A new study by SPACES team members, published in the journal Society and Natural Resources explores the social and economic structure of East African artisanal fisheries, and the links between fisher and trader social characteristics and market returns.

The study explores how relative power in fish markets between sellers and buyers can provide important insights that speak to the debate over the links between fishing and poverty. The research design benefits from multiple methods (focus group discussions and surveys) and aims to analyse how socioeconomic attributes of fishers and traders (e.g., education,
dependency, boat ownership etc) can explain variation in prices. The motivation behind this is to elaborate how evidence on relative social and economic power in the marketplace can shed light on the underlying direction of causality for the fishing-poverty puzzle.

Interestingly, the study found that fishers who owned their own fishing gears […]

SPACES team members have published a new paper (Open Access – free to read) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA that explores the connections between a small Kenyan fishery and the wellbeing of five different stakeholder groups and the tradeoffs which result.

Caroline explains the scenarios (photo by Diego Galafassi)

Research team member Caroline Abunge at a meeting with a mixed group of fishers and traders introduces one of four future scenarios. These scenarios demonstrated tradeoffs by exploring […]

Parrotfishes are a beautiful, colourful and ubiquitous group of fishes that are present on coral reefs around the world. They’ve received a lot of attention due to their importance in both fisheries, and in how they can help to maintain coral reef health through preventing outbreaks of fleshy macroalgae, that can overgrow and out-compete corals. However, one role that parrotfish are particular important in playing on coral reefs has been somewhat overshadowed. A new study, published in Geology led by Prof Chris Perry, part of the SPACES team, has identified the pivotal role parrotfishes play to build and maintain coral reef islands.

Using survey and sedimentary data the study, coauthored by Paul Kench, Michael O’Leary, Kyle Morgan, and Fraser Januchowski-Hartley (who is also from the SPACES […]

Post by Romina Martin from the Stockholm Resilience Centre

For 6 days, an amazing group of people (SPACES project members and friends) met in Diani Beach to learn some modelling techniques and to develop models together that represent the main aspects from coastal ecosystems and their use. One particular challenge was to discuss not just one modelling paradigm but two. We started with a system dynamics view, identifying relevant dampening and reinforcing feedbacks that might drive the dynamic development of the systems under study. The alternative approach we discussed was the agent-based view describing more explicit human decisions and particular sequences of events happening. Another challenge was to introduce participants to little pieces of coding for model implementation. We worked with NetLogo to use an interface that […]

The ESPA-SPACES team is holding a modeler training workshop at the Leopard Beach Hotel in Diani, Kenya from 20th to 25th April, 2015. The workshop brings together researchers and students from the Kenyan Marine Fisheries Research Institute and Wildlife Conservation Society Coral Reef Conservation Project, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique), Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden), the University of Exeter (UK), and the University of British Colombia (Canada). Romina Martin from the Stockholm Resilience Centre is leading the training.

The training aims to train both the SPACES team, and collaborators from institutions in Kenya and Mozambique on the potential and practical limits of modelling to investigate the systems in which they are doing research. This involves considering how to frame the question and purpose of the model and conceptualizing how the […]