This webinar originally aired on 16 December 2015.
Healthy, functioning marine ecosystems are critical to the well-being of so called small island developing states (SIDS): these ecosystems contribute to local food security, foster a sense of community and cultural identity, and benefit national economies both directly through the extraction of natural resources and indirectly through tourism-based activities.
However, these states are disproportionately vulnerable to the increasing impacts of climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing and other shocks to the marine environment. This puts blue economies and the marine ecosystem services reliant on healthy oceans at risk. A key part of overcoming these issues and ensuring the resiliency of the ocean is strong, adaptive, science-based management. While SIDS tend to have limited resources and scientific capacity, international collaboration among fishery stakeholders is a viable and promising near-term opportunity for these states to develop active and comprehensive marine science programs.
During this webinar, Edward Hind, Jake Kritzer and Nicola Smith will present findings from their paper, Fostering effective international collaboration for marine science in small island states, which examines the barriers to effective collaborations among foreign and local scientists, institutions, and funders, and provides recommendations for leaping over them. Presenters will discuss best practices for international collaboration among these fisheries stakeholders as well as present real life case study examples demonstrating how these practices were implemented in the Bahamas and Cuba.
This webinar was co-sponsored by the EBM Tools Network.