WUN Research Mobility awardees to address global conference on inland fisheries
Two PhD students will be presenting their research at the United Nations FAO Inland Fisheries conference in Rome this week.
Alison (from Social Sciences) and Fiona Simmance (from Biological Sciences) have been funded by Southampton WUN Research Mobility Programme award in late 2014 to visit the University of Bergen and work under the supervision of Prof. Jeppe Kolding. Their projects were the result of a collaboration started between Prof. Guy Poppy and Prof. Kolding at the joint Public Health and Responding to Climate Change conference hosted in Cape Town in March 2014.
Alison and Fiona are investigating the role of inland fisheries for food and nutritional security in Malawi.
This global conference is a cross-sectoral call to to raise the profile of inland fisheries and better incorporate them in agricultural, land use, and water resource planning through development of improved assessment frameworks and value estimation.
Fiona will be presenting the first phase of her research on the role of water dynamics in governing inland capture fisheries productivity, which will combine new model approaches with remote sensing monitoring. Alison will be presenting the first phase of her research on the role of women in inland fisheries, particularly aquaculture, using a photo-voice methodology approach. Their video presentation is available here.
Their research hopes to contribute a deeper understanding of the value of inland fisheries to food security, which has often had little attention in comparison to marine fisheries.
Fiona says: “Alison and I are extremely pleased to be presenting at the FAO conference, which will be drawing attention to an area which is often overlooked. We hope that in a small way our research will be able to contribute to a deeper understanding of, and shed light on, the importance of inland fisheries as a vital source of food and nutrition to millions of people.”
Alison adds: “It is great as twin sisters that we can share this experience together and to complement each other's research. It’s really important in deepening our understanding of the supply of fish in Malawi and its important contribution towards improving food and nutritional security across the country.”
More information about the WUN Research Mobility Programme is available here.