Subsidies, fragmented enforcement hamper progress on illegal fishing
Subsidies and fragmented enforcement hamper progress on illegal fishing: New research by professors Rashid Sumaila and Philippe Le Billon published in PNAS underscores why the issue is so persistent, and provides updated estimates on the scope and concentration of industrial scale illegal fishing.
Comprehensive analysis published in PNAS underscores why the issue is so persistent, and provides updated estimates on the scope and concentration of industrial scale illegal fishing.
“Illegal fishing is not a fringe activity, but a systemic feature of the global seafood economy, enabled by weak governance, harmful subsidies, opaque corporate structures, and complex international supply chains”
Philippe Le Billon
UBC Professor, SPPGA/Geography
UBC Professor, SPPGA/Geography
Industrial-scale illegal fishing continues to undermine ocean sustainability, coastal livelihoods, and global seafood markets—despite decades of regulation and recent advances in surveillance technology, according to new University of British Columbia (UBC) research.
“Illegal fishing is not a fringe activity, but a systemic feature of the global seafood economy, enabled by weak governance, harmful subsidies, opaque corporate structures, and complex international supply chains,” said lead author Dr. Philippe Le Billon, professor at UBC’s Department of Geography and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.
The comprehensive analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examines how illegal fishing operates, where it is concentrated, and why it persists. “Illegal fishing remains profitable because the risks are low and the rewards are high,” said Dr. Le Billon. “Even as detection improves, enforcement and accountability lag behind—particularly for large industrial fleets operating far from public scrutiny.”
“The environmental and social costs are borne largely by developing coastal states, while the economic benefits flow elsewhere”
Dr. Rashid Sumaila
UBC Professor, SPPGA/IOF
UBC Professor, SPPGA/IOF
A Global Problem with Unequal Impacts
The study reported that industrial-scale illegal and unreported fishing accounts for approximately eight to 15 per cent of global marine wild capture, underpinning an illicit seafood trade worth US$6.2 to 12.2 billion annually. While illegal fishing occurs worldwide, its impacts are highly uneven. Roughly two-thirds of the illicit trade by value originates in West Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia — regions where enforcement capacity is often limited and fisheries are central to food security and employment.
At the same time, much of the illegally caught seafood is consumed in wealthier markets in North America, Europe, and East Asia, highlighting stark global inequities. “The environmental and social costs are borne largely by developing coastal states, while the economic benefits flow elsewhere,” said Dr. Rashid Sumaila, co-author and professor at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.
Eliminating Harmful Subsidies Key to Comprehensive Reform
“Effective action against illegal fishing requires coordinated, multi-level responses,” said Dr. Sumaila. “Reducing illegal fishing is not just about catching more offenders, it is about fixing the systems that make illegality profitable and legal fishing harder—especially for those who depend on the ocean the most.”
Key priorities include eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies, mandating electronic vessel identification, strengthening port state controls, increasing transparency around beneficial ownership, and improving international cooperation. Equally important are policies that protect small-scale and Indigenous fisheries, promote co-management, and align economic incentives with sustainable and legal practices.
As daunting as the challenge of curbing illegal fishing appears, there are some positive signs, the current geopolitical shocks to the global governance system notwithstanding. For example, the WTO rectified an agreement known as Fish 1, to remove certain harmful subsidies in 2025, while working to strengthen this in a follow up agreement known as Fish 2 currently opposed by India, Indonesia, and the US. Also, the High Seas Treaty entered into force on January 17, 2026.
“China has finally become a Party to the Agreement on Port State Measure (PSMA). To turn these hopeful signs to real action on the water, individuals and civil society have to relentlessly push governments and businesses to tackle illegal fishing,” adds Dr. Sumaila, further evidence that the world can collaborate to stop illegal fishing.
How Illegal Fish Enters Legal Markets
Illegal fishing is sustained by sophisticated laundering mechanisms. At-sea transshipment, fraudulent documentation, species mislabeling, and mixing of illegal and legal catch allow illicit seafood to pass through ports, processors, and retailers undetected. Weak port controls, inconsistent implementation of international agreements, and limited transparency around vessel ownership further enable these practices.
