Amanda Vincent named Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Amanda Vincent named Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Dr. Amanda Vincent has been named as one of The Royal Society of Canada (RSC)’s newest Fellows.

Dr. Amanda Vincent

The fellowship of the RSC comprises over 2000 Canadian scholars, artists, and scientists, peer-elected as the best in their field. These are distinguished men and women who have made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life.

Dr. Vincent has dedicated her career to ocean conservation, anchored in her specialty of seahorses. She was the first biologist to study seahorses underwater, uncovering their extensive global trade and establishing projects for their conservation around the world. In 1996, Dr. Vincent co-founded and still directs Project Seahorse, an international team committed to conservation and sustainable use of the world’s coastal marine ecosystems. Project Seahorse undertakes biological and social research, empowers local communities, establishes marine protected areas, manages small-scale fisheries, restructures international trade, promotes integrated policy, and advances environmental understanding.

Dr. Vincent has led on marine conservation initiatives all over the world, from community-based local projects to global policy ventures. Project Seahorse is notable for linking research and management in tight feedback, actively applying new knowledge promptly. Her team has catalysed creation of 35 new marine reserves, where no fishing is allowed, and promoted new fisheries and trade regulations. In 2002, she was instrumental in persuading the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to embark on regulating exports in marine fishes, with milestone legislation to limit global seahorse exports to sustainable levels and legally sourcing. This work has led the way for the addition of other marine fishes to CITES, creating policies to control fish exports all over the world.

“I’m truly delighted to be recognized as one of Canada’s notable scientists – a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. It’s a wonderful seal of approval for my team’s work in ocean conservation, using seahorses to find solutions that address threats to marine life. Such recognition validates our approach of generating and applying knowledge in quick succession, always working actively to improve global support for ocean species and spaces.”

Dr. Vincent recently became the first marine conservationist to win the world’s top award in animal conservation, the Indianapolis Prize, for her trailblazing work to protect seahorses and other marine life. She is Chair of the IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Committee and Chair of the SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group. In these capacities, she is involved in diverse support for colleagues working on marine species and spaces around the world.

Dr. Vincent and her Project Seahorse team are now focused on bringing an end to bottom trawling, the single biggest threat to seahorses. Bottom trawling is a highly destructive form of fishing where nets are dragged across the ocean floor, removing everything in their paths and damaging vital habitats in the process.

UBC’s announcement
RSC announcement

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Swimming with the pod

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Popular fish species disappear from Turkey’s Marmara and Black Seas

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Impact of climate change on tropical fisheries would create ripples across the world

Tropical oceans and fisheries are threatened by climate change, generating impacts that will affect the sustainable development of both local economies and communities, and regions outside the tropics through ‘telecoupling’ of human-natural systems, such as seafood trade and distant-water fishing, says a scientific review from UBC and international researchers.

Seafood is the most highly traded food commodity globally, with tropical zone marine fisheries contributing more than 50 per cent of the global fish catch, an average of $USD 96 billion annually. Available scientific evidence consistently shows that tropical marine habitats, fish stocks and fisheries are most vulnerable to oceanic changes associated with climate change. However, the scientific review highlights that telecoupling, or linkages between distant human-natural systems, could generate cascades of climate change impacts from the tropics that propagate to other ‘extra-‘ tropical natural systems and human communities globally.

“Telecoupling interactions between two or more linked areas over distance between tropical fisheries and elsewhere include distant-water fishing, the international seafood supply chain, transboundary fisheries resources and their governance would allow benefits derived from tropical fisheries to transfer to the people in the extratropical regions,” said Vicky Lam, lead author and research associate in the UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “Although these linkages could enable the flow of benefits, including food, livelihoods and government revenue, from tropical fisheries to extratropical locations, their dependence on tropical fisheries also exposes them to the negative consequences of climate change in tropical regions. The effects of climate change on tropical fisheries also affect the profitability and employment opportunities of fish-processing industries in extratropical regions.”

Telecoupling linkages between tropical marine fisheries and extratropical regions. ©Lam et al, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment

“Pacific Island countries and territories, for example, are expected to see a redistribution of skipjack and yellowfin tuna – their two most exported fish species – that could see decreased catches of between 10 and 40 per cent by 2050 in many countries such as Palau and the Solomon Islands, while catches are expected to increase by 15 to 20 per cent in Kiribati and the Cook Islands. This will have a tremendous effect on the economies of these small island developing states,” said Rashid Sumaila, co-author and professor at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. “There are similar projections in African nations, where climate-related changes are expected to decrease the value of landed catch by approximately 20 per cent by 2050, as well as reduce fisheries-related jobs by 50 per cent.”

To reduce the effect of climate change on the benefits derived from tropical fisheries, both locally and in extra-tropical regions, the root causes of climate-driven problems in tropical fisheries need to be recognized and rectified. Effective and practical adaptation and mitigation solutions with stakeholder commitment and involvement, as well as supporting policies, are therefore necessary in the tropics.

Economic telecoupling of tropical fisheries. ©Lam et al, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment

“We already see that there are close linkages between the tropical regions and the extra-tropical nations through trade and distant-water fishing” said William Cheung, co-author and professor at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “Solving climate change impacts in the tropics will benefit the whole world; this provides an additional argument for non-tropical countries to support climate mitigation and adaptation in tropical countries.”

The article “Climate change, tropical fisheries and prospects for sustainable development” appeared in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

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Treating fish as a public health asset can strengthen food security in lower-income countries

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Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

Octopus at a fish market in Indonesia.
© Deng Palomares/Sea Around Us

Fish market favourites such as orange roughy, common octopus and pink conch are among the species of fish and invertebrates in rapid decline around the world, according to new research.

In the first study of its kind, researchers at UBC, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, and the University of Western Australia assessed the biomass—the weight of a given population in the water—of more than 1,300 fish and invertebrate populations. They discovered global declines, some severe, of many popularly consumed species.

Of the populations analyzed, 82 per cent were found to be below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates exceeding what can be regrown. Of these, 87 populations were found to be in the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches. This also means that fishers are catching less and less fish and invertebrates over time, even if they fish longer and harder.

“This is the first-ever global study of long-term trends in the population biomass of exploited marine fish and invertebrates for all coastal areas on the planet,” said Maria “Deng” Palomares, lead author of the study and manager of the Sea Around Us initiative in UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “When we looked at how the populations of major species have been doing in the past 60 years, we discovered that, at present, most of their biomasses are well below the level that can produce optimal catches.”

To reach their findings, the researchers applied computer-intensive stock assessment methods known as CMSY and BSMY to the comprehensive catch data by marine ecosystem reconstructed by the Sea Around Us for the 1950-2014 period.

The greatest declines in stocks were found in the southern temperate and polar Indian Ocean and the southern polar Atlantic Ocean, where populations shrunk by well over 50 per cent since 1950.

While much of globe showed declining trends in fish and invertebrates, the analysis found a few exceptions. One of these was the Northern Pacific Ocean where population biomass increased by 800 per cent in its polar and subpolar zones, and by about 150 per cent in its temperate zone.

Despite these pockets of improvement, the overall picture remains cause for concern, according to co-author Daniel Pauly, principal investigator at Sea Around Us.

“Despite the exceptions, our findings support previous suggestions of systematic and widespread overfishing of the coastal and continental shelf waters in much of the world over the last 60-plus years,” said Pauly. “Thus, pathways for improvements in effective fisheries management are needed, and such measures should be driven not only by clearly set total allowable annual catch limits, but also by well-enforced and sizeable no-take marine protected areas to allow stocks to rebuild.”

“Fishery biomass trends of exploited fish populations in marine ecoregions, climatic zones and ocean basins” was published in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

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COVID-19 and BREXIT can help with the recovery of UK fish stocks

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IOF joins the Nippon Foundation’s Ocean Nexus Center

The Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia is excited to announce a research partnership with The Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center, a new interdisciplinary research group that studies changes, responses and solutions to societal issues that emerge in relationship with the oceans.

To date, researchers from 20 other universities from around the world, in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Malaysia, and more, have already signed on to new interdisciplinary projects with Ocean Nexus. Project topics will include ocean acidification adaptation, sustainable development of oceans, ocean sovereignty for island nations, and gender in ocean governance.

“This is an evolution of our longstanding relationship with the Nippon Foundation, and we are proud to be part of this research partnership,” said Dr. Evgeny Pakhomov, professor and Director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “Ocean Nexus research at IOF will focus on marine pollution and ocean acidification, and on social and economic measures related to the ‘Blue Economy’.”

Researchers already know that environmental changes, such as pollution and ocean acidification, can cause health and economic impacts on communities. But scientists and decision-makers still do not have all of the information to implement solutions that take into account those most in need. The ‘Blue Economy’ or sustainable ocean economy, which seeks to harness rising interest in economic expansion in ocean sectors to ensure social equity and benefits come to those who need them most, and who live in coastal areas being developed.

Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor

“The Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries is a world leader in ocean science, and with Ocean Nexus we will be helping take the lead on new research themes for policies like the Blue Economy, which will shape our future oceans,” said Dr. Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor, a Research Associate at the IOF and Deputy Director of Ocean Nexus at UBC. “The oceans have the capacity to provide so much more for coastal communities and we want to pinpoint what the real issues are and how we can best help.”

“Ocean Nexus exists to bridge the gap between decision makers, policy makers and the communities most affected and dependent on the oceans,” said Yoshitaka Ota, the Center’s director and a research assistant professor in UW School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. “This is a chance to do something bold and really push the boundaries of understanding our relationship with oceans, and that’s what I’m excited to do.”

Based on the philosophy of passing on sustainable oceans to future generations, The Nippon Foundation of Tokyo has been working for over three decades with governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and research institutions to foster 1,430 ocean professionals from 150 countries.

“The sustenance of humanity depends on our mother ocean,” said Yohei Sasakawa, chairman of The Nippon Foundation. “I am excited that the next generation of thought leaders will be emerging from this center to share their research findings to guide the world toward ocean sustainability.”

The central Ocean Nexus Center will be housed in University of Washington’s EarthLab, an institute established in 2015 to connect UW research with community partners to discover equitable solutions to our most complex environmental challenges.

For more information, contact Dr. Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor, a.cisneros [at] fisheries-2023.sites.olt.ubc.ca

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Bowhead whales feed year-round in Cumberland Sound, Nunavut

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Recovery of sea otter populations yields more benefits than costs

New model puts dollar value on ecological transformations driven by otters

Photo: ©James Thompson


Since their reintroduction to the Pacific coast in the 1970s, the sea otters’ rapid recovery and voracious appetite for tasty shellfish such as urchins, clams and crabs has brought them into conflict with coastal communities and fishers, who rely on the same valuable fisheries for food and income.

But the long-term benefits of sea otter recovery – such as healthier kelp forests, higher fish catches, carbon storage and tourism – could be worth as much as $53 million per year, according to new UBC research. If well-managed, these economic benefits could offset commercial losses to shellfish fisheries of $7 million per year.

The study, published today in Science, is the first regional economic analysis of the costs and benefits of sea otter recovery along the west coast of Vancouver Island. Critically, it offers a new modeling framework to evaluate the significant long-term ecological changes driven by a top predator like the sea otter.

“Our work offers a glimpse into a future where otter populations have recovered to an estimated 5000 animals, and have fully reoccupied their historic range,” said lead author Edward Gregr, an adjunct professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. “We found that coastal ecosystems with otters present are almost 40 per cent more productive. In the long run, that equates to higher fish catches worth $9 million, carbon storage worth $2 million and tourism opportunities worth $42 million per year.”

That’s because the hungry otters drive huge transformations to their local ecosystems: by keeping urchin populations in check, they allow kelp forests to recover. Healthy kelp forests, in turn, sequester carbon and support abundant marine life, from salmon and lingcod to seals and whales.

For the analysis, researchers integrated local ecological field studies with available economic data and a recent tourism study, and accounted for uncertainties in future values and potential interactions among the species in the coastal ecosystem.

“It’s clear that humanity must reverse the decline in biodiversity if we want to achieve a sustainable future,” said co-author Kai Chan, a professor at IRES and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at UBC. “This study demonstrates that restoring key species to ecosystems can also have great benefits for people, and could serve as a useful framework for evaluating top predator recovery elsewhere.”

Photo ©James Thompson

But, the researchers warn, the costs and benefits of such large ecosystem reorganizations are often not equally distributed. In British Columbia, future management decisions must consider the implications for local Indigenous communities and fishers, who are experiencing the losses from shellfish fisheries more acutely.

For example, while commercial fishers are likely to adapt to fewer crabs in shallow waters by fishing in deeper waters, Indigenous or recreational harvesters with more restricted access may not be able to.

“Other costs and benefits – like food security, culture and tradition – are also considerable, but they are more difficult to value in dollars,” said Gregr. “Going forward, we want to scale the model down and incorporate such impacts at the local level.”

The researchers hope that quantifying the impacts of ecological transformations more broadly will help mitigate conflicts, promote public acceptance of ecosystem change and help identify opportunities for local communities.

“Sea otters co-existed with and were managed by the Indigenous Peoples of this region for millennia before they were hunted to near extinction by the maritime fur trade,” said Gregr. “Their recovery is a golden opportunity for the Government of Canada to reconcile coastal fisheries management with local communities and regional stakeholders to ensure strong, healthy coastal communities and thriving otter populations.”

“Cascading social-ecological costs and benefits triggered by a recovering keystone predator” was published in Science.

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