Steve Gaines, Dean of the Bren School, presents the first LAFF sponsored Faculty Seminar. His seminar, “Contribution of Fisheries to Global Food Security,” focuses on to what extent marine products from both wild caught fisheries and aquaculture meet current demand for seafood and protein, as well as their potential to meet future demands.

Recent reports suggest that many well-assessed fisheries in developed countries are moving toward sustainability. Costello et al. examines whether the same conclusion holds for fisheries lacking formal assessment, which comprise >80% of global catch in a paper published in Science. His team finds that small unassessed fisheries are in substantially worse condition than assessed fisheries, but that large unassessed fisheries may be performing nearly as well as their assessed counterparts. Both small and large stocks, however, continue to decline; 64% of unassessed stocks could provide increased sustainable harvest if rebuilt. Results of this analysis suggest that global fishery recovery would simultaneously create increases in abundance (56%) and fishery yields (8 to 40%).

For this seminar, Professor Costello dives into the analytical methods that his team developed using species' life-history, catch, and fishery development data to estimate the status of thousands of unassessed fisheries worldwide

Long-term sustainability of marine ecosystems will require substantially more funding than is likely to be available from governments and philanthropies. This funding gap highlights the importance of developing alternative sources of capital beyond traditional conservation funders. Private, return-seeking investors have emerged as potentially important sources of funding to address this gap. Recent and ongoing research explores the magnitude and impact of private investment in conservation, and examines some of the financial structures that may be used to leverage return-seeking capital for fisheries restoration and management. Professor Tobin is an environmental biologist and attorney by training. He has over two decades of private sector experience, having practiced corporate law and worked in the international finance industry for most of his career, with more recent focus on corporate sustainability, including the management of environmental, social, and reputational risks, stakeholder engagement and communications, business ethics, sustainability strategy, and the development of financial products and services that aim to address broad societal challenges.

Alejandro Robles is president of Noroeste Sustentable (NOS), which he co-founded in 2004. For the past thirty years, he has been working to build effective networks of collaboration among key public, private, and civil-society stakeholders to achieve sustainability of coastal communities and conservation of coastal marine ecosystems in northwestern Mexico. In 2006 Noroeste Sustenable (Sustainable Northwest; NOS) co-founded Plataforma Bahía de La Paz, a multi-stakeholder collaboration network formed by small-scale fishermen, sports fishermen, marina owners, eco-tour operators, and civic organizations. The most significant interventions of Plataforma members have been the creation of the Red de Observación Ciudadana, a civil effort to abate illegal fishing; and the restoration of the Ensenada de la Paz, carried out by the fishermen of El Mangltio. In 2008, NOS move its headquarters inside El Mangle, a place designed for gathering of multiple stakeholders to reflect and act upon salient sustainability affairs. El Mangle is at the heart of El Manglito, a traditional fishing community struggling, as many others, to make a living from fishing. Since, 2009, the community of El Manglito, El Mangle, and NOS have been co-evolving as they move forward together to restore the community and the ensenada. In this presentation, Robles tells the story of the continuous process of transformation involving the fishing community of El Manglito, El Mangle, and NOS, and and how all three entities have shaped each other's thoughts and actions to increase social, natural, and economic capital.

A fisheries economist by training, Dr. Salgado focuses his research on using property rights to manage fisheries and incorporating economic incentives into environmental regulation. In a new research partnership with the Chilean Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research (INCAR), he employs mainly empirical research to explore questions of socioeconomic sustainability in the context of aquaculture. Dr. Salgado’s talk highlights his research in the Interdisciplinary Center for Aquaculture Research (INCAR) in Chile, where he is a member of the Socioeconomic Sustainability working group. As part of this interdisciplinary, multi-institutional initiative, he explores the impact that aquaculture has had on coastal communities across Chile and the current challenges to achieve a sustainable industry. His talk also includes a discussion of the viability of a regulatory structure based on economic incentives for a growing aquaculture sector, as well as how regulatory structures can shape development of the industry, at both small and large scales, along the Pacific coast of South America.

Civil Society Organization (CSO) is the legal designation for nonprofits in Mexico. They are differentiated from state institutions and market organizations by: 1) working for the common good, 2) not seeking lucrative purpose, 3) their resources come from donations and volunteers, and 4) are formed by people who believe in ideals and not by monetary gain. In this talk, I present the story of Comunidad y Biodiversidad, A.C. (COBI), and its successes and drawbacks from two decades of operation by using frameworks including the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries and the Do No Harm analysis. One of the main pitfalls in which CSO commonly fall is to stop listening the communities, and entering into a paternalistic attitude. In the words of a fisher: “the heart wins and not the head.”

Nicolás L. Gutiérrez is the senior research and policy development manager at the London-based Marine Stewardship Council, where he leads the teams responsible for the policy development process, science communications and training, and monitoring, evaluation, and research of the program. This talk addresses some of the challenges faced by fisheries certification schemes in developing global standards and keeping up with best available science from a Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) perspective. Some examples of the environmental, social, and economic effects of MSC certification are described, as well as a perspective on the evolution of voluntary certification schemes and their future role in shaping sustainable fishing practices and governance.

This colloquium is part of a series of visiting professors speaking about the global challenges and opportunities of farming and seafood. Rosamond Naylor is the Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, William Wrigley Professor in Earth Science, the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and Associate Professor of Economics (by courtesy) at Stanford University. Dr. Naylor's research focuses on the environmental and equity dimensions of intensive food production, and she is engaged in policy issues associated with food and agricultural systems in the U.S. and abroad. During this colloquium, she draws on her pioneering work in sustainable solutions for salmon aquaculture; farming finfish in coastal ecosystems and the open ocean; and assessing sustainability in aquaculture to address the question: does aquaculture add resilience to the global food system? Her talk is followed by a panel session with Dean Steve Gaines, Professor Hunter Lenihan, Professor Ben Halpern, and Research Biologist Dan Reed, spearheading a discussion of key challenges and critical lessons for integrating aquaculture into sustainable food systems.

Sian Morgan has ten years of experience in the fields of marine ecology and fisheries science, with particular expertise in market-based fisheries reform, certification, and quantitative methods for decision analysis. As Director of the Americas for SCS Global Services, Dr. Morgan leads expert teams that evaluate fisheries against the MSC standard and farming operations against ASC standards. Sian Morgon’s talk “Markets-based conservation through MSC, ASC, and Fair Trade” provides her unique insight into the practical applications of market-based conservation approaches from her work as an independent auditor with Sustainable Certifications Systems (SCS). In her presentation, she provides an overview of seafood certifications and recommendation lists for both capture and aquaculture fisheries, address the roles of independent auditing and core organizations involved in the certification process, discusses comparative advantages and shortcomings of evaluation standards, and introduces a new set of standards for capture fisheries under Fair Trade USA.

Responsible Fishing Areas (RFAs) were created by the Costa Rican Institute of Fishing and Aquaculture in 2008 as a spatial tool to help respond to demands from local communities for a greater voice in managing their local fisheries. While the tool was considered an innovative alternative to other approaches of small-scale fisheries management when it came out, several policy limitations have restricted its use. Today, eight RFAs exist in the Gulf of Nicoya, a highly productive tropical estuary, but these spatial-management strategies have yet to live up to their promises and prove their value to control fish mortality and provide benefits to local communities.

Haiti is the poorest country the western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world. With massive issues related to governance, health, economic growth, and the environment, it is extremely difficult to generate momentum among all levels of society to protect natural resources. Most individuals are concerned only with the here and now — how am I going to feed my family today? Environmental issues in general are a far-off concern, and, despite being a Caribbean island nation, the management and protection of coastal and marine resources are at the bottom of the list. Haiti is only now trying to undertake serious management of its environment, but the issues are often overwhelming, and resources, both human and financial, are extremely scarce. Without a capacity to engage in the enforcement of environmental laws, the current methods of stakeholder engagement and the force of peer pressure are the only remaining routes to success. Following a brief overview of FoProBiM’s history and its successes and failures in engaging in resource management and protection in Haiti based on its holistic approach, there will be a discussion with the audience of the challenges of the current situation.