Fisheries Conflict Research Consortium

Fisheries conflict research consortium members

Members

 

Godfred Ameyaw Asiedu

Research Scientist - Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) - Food Research Institute (FRI), Ghana

Website

Godfred's research investigates fish resource use conflicts, governance and management conflicts, conflicts within fisheries, conflicts between fisheries and oil and gas, and effectiveness of management mechanisms in Ghana. He is also interested in Applied Political Economy Analysis for fisheries and fish food research.
Keywords: Small-scale fisheries, science, governance, management, law, policy, institutions

 

Dyhia Belhabib

Principle Investigator - Ecotrust Canada

Website

Dyhia is a two times TEDxer. Her research focuses on the human and economic dimensions of fisheries and the geography of environmental crimes. She also works on First Nations fisheries.
Keywords:  Fisheries, environmental crimes, economy, food security, indigenous fisheries, sustainable development

Johan Bergenas

Independent Researcher - Vulcan Inc.

Website

Johan's work focuses on environmental and national security issues, as well as the role technology and innovation plays to make the world a better place.
Keywords: Geopolitics; maritime security; transnational organized crime; trafficking; illicit markets; environmental security; technology; public-private sector partnerships​

Laura Burroughs

Program Specialist - Knowledge Management and Gender ​- Secure Fisheries, One Earth Future

Website & Twitter

Laura focuses on how inclusive fisheries management can promote community resilience and reduce fisheries conflict, primarily in the Somali region.
Keywords: Community resilience, gender and fisheries, food security, Somalia

Anna Butchart

International Policy Advisor - UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)

Website

Anna has been a member of the British Civil and Diplomatic Service since 2008. In 2020 she graduated from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa with a PhD in Political Science/Future Studies. Her PhD research explored the role of fisheries management in conflict futures in West and Central Africa. It was her work in maritime security in West and Central Africa with the FCO in 2011-2014 that sparked her research interest in this important topic.
Keywords: fisheries, resource curse, scarcity, maritime security, futurism, future studies, fisheries conflict, blue economy, food security, West Africa, food sovereignty, strategy, IUU fishing, globalization, neocolonialism​

Scott Cheney-Peters

International Policy Advisor; Public-Private Partnerships - U.S. National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office

Website

Scott is interested in understanding IUU fishing's potential as a cause of conflict and the confluence of IUU fishing and other security challenges. His primary geographic focus is the Indo-Pacific region. He works to ensure analysts and others have the access to information they need on these and other maritime security challenges, with a particular focus on public-private partnerships.
Keywords: IUU Fishing, confluence, conflict, Indo-Pacific, Public-Private Partnerships

Colleen Devlin

Researcher - Secure Fisheries, One Earth Future

Website & Twitter

Colleen leads Secure Fisheries' Fisheries Conflict Database, which aims to better understand the drivers of conflict in East African fisheries.
Keywords: fisheries conflicts, environmental governance, Africa

Sarah Glaser

Director - Secure Fisheries, One Earth Future

Website & Twitter

Sarah's research investigates the causes and consequences of fisheries conflict in East Africa. She also focuses on fisheries conflict and IUU fishing in Somalia.
Keywords: Somalia, Africa, food security, IUU fishing

Michael Harte

Professor - Oregon State University

Website

Michael explores the benefits of cooperation and costs of non-cooperation over fisheries shared between countries. He is particularly interested in understanding the causes of fish wars to avoid the unfortunate economic, social and ecological consequences of conflicts over fishery resources.
Keywords: Game theory, fisheries cooperation, fish wars, regional ocean governance, contested places & illicit spaces.

Cullen Hendrix

Director - Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy Josef Korbel School of International Studies University of Denver

Website & Twitter

Cullen focuses on conflict and cooperation around renewable and non-renewable natural resources, as well as causes and consequences of fisheries-led development in East Africa.
Keywords: conflict, cooperation, political economy, food security

Emi Koch

Fellow / Director - Fulbright-National Geographic / Beyond the Surface International

Website

Emi uses community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches such as photovoice to understand the impacts of low fish availability on small-scale fishing (SSF) communities' social-ecological wellbeing and sustainable futures. Through Emi's nonprofit, she engages youth from SSF villages to explore their ancient oceans & ancestral villages as resilient researchers and skilled communicators, using water sports, transmedia tools, CBPR approaches, and impact storytelling techniques to illustrate their SSF's importance for ocean-human health.
Keywords: Social wellbeing, small-scale fisheries, artisanal fisheries, youth engagement, marine biodiviersity and conservation, household, participatory media, Peru, India

