The Fisheye

In our last blog post, we looked at five ways that climate change threatens fish and the people that rely on them for their livelihoods. Since then, the IPCC released its Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, which paints an alarming picture for our ocean. The flipside is that it’s not too late to make systemic, meaningful change to limit greenhouse gas emissions and contain the negative impacts of climate change. In fact, given the gravity of the situation, systemic approaches are more needed than ever to tackle this challenge. This week we look at innovations and initiatives that mitigate and reduce climate impacts to oceans, fisheries, and coastal communities.

Sometimes, when solving problems in complex systems, designing simple solutions can work best. One year after we hosted a panel on blended finance and fisheries at SOCAP (the Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco), we will be returning to this conference with a refined perspective on blended finance, and share what we’ve learned first-hand in Peru, Chile and Belize for keeping blended finance simple.

In our mission to end overfishing, we focus on creating solutions that can benefit both the environment and the communities that depend on fisheries for food and trade. Increasingly, we find ourselves faced with the question: how can we design solutions that can endure the onslaught of climate change? And even more importantly, can we design in ways that can reduce the carbon footprint of fisheries, to help tackle both overfishing and the climate crisis? Fish and fisheries are already feeling the effects of climate change, and these effects will only increase. This week, we kick off a series of blogs that will explore these questions, with the first installment highlighting five ways climate change impacts fish and fisheries.

Earlier this year, Future of Fish undertook a research project on fisheries data modernization efforts across governments. From this work we’ve come up with a proposed definition for ‘government data modernization’ and we want to know what you think.

The Information Age is here, but fisheries that are able to effectively collect and use data continue to be a rarity around the world. This generates several problems, including flawed catch limits, a lack of reliable forecasting or enforcement, and the inability to meet demands for adaptive management and sustainable fisheries.

Julie has a background as an educator and problem solver, and she has spent her career empowering change through the development and growth of innovative programs. Her expertise is in operations, project management, program and partnership development, education and knowledge translation. She received her Masters in Education from Griffith University and has worked in private, public and not for profit sectors.