s apprenticeship program for Belize. 

Jade Sainz (Class of 2013, current PhD student) completed her graduate internship with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s Fishing Operations and Technology Branch (FIRO). Jade worked with an international team of experts including Dr. Petri Suuronen and Dr. Daniela Kalikowski on the initial stages of the GEF project entitled “Sustainable Management of Bycatch in Latin America and Caribbean Trawl Fisheries” (REBYC-II-LAC). Her responsibilities included gathering statistics related to catch, bycatch, and fleet and fishing effort from the participant countries (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago). She was also responsible for facilitating the communication among representatives of the corresponding fisheries’ institutions. This internship provded an exciting opportunity to be part of a highly experienced team working to find the best solution to one of the most concerning problems to sustainable fisheries: bycatch in tropical trawl fisheries on an international arena. Jade gained valuable knowledge about policy, negotiation, guidelines, and priorities within the international community related to food security and sustainability.

This internship assisted in the process of developing and managing databases corresponding to data collected in no-take reserves for Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI). These databases will ultimately be used as part of Juan-Carlos’ TURFeffect master’s project. Additionally, as an intern, Juan Carlos produced a series of “Shiny Apps” (an “R” package used to build web applications) that will enable COBI to transform these databases into different formats and perform fast analyses to present results to fishers. The internship also provided ample opportunity to engage with the diverse programs and projects across the COBI organization and directly participate in field work to collect missing information for the organization. Juan Carlos was based in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo; Guaymas, Sonora; La Paz, Baja California Sur.

The focus of this internship will be to support the group project “Systematizing the Implementation of Fisheries Reserves in the Mexican Caribbean” though determining economic costs and benefits of having and implementing FRs through community and stakeholder engagement. The challenge with effective FRs stem from a large initial cost and lack of immediate benefits, so once associated costs with establishing a FR are understood, the intern will explore alternative avenues that create more rapid economic benefits and growth for the communities (e.g., options that increase fishing efficiency or product values) that help offset the decrease in catch or fishery capital when FRs are in place. 

Miguel Cosmelli's (Class of 2015) graduate internship was focused on fisheries research in Chile and Peru. Miguel studied the enforcement system used in Chile's fisheries, and researched how such a system might be applied to the Peruvian anchoveta fishery. In addition, while in Chile he contributed to ongoing research focused on application and outcomes of fisheries taxes. This ongoing research is anticipated for publication soon.
 

This internship focused on supporting research on endemic and endangered species of sharks and skate to better understand fishing patterns in Brazil as part of a broader effort to improve management and conservation. Caio was responsible for characterizing and analyzing data from bottom-trawl and bottom-gillnet fleets on species of concern in Brazil. Through analysis of landings data and biological sampling data, the intern was tasked with describing key fishing areas in Southern Brazil, as well as seasonality of capture, and providing researchers with an estimate of fishing mortality for key species specific to the region. Lastly, the intern was tasked with making recommendations for management and conservation to collaborating fisheries centers, based in Itajaí, Santa Catarina, Brazil.