Evaluating Social and Environmental Impacts of Fisheries Improvement Projects in Coastal Community Fisheries

Evaluating Social and Environmental Impacts of Fisheries Improvement Projects in Coastal Community Fisheries Evaluating social and environmental impacts of fisheries improvement projects in coastal community fisheries Business commitments to sustainable seafood and fisheries policy changes have resulted in a proliferation of Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIPs) across the globe. FIPs were originally developed to drive fisheries improvements toward MSC certification, but the FIP model is now being adapted to address a wider array of objectives, including sustainable livelihoods, human rights, and seafood traceability and chain-of-custody certification to reduce IUU fishing and seafood fraud. FIP approaches have primarily been implemented in the developed world, where there is often sufficient capital in fisheries to pay for improvements. For the FIP approach to be scalable there is a need to develop cost-effective models that work in fisheries in the developing world, which support 90% of fishers livelihoods and produce half of the global catch. The CI-ASU Nereus Fellow in Sustainable Fisheries will conduct high-impact science to support sustainable management and conservation interventions in global fisheries. The fellowship will focus initially on developing a rigorous assessment protocol for fisheries improvement projects, synthesizing best available science to support this management and market innovation. This will include developing social and environmental indicators of fisheries status, and integrate these indicators into an assessment protocol to evaluate the performance of fisheries with respect to key human wellbeing and environmental sustainability parameters. The Fellow will be expected to coalesce knowledge and develop high-impact outputs, drawing from: (1) Best available science, drawing on relevant theory and empirical research related to fisheries science and social science on human wellbeing dimensions of natural resources; (2) Existing and emerging practice and approaches used by non-governmental organizations, fisheries industry, and other relevant organizations working on fisheries globally.