Joshua Lambert

Postdoctoral Fellow - University of Central Florida

Website & Twitter

Joshua is currently a postdoctoral fellow building NLP systems to synthesize work on common-pool resource management. He helped develop the fisheries conflict database with Secure Fisheries and is also collaborating on a project to better understand regional fisheries management organization’s impact on conflict.
Keywords: Political stability, environmental security, fisheries conflict, common pool resource management, NLP/ML methods

Philippe Le Billon

Professor - University of British Columbia​

Website & Twitter

Le Billon works on 'environment, development and security' nexus, including fisheries issues related to conflicts and crimes at multiple scales.
Keywords: fisheries conflicts, territorial disputes, crimes at sea, geopolitics

Robert Mazurek

Executive Director - California Marine Sanctuary Foundation

Website

Robert is the Executive Director of the California marine Sanctuary Foundation and a maritime expert for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's Global Maritime Crime Programme. He focuses his efforts on supporting MPAs and combatting illegal fishing through regional and international coordination and engagement. He has a wide range of experience working across both national and international governments as well as with private entities to bridge the gaps between science, policy, and competing public and private interests.
Keywords: Fisheries, marine reserves, MPAs, Africa, Western Indian Ocean, IUU fishing, marine resource governance, interagency coordination

Elizabeth Mendenhall

Assistant Professor - University of Rhode Island

Website & Twitter

Elizabeth's research focuses on the progressive development of the ocean governance regime, specifically the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). She is especially interested in the drivers and mechanisms of changes in ocean governance, and the way regimes can be designed to account for scientific and technological change.
Keywords: UNCLOS; law of the sea; global governance; international law; climate change

Sara McLaughlin Mitchell

F. Wendell Miller Professor - University of Iowa

Website & Twitter

Sara studies water conflicts between countries in the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) project. This includes maritime conflicts (270 total from 1900-2010) and cross-border river conflicts (143 total from 1900-2001). Her work studies how issue salience, militarized history, and peaceful conflict management strategies influence the settlement of water conflicts and how international courts and IGOs help countries settle water conflicts.
Keywords: Maritime conflicts, river conflicts, institutions, treaties, IGOs, militarized disputes, wars, UNCLOS

Elizabeth Nyman

Assistant Professor - Texas A&M University at Galveston

Website & Twitter

Elizabeth is interested in international maritime law and conflict, specifically in understanding how states work to protect and/or utilize marine resources.
Keywords: UNCLOS, international maritime law, international maritime conflict, polar studies​

John Parks

Senior Associate - Tetra Tech

Website

John works with a wide range of governmental and non-governmental partners to design and implement marine resource management solutions that strengthen the environmental and civil security in communities around the world.  John’s research and work aims to reduce resource conflict and livelihood and food insecurity, including within remote, post-conflict/civil unrest, and other hostile settings. 
Keywords: IUU fishing, maritime security, conflict, small-scale fisheries

Robert S Pomeroy

Professor- University of Connecticut/ Connecticut Sea Grant

Website

Bob's work focuses on improved governance of small-scale fisheries
Keywords: Small-scale fisheries, governance, conflict, Southeast Asia

Ian Ralby

CEO - I.R. Consilium​

Website

Ian works at the intersection of law and security, helping to identify evolving and emerging areas of maritime crime, as well as effective law enforcement responses to them, and involves extensive engagement with governments, regional bodies and international organizations around the world.
Keywords: Maritime law and security; UNCLOS; law of the sea; international law; security; goverance; development; wealth blindness; blue economy; transnational organized crime; trafficking; oil and fuel theft; illicit hydrocarbons activity

Amanda Møller Rasmussen

Aarhus University​

Website

Amanda is a PhD Student from Aarhus University. Her project investigates current fishery development initiatives in the Horn of Africa, focusing on their effects on the local fishers, trade, and coastal villages in Djibouti and Somaliland.
Keywords:  Fishery development, Djibouti, Somaliland, piracy, IUU fishing

Paige Roberts

Senior Research Associate - Secure Fisheries, One Earth Future

Website

Paige's research focuses on effective local fisheries and coastal resource managment approaches and their ability to reduce fisheries conflict, primarily in the Somali region. She uses a geospatial approach to analyze the current state and extent of marine resource uses and the potential for competition and conflict over those resources.
Keywords: Fisheries, GIS, Africa, Somali region, IUU fishing, marine resource governance

Katherine Seto

Assistant Professor - University of California, Santa Cruz​

Website & Twitter

Katherine's research investigates the equity, sustainability, and governance of marine and coastal systems, and the reciprocal relationship they have with human wellbeing and conflict. Her research focuses on ecology and governance of marine systems, sustainable seafood systems, and issues of maritime security and globalization.
Keywords: Fisheries, food security, marine and coastal law and policy, political ecology, marine resource governance, conflict studies

David Soud

Head of Research and Analysis - I.R. Consilium​

Website

David's work focuses primarily on resource security, including hydrocarbons and fisheries; combating various forms of transnational organized crime; and helping states and other entities secure and develop maritime spaces. His work in fisheries has particularly emphasized those of Africa and Pacific Latin America, and explored the nexus of IUU fishing and other forms of organized criminal activity.
Keywords: IUU fishing; illicit hydrocarbons activity; oil and fuel theft; maritime security, governance and development; transnational organized crime; blue economy; conflict economies.

Rashid Sumaila

Professor - The University of British Columbia​

Website

Dr. Rashid Sumaila is Professor and Director, Fisheries Economics Research Unit & the OceanCanada Partnership at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, illegal fishing, climate change and oil spills. Sumaila has authored several journal articles, including in Science, Nature and the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. He is winner of the 2017 Volvo Environment Prize, the 2017 Benchley Oceans Award in Science, the 2016 UBC Killam Research Prize, and the 2013 American Fisheries Society Excellence in Public Outreach Award.
Keywords: Bioeconomics; marine ecosystem valuation; fisheries subsidies; illegal fishing, climate change; oil spills 

Rachel Tiller

Senior Research Scientist - SINTEF Ocean​

Website & Twitter

Dr. Tiller work focuses on marine and coastal interdisciplinary research at all levels of analysis, from local stakeholder perceptions to international management regimes. Her expertise is in institutions, regime interplay, governance, policy mitigation and stakeholder participation, stakeholder driven future scenario building and qualitative based/quantitative output methodologies.
Keywords: Arctic; global governance; climatic and non-climatic stressors; fisheries; stakeholders​

Ciera Villegas

Ph.D. Candidate / Internship and Mentorship Coordinator - Oregon State University / Emerging Leaders PDX, an initiative of The Contingent ​

Website & Twitter

Ciera's (she/her/hers) research focuses on contemporary (2010-2019) conflict and cooperation over fisheries resources as related to the Puerto Rican context. She is particularly interested in understanding the likelihood of regional conflicts in the context of drivers and actors, more specifically she is interested in women's roles in these dynamics. She is also a member of the SEA Lab.
Keywords: Fisheries conflict, fisheries cooperation, small-scale fisheries, Puerto Rico, gender, food security

James Watson

Assistant Professor - Oregon State University​

Website

James and his lab at Oregon State University -- The Socio-Environmental Analysis (SEA) Lab -- develop novel mathematical and computer science approaches to understanding social and ecological coupling. In particular, he is focused on developing new theoretical frameworks for understanding the emergence of illegal behaviors, and predicting the occurence of illegal activities at sea.
Keywords:  Fish, fisheries, IUU, big data, prediction, complex systems

Sally Yozell

Director Environmental Security Program  - The Stimson Center​

Website

Sally Yozell is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Environmental Security program at the Stimson Center. Yozell’s research examines the suite of environmental threats that have the potential to undermine national, regional, or global security. Her work focuses on ocean security, climate security, and wildlife protection. Yozell leads a team of experts who develop security strategies that combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, thwart illicit wildlife networks, and increase transparency and traceability throughout the seafood supply chain. She also devises innovative resiliency strategies to address climate and ocean risk, particularly in coastal cities. Since 2017, Yozell has served in an advisory role to the host governments for the annual global Our Ocean Conference. 
Keywords:  IUU fishing, wildlife crimes, seafood transparency, climate change

Dirk Zeller

Professor - University​ of Western Australia

Website

Dirk is Professor and Director of the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean at the University of Western Australia. He specializes in big-data research on fisheries associated with the Indo-Pacific region, as part of the international Sea Around Us partnership (University of British Columbia), and co-leads global Sea Around Us research. Dirk directs reconstructions of historical catch, fishing effort and other fisheries time series, and engages in research on illegal and unreported fishing, ocean resource sustainability and fisheries economics. Dirk has an extensive publications profile, and was awarded the 2017 Ocean Awards for Science, the 2012 UBC Innovative Dissemination of Research Award and the 2011 Ecological Society of America Sustainability Science Award.
Keywords:  Big-data in fisheries, historical data baselines, large- & small-scale fisheries, illegal & unreported fishing, food security, fish as food