Belize Fisheries Project Partners
Project Partner Organizations
Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI) is a Mexican non-profit organization that works closely with small-scale fishing communities in the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of California, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. COBI joins the Belize Shared Vision to support activities with stakeholders, share our extensive scientific and local knowledge with project partners and document the role of women and youth in Mesoamerican Reef fisheries in the context of FAO´s small-scale fishery guidelines.
- Meet the COBI Team
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Stuart Fulton has a Masters in Oceanography from Southampton University, UK, and is currently the Director of Change at Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI) in Mexico where he coordinates work with small-scale fishers and fishing organizations in the Pacific, Gulf of California, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. He has lived and worked in the Mesoamerican Reef since 2008, working closely with fishers in Mexico to create the first network of fish refuges in the Mexican Caribbean. Stuart was part of the MAR Leadership 2016 cohort and has published research on citizen science in fisheries, fish spawning aggregations and community marine reserves.
The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) fosters innovative, just, and practical law and policy solutions to challenging environmental issues, through nonpartisan research, publications, and outreach. ELI's Ocean Program works to identify and promote better tools, management approaches, and governance systems for water resources and ocean management domestically and internationally. We support ocean management systems that are based on local priorities, inclusive and effective processes, and best available information to reverse degradation from land-based activities, ensure effective management of industrialized oceans, and foster sustainable fisheries.
- Meet the ELI Team
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[...]
Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative (HRI) is a globally unique international collaborative program of over 70 coral reef-focused research, management and conservation organizations dedicated to safeguarding the Mesoamerican Reef in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. For over 15 years, HRI has provided training in reef monitoring and data entry to 300 local field biologists who now implement science-based management and restoration interventions. HRI monitors the entire Mesoamerican Reef and produces popular reef health Report Cards that include specific management recommendations; followed by periodic evaluations of the extent of their implementation by each country (Eco-Audits). HRI also leads Bleach and Disease Watch surveys and developed a herbivory restoration through king crab mariculture program, among others. It aims to improve the health of the Mesoamerican reef, the livelihoods of those that depend on it, and the global benefits the reef provides, through improved science-based, collaborative and adaptive management.
- Meet the HRI Team
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Melanie McField is the founder and Director of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative (HRI), a multi-institutional effort of over 70 partner organizations that tracks the health of the Mesoamerica reef ecosystem and evaluates progress implementing management strategies aimed at ensuring its long-term integrity. Melanie is an innovative marine scientist with 30 years of experience in the development of ecosystem health indicators, the application of conservation science to management, and a proven track record of achieving conservation results while cultivating professional partnerships, collaborations, technical capacity building, mentoring, and development of public awareness and communications products.
MRAG Americas is a private consulting and auditing company focused on activities that support the conservation of marine and freshwater ecosystems through responsible, rational and sustainable use of fish and other aquatic resources. Our work is spread across four Client Service Divisions: the Fisheries Technical Division; the Certification Division; the Sustainable Seafood Initiatives and Auditing Division; and the Fisheries Monitoring Division. MRAG Americas is accredited to assess conformance with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) and Fairness Integrity Safety Health (FISH) standards. We also undertake Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs), and other activities to assist fisheries on their path towards full certification. MRAG Americas has conducted sustainability analyses of queen conch and spiny lobster fisheries in the Caribbean region over the past 12 years.
- Meet the MRAG Team
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Carolina Vargas has 12 years of experience in sustainability consulting and auditing with a focus on social accountability. She has supported supply chain actors in the Americas, where she has performed +500 audits. One of her main focuses is the assessment of social compliance risks across the supply chain, where communication between stakeholders is essential. Her latest projects include sustainability and regulatory assessment focusing on ecological and social risks-International Finance Corporation (IFC) /January 2022; Lead auditor for Pilot certification under The FISH Standard for Crew / March 2022; and Social Risk Pre-Assessment based on Social Responsibility Assessment Tool / September 2022.
Dr. Graeme Parkes is Vice President: Project Management at MRAG Americas, based in St Petersburg, Florida. He is a fisheries management specialist with thirty five years of professional experience, with specializations including sustainable certification, fisheries evaluation, assessment and management, resource assessment, and fishing capacity management. Graeme has a Masters in Oceanography from Southampton University and a Ph.D. in fisheries science from Imperial College, London. He was a fisheries expert on UK delegation to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) for 20 years and is a past member of the EU Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF).
[Monica Valle]
The Sea Around Us is a research initiative at the University of British Columbia. The program assesses the impact of fisheries on the marine ecosystems of the world and offers mitigating solutions to a range of stakeholders.
The Sea Around Us was initiated in collaboration with The Pew Charitable Trusts in 1999, and in 2014, the Sea Around Us also began a collaboration with The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to provide African and Asian countries with more accurate and comprehensive fisheries data. At present, it is funded by a number of charitable organizations (see our Partners page for more information).
We provide data and analyses through Tools and Data, peer-reviewed journal articles, and a News section. We regularly update our products at the scale of countries’ Exclusive Economic Zones, Large Marine Ecosystems, the High Seas and other spatial scales, and as global maps and summaries.
We emphasize catch time series starting in 1950 to the near present, and related series (e.g., landed value and catch by flag state, fishing sector, fishing gear and catch type), and fisheries-related information on every maritime country (e.g., government subsidies, marine biodiversity).
The information and data presented on the Sea Around Us website is freely available to any user.
- Meet the Sea Around Us Team
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Dr. Daniel Pauly is a world-renowned fisheries scientist. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative, a large research project devoted to identifying and quantifying global fisheries trends. He is also a Killam professor at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. The concepts, methods and software which Daniel Pauly led and co-developed are documented in over 1000 scientific and general-interest publications, and are used throughout the world. This applies to the Ecopath modeling approach and software and FishBase, the online encyclopedia of more than 30,000 fish species, which was recently complemented by SeaLifeBase. He is a recipient of numerous awards, including the International Cosmos Prize, the Volvo Environment Prize, the Nierenberg Prize and the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology. He was named France’s Chevalier de la Legion D’Honneur in 2017.
Maria L.D. Palomares (Deng) is the senior scientist and manager of the Sea Around Us research unit at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries of the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). She worked with the FishBase global information system on fishes since its inception in 1989, and is the current FishBase Consortium Coordinator. In 2006, she co-created the SeaLifeBase global information system on invertebrates and vertebrates other than fish with Daniel Pauly and leads SeaLifeBase at the Quantitative Aquatics where she is also the Science Director. Deng applied the stock assessment model developed by Rainer Froese and colleagues to over 1400 exploited marine species worldwide using the Sea Around Us catch data, resilience and population parameters from FishBase and SeaLifeBase. She applies this unique mix of expertise to the Belize Fisheries Project to provide assessments of the evolution of these species since their fisheries started in the 1950s (or earlier) and estimate what is left of their biomass in Belizean waters.
Sydney Baxter is a Research Assistant for the Sea Around Us research unit at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries of the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). She holds an MSc in Marine Biology and has a passion for all things ocean-related. Sydney brings expertise to the project by contributing her skills in fish and invertebrate stock assessments using the CMSY++ statistical method. Her role focuses on reviewing literature, reconstructing fisheries catches in Belizean waters and analyzing current exploitation levels of key species. Learn more about Sydney and her team members here.
Valentina Ruiz-Leotaud is a Venezuelan-born multimedia journalist. She has +15 years of work experience covering local and international news for different media outlets and platforms. She holds a Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of British Columbia and was a fellow of the International Reporting Program. She joined the Sea Around Us in 2016 and has, since then, been in charge of the media outreach aimed at bringing public attention to the project’s research. She’s also proficient in all things social media.
Additional Project Partners
Additional Project Partners
- Meet Additional Partners
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[Alex Tewfik]
[Janelle Chanona?]
[Melonie McField]
Suzanne Iudicello, JD, Project Manager, brings 50 years of experience in natural resource and environment policy, project management, and communications to the team. She has worked for newspapers, magazines, state and national agencies, lawmakers, fishing organizations, and NGOs. Recent experience includes evaluating the fishery laws of Ecuador, and supporting the NOAA Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection to conduct analyses, develop regulations and compliance tools for foreign nations and regional fishery management organizations. Iudicello contributed to development of the Fisheries Governance Tool, a framework of indicators for fisheries performance, and completed five country assessments using the tool. She has prepared analyses and environmental assessments on IUU fishing, bycatch, and treaty compliance and has authored numerous journal articles and books.
[Funding for this project is provided by...]
Established in 1991, The Summit Foundation, a private family foundation, is committed to a world where people can thrive and nature can flourish – a world in which one is not sacrificed for the other. For more than 20 years, The Summit Foundation’s Mesoamerican Reef Program has been supporting efforts to restore and protect a healthy and resilient Mesoamerican Reef ecosystem capable of contributing to human well-being.