“Reducing illegal fishing is not just about catching more offenders, it is about fixing the systems that make illegality profitable and legal fishing harder”
Dr. Rashid Sumaila
Professor, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries & SPPGA, UBC
Professor, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries & SPPGA, UBC
Large distant-water fishing fleets—often supported by fuel and other capacity-enhancing subsidies—are identified as major contributors to illegal fishing. These fleets frequently operate under “flags of convenience,” re-register vessels to evade sanctions, and use complex corporate networks to obscure beneficial ownership and avoid penalties.
Technology Helps — But Is Not Enough
Satellite tracking, artificial intelligence, and electronic monitoring systems have dramatically improved the detection of suspicious fishing activity. However, the authors caution that technology alone cannot solve the problem. Enforcement remains fragmented, penalties are often too weak to deter violations, and political will is uneven—especially when powerful corporate or geopolitical interests are involved.
Beyond Environmental Damage
Illegal fishing’s harms extend far beyond depleted fish stocks. There is “significant economic losses to governments and coastal communities, increased food and nutritional insecurity, and widespread labor abuses aboard fishing vessels,” noted Dr. Le Billon. “Tens of thousands of crew members are estimated to face a high risk of forced labour or unsafe working conditions globally, particularly on vessels operating far from oversight.”
Illegal fishing is also linked, in certain contexts, to corruption, smuggling, and maritime insecurity, compounding its social and political impacts.
The complex and often opaque character of seafood supply chains allow illegally caught fish to be laundered into global markets through fraudulent documentation, transshipment, and weak monitoring at ports, Dr. Le Billon concluded.
Casting light on the workings of illegal fishing markets, was published in PNAS.
Tags: Illegal fishing, Philippe le Billon, Rashid Sumaila, SPPGA, supply chain
Climate change is supercharging marine invasions, global study finds
Global review reveals warming oceans are making marine invasive species more successful — and highlights critical blind spots that could leave many regions unprepared.
Marine invasive species are poised to become an even greater threat to ocean biodiversity as climate change accelerates their success, according to a major new global study led by the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF).
Native range of invasive species included in the study based on the global marine biogeographic classification developed by Spalding et al. (2007) to define marine provinces. This system delineates the world’s coastal and shelf waters into 62 distinct marine provinces based on shared biogeographic characteristics of marine ecosystems, including patterns in species composition, oceanographic features, evolutionary history, and endemism at the species level.
Rather than focusing on a single notorious invader, the researchers drew together evidence from 67 independent studies that examined 30 marine invasive species spanning seaweeds, shellfish, crustaceans, predators and other marine organisms from around the world, developing one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of how climate change is altering biological invasions in the world’s oceans. Together, these species paint a consistent picture: climate change is increasingly tipping the balance in favour of non-native species.
“Climate change and invasive species are often treated as separate environmental problems,” said lead author Dr. Nicola Smith, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries at the time the research was undertaken, and is currently an assistant professor, biology, at Concordia University. “Our analysis shows climate change consistently favours marine invaders, particularly by increasing their abundance and helping them establish new populations. Ocean warming and climate-driven extreme events – including marine heatwaves and hurricanes – reinforce one another, creating a much larger threat to marine biodiversity than either would alone.”
“Warming oceans, marine heatwaves, hurricanes, and other climate-driven disturbances are making invasive species more likely to survive, increase in abundance, and establish viable populations,” said senior author Dr. William Cheung, professor in the IOF. “As warming continues, preventing new invasions and detecting them early will become increasingly important for protecting marine ecosystems and the fisheries and coastal communities that depend on them.”
Japweed, or Japanese Wireweed (Sargassum muticum) stranded on the shore. Graça Gaspar, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Collectively, the 30 species included in the study originated predominantly from the cold and warm temperate Northwest Pacific, particularly the coasts of Japan, South Korea and eastern China, before spreading to coastal ecosystems around the globe. Species examined included invasive seaweeds such as Sargassum muticum, Undaria pinnatifida, and Rugulopteryx okamurae; shellfish including the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas), Asian date mussel (Musculista senhousia), and Atlantic slipper limpet (Crepidula fornicata); as well as invasive predators such as the northern Pacific seastar (Asterias amurensis), the veined rapa whelk (Rapana venosa), and the comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi).
According to the study, the greatest concentrations of invasive species now occur in the Mediterranean Sea and the Northern European Seas, where some marine provinces host up to 17 of the invasive species included in the study. The research attributes these patterns to intense shipping activity, expanding aquaculture, warming waters and extensive coastal development, all of which increase opportunities for species to move and establish outside their native ranges.
Veined rapa whelk (Rapana venosa) By George Chernilevsky – Own work, Public Domain
Across the studies reviewed, the researchers found that invasive species abundance increased by more than 200 per cent in short-term experiments, while some long-term observations documented far larger increases where species expanded from almost undetectable levels to dominant populations. Although these large percentage increases partly reflect very low starting populations, they demonstrate how quickly invaders can capitalize on changing environmental conditions.
While the study provides strong evidence that climate change generally enhances marine invasions, it also exposes significant weaknesses in current scientific knowledge.
Despite reviewing global evidence, the researchers found that available studies are heavily concentrated in just 4 of the world’s 12 marine realms, with 54 of the 67 studies conducted in the Temperate Northern Atlantic. Even more striking, 52 of those 54 studies examined only one climate stressor—ocean warming.
Pacific oyster, (Magallana gigas) David.Monniaux, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“This means we still know comparatively little about how invasive species respond to climate change across tropical oceans, the Southern Hemisphere, deep-sea ecosystems, and regions where multiple climate stressors interact simultaneously,” said Cheung.
“In addition, there are few peer-reviewed studies focused on invasive fishes, with most research highlighting marine invertebrates and seaweeds,” noted Smith. “This leaves us with huge knowledge gaps in rapidly changing regions, such as the Arctic, and many developing coastal nations, which face substantial challenges in preparing for future invasions.”
The authors stressed that attention should be given before invasive species become established, prioritizing enhanced biosecurity, early detection and rapid response measures like routine environmental DNA (eDNA) monitoring and improved ballast water management, as well as predictive risk assessment modelling and stronger international cooperation. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will also remain fundamental because invasive species are likely to become an increasingly important—and often underestimated—driver of biodiversity loss unless both climate action and invasion management are strengthened together.
“Climate change enhances the success of marine invasive species” was published in Global Change Biology.
Tags: biosecurity, China, climate change, eDNA, faculty, fish, heatwaves, invasive species, IOF alumni, IOF postdoctoral fellows, Japan, Korea, marine biogeography, marine ecosystems, molluscs, Nicola Smith, Pacific, Pacific Northwest, predators, seaweed, shellfish, William Cheung
IOF Members Receive SSHRC Discovery Grants
On July 21, UBC researchers received funding through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Two IOF faculty members had projects which receive funding through SSHRC’s Insight Grants program.
Dr. Simon Donner and Dr. Rashid Sumaila
- Dr. Simon Donner (Geography, IOF, and IRES) will receive $218,690 over 5 years, for his “Urban Future Walks: Can guided tours promote support for climate solutions and positive climate engagement in urban environments?” project.
- Dr. Rashid Sumaila (IOF and SPPGA) is a collaborator on Dr. Jessica Dempsey (Geography)’s project “Beyond the status quo: Political economic barriers to reform and pathways for change in BC’s extractive economy”, which will receive $456,732 over 6 years.
Carl Walters wins paper award
Congratulations to Professor Emeritus Dr. Carl J Walters and IOF alum Michael A Hawkshaw, who were co-authors on the paper “A species-specific catchability model to partition hydroacoustic total salmon counts“ that was named as the North American Journal of Fisheries Management (NAJFM)’s Best Paper of 2025.
SEEKING: Applications for 3rd Cohort of the Africa-University of British Columbia (UBC) Oceans and Fisheries Visiting Fellows Program
West African coastline
The UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) is pleased to open the application period for the third cohort of laureates for its Africa-University of British Columbia (UBC) Oceans and Fisheries Visiting Fellows Program.
Dr. Daniel Pauly and Dr. Rashid Sumaila
Developed with the assistance of the University of Cape Coast, and made possible, in part, due to funding from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Ocean Initiative and a number of individual donors, the Program invites applications from exceptional sub-Saharan African researchers, who hold a PhD or research equivalent and hold an appointment in a Sub-Saharan African academic or research institution. They must also have published a book, or at least two book chapters or peer-reviewed journal articles, and provide letters from academic references.
The core of their application rests on their proposed research proposal, for the work to be undertaken during the Fellowship. This proposal must focus on African ocean or freshwater systems sustainability and conservation project, which the Fellow will work on in partnership with UBC-based scholars. By expanding the networks of both African and UBC researchers, all participants will share and co-create interdisciplinary knowledge and insights that would benefit their universities, their countries, and the world.
Two laureates will be selected from the applicants for the 12-month period. Eleven months are spent engaging with their UBC partner virtually, with the fellow being hosted by their partner at UBC’s Vancouver campus for one month. The fellow’s airfare, accommodation and a per diem are provided, in addition to a sum for research expenses. The total value of each fellowship is $23,000 CAD.
“The program is open to researchers across all academic fields who are focused on ocean sustainability and making the ocean economy work for the people who call Africa home,” said Dr. Sumaila. “We are excited that we are now opening our third iteration.”
The application period for the program opened on July 15, 2026 and will close on September 30, 2026.
For more details on the program, and to apply, please visit this page: https://oceans.ubc.ca/research/applytoafricaubcprogram/
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When used habitat is not always good habitat
Thick-billed murre eating an Arctic cod. Credit: Douglas Noblet
As humans continue to alter and encroach on wildlife habitat, a basic conservation question becomes more urgent: which places do animals truly need in order to survive and thrive?
Many studies try to answer that by looking at where animals go. However, a new study led by UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries researcher Dr. Marie Auger-Méthé and co-authors suggests that this common approach can miss something important. Just because an animal uses a habitat does not necessarily mean that this habitat is good for them. The paper argues that bringing information about animal health and performance into habitat selection studies can change how researchers identify important habitats, and in turn, how conservation decisions are made.
Habitat selection analyses are widely used in ecology and conservation. Researchers use them to identify the environmental conditions animals seem to prefer, and those findings often shape management plans. The new paper, however, points out a long-standing problem: habitats that animals use most often are not always the ones that best support their survival or reproduction. That mismatch can happen for many reasons. Animals may be pushed into poorer habitats by competition, return to places that used to be better in the past, or respond to environmental cues that no longer work in a rapidly changing world. In some cases, this can create ecological traps, where animals continue using habitat that is now harmful to them.
“As humans, we are destroying more and increasingly encroaching on the habitat of many species. It is key that we identify and protect the habitat that is crucial for wildlife to thrive,” said Auger-Méthé.
The study makes the case that habitat use should be interpreted together with measures of how animals are actually doing. These can include body condition, energy gain, injuries, or reproductive success. In other words, instead of only asking where animals go, researchers should also ask whether those places are helping animals stay healthy, raise young, or recover from stress. The authors argue that this kind of information is still surprisingly rare in the habitat selection literature. In their review of 72 recent studies, 82 per cent made conservation or management statements based on habitat selection results, but only 4 per cent included a direct health or fitness characteristic in the analysis. Other individual characteristics, such as sex, were much more common.
“While ecologists have long worked on finding ways to better identify the critical habitat of species, many of the methods currently used are simply based on whether the habitat is used by the animals, and it does not differentiate habitats used based on their quality,” said Auger-Méthé.
Thick-billed murres standing on a ledge at Cape Graham Moore, Nunavut. Credit: Douglas Noblet
The three animal case studies showed what this looks like in practice. In thick-billed murres, the researchers included the rate of mass gain as a proxy for energetic benefit. A basic model suggested that the birds mainly selected areas close to the colony. However, once mass gain was included, a more complex picture emerged: birds that gained mass were using a wider range of foraging sites, including areas farther from the colony. Those more distant areas might have looked secondary in a simple analysis, but they may actually be important for helping birds gain energy.
These are glaucous-winged gulls by their nest, numbered so we can track the number of chicks they have. Credit: Shabnam Shadloo
In narwhals, the researchers looked at healed scars as a sign of past trauma. In this case, the scars did not seem to change which habitats narwhals selected directly. Instead, they changed how the animals moved. Narwhals with healed scars moved more slowly far from shore and ended up spending more time offshore than unscarred individuals. That result is important because it shows that health and condition can shape animal distribution indirectly, through movement behaviour rather than habitat choice alone.
“Animals, like humans, can make bad decisions; they may use a habitat that is bad for them. This is especially true because we are altering their environment, and so a place that was good for them in the past may now be dangerous,” said Auger-Méthé.
Narwhals. Credit: Marie Auger-Méthé
At its core, the study is asking conservation science to go one step further. Not just where animals are, but how well they are doing there. In a world of shrinking and changing habitat, that is an important difference.
Including fitness and health proxies can alter our understanding of habitat selection was led by UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries researcher Dr. Marie Auger-Méthé, with co-authors Fanny Dupont, Alyssa Eby, Kyle H. Elliott, Nigel E. Hussey, Devin A. Lyons, Marianne Marcoux, Allison Patterson, Shabnam Shadloo, and Courtney R. Shuert.
Climate action for blue foods needs people, policy and technology – not one-off fixes
New international study finds fisheries and aquaculture strategies can help reduce emissions and build resilience, but success depends on moving beyond isolated innovations towards equitable, context-specific portfolios of action backed by effective policy.
Oyster farm / aquaculture Credit: Pixabay
Published in Environmental Research: Food Systems, the review evaluated 22 climate mitigation and adaptation strategies across fisheries and aquaculture. It found relatively strong evidence for the mitigation potential of decarbonizing production practices and dietary shifts, and for adaptation benefits from species and gear shifts. However, evidence across strategies remains uneven, highly context-specific and, in some cases, limited.
Giant clam farm in seagrass bed. Photo: Colette Wabnitz
“Blue foods have enormous potential to contribute to climate solutions, but that potential won’t be realized without sustained investment and context-specific planning,” said lead author Aleah Wong, a PhD student in the IOF. “The most effective strategies depend on local ecological, social, and economic conditions, and must carefully balance benefits with trade-offs.”
Climate change is already disrupting fisheries and aquaculture through warming waters, declining oxygen levels, stronger storms, sea level rise, disease outbreaks and shifting species distributions. The review notes that impacts are expected to be greatest in blue food-dependent countries in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Small Island Developing States.
Women, fishing, drying fish. Credit: AMIT ROY/CC0
The researchers also highlight that many climate actions involve trade-offs. Measures that reduce emissions may affect biodiversity, nutrition, livelihoods or equity if poorly designed. For example, interventions that appear beneficial from a narrow climate perspective can create new risks if they overlook food security, ecosystem impacts or existing inequalities. Likewise, technological innovations alone are unlikely to deliver meaningful progress without investments in governance, community capacity, education and social support. The authors argue that blue food climate strategies need to be evaluated as part of wider social-ecological systems, rather than treated as stand-alone technical fixes.
“Climate action for blue foods must place people alongside technology,” said Wong. “Supporting fishers, farmers and coastal communities through education, financial tools and effective governance is just as important as investing in new technologies.”
Feasibility, co-benefits, and trade-offs of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in blue food systems was published in Environmental Research: Food Systems.
Tags: Africa, aquaculture, aquatic plants, Asia, biodiversity, blue foods, climate change, Colette Wabnitz, fish, food-climate-biodiversity, habitats, IOF students, nutrition, ocean governance, Publications, regional governance, senior researcher, shellfish, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), social sciences, South Asia, Southeast Asia
IOF Members Receive NSERC Discovery Grants for Long-Term Research Projects
Today, $630 million in funding through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Research Program was announced by the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions along with Karim Bardeesy, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, and Dominique O’Rourke, Member of Parliament for Guelph.
Of this, $47.6 million will support 199 new programs and projects led by UBC researchers.
Drs. Villy Christensen, Evgeny Pakhomov, and Curtis Suttle have been awarded a combined $850,000+ in research funding from this program.
The federal Discovery Grants program supports the development and sustainability of diverse, high-quality research in the natural sciences and engineering at Canadian universities, fostering research excellence. A number of IOF faculty members have been awarded Discovery Grants over the years, for their work in a wide range of fields including biodiversity, ecology, and statistics.
Discovery Grants are usually five years in duration and meant to supplement other sources of funding, they do not support the full costs of a research program.
Dr. Villy Christensen
Dr. Christensen remarked that, “despite progress, current marine ecosystem models are hampered by insufficient integration of socio-economic factors, human behaviours, cumulative stressors, ecosystem resilience, communication of uncertainty, and stakeholder participation.”
Dr. Christensen received a $248,425 grant for the research program “Evaluating Impact of Climate Change for the Global Ocean”, which will develop a next-generation marine ecosystem model (MEM) platform based on EcoOcean – focusing on complex data integration and socio-economical trade-offs. His long-term goal is to support sustainable ocean management and rapid environmental change, emphasizing impacts on marine life and society, including fisheries and governance.
This research will pursue two aims, (i) scaling global models for regional impact assessment, with the hypothesis that tropical countries will be more affected by changing climates, and (ii) how human and environmental stressors interact – pollution, habitat loss, acidification, overfishing – to determine if these combined impacts are additive or synergistic.
“Overall, this work aims to address climate impacts on biodiversity, fisheries, and ecosystems, producing tools to inform policy, support sustainable development, and guide climate adaptation. Combining robust ecological models with technological and participatory approaches, it advances understanding of complex marine systems and promotes sustainable ocean governance in a changing world,” said Christensen.
Dr. Evgeny Pakhomov
Dr. Curtis Suttle
“Viruses are by far the most numerous “life” in the ocean, and are estimated to kill ~20% of the marine biomass daily; yet, our knowledge of these viruses is rudimentary.” Dr. Suttle says the long-term goal of his Discovery Grant program is to determine the impact of viruses on organisms and processes in marine systems through understanding the relationships between specific viruses and their hosts. “Several of our discoveries have transformed our understanding of viruses and viral mediated processes. The proposed research builds on this foundation through three short-term objectives focused on virus discovery in (i) crustacean zooplankton, (ii) prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbes, and (iii) how taxon-specific lysis varies spatially and temporally.” Better understanding viruses and their role in marine mortality allows us an overall stronger grasp of global biogeochemical cycles.
Tags:climate change, Curtis Suttle, ecological modeling, Evgeny Pakhomov, faculty, funding, Macroplankton, marine ecosystems, Marine Zooplankton and Micronekton Laboratory, NSERC, ocean, ocean ecology, Research, Villy Christensen, viruses
IOF at Oceans Past XI 2026 conference
UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries researchers participated in the Oceans Past XI 2026 conference, held June 15-19, 2026, in Victoria, British Columbia.
- Dr. Daniel Pauly, UBC Killam Professor in IOF, gave the keynote titled “Shifting Baselines and the Various Pasts of Various Disciplines”
- IOF’s new Assistant Professor in the Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, Dr. Hwsyun’yun Skye Augustine, gave the Day 3 Keynote titled “Oceans Past, Food Futures: Ancestral Mariculture and Indigenous Ocean Governance in the Salish Sea and Beyond”. Dr. Augustine also opened the clam Special Session during the conference.
- Dr. Meaghan Efford, postdoctoral fellow, gave a talk based on her doctoral dissertation work entitled “Collaborative, transdisciplinary, and community-based archaeology and historical ecology in service of Tsleil-Waututh Nation”.
- Dr. Camilla Speller, Associate professor in UBC Department of Anthropology, and IOF associate faculty member Dr. Camilla Speller gave a talk alongside the K’omoks First Nation, “Xaʔaʔgaɬ: Collaborative Research on Ancient Fisheries in the K’ómoks Estuary”.
- Max Miner, IOF PhD student, gave a talk during the clam Special Session, “Where are the Geoduck? Ancient DNA-Based Molecular Identification of Fragmentary Archaeological Bivalve Shell and Implications for Nuu-chah-nulth Fisheries Sovereignty in British Columbia”, which won the award for best talk. Congratulations, Max!
Article prepared with notes from Max Miner