Webinar: Ocean Optimism – Solutions to Save our Blue Planet
On Tuesday 10th November the next of the marine science webinar series was held online providing a welcome dose of ocean optimism as a panel of international experts discussed different solutions to save our blue planet.
Dr Asha de Vos (Oceanswell) was joined by the expert panel to discuss solutions to key threats to the ocean including climate change, illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing and plastic pollution.
A recording of the webinar is now available to watch here:
Moderator: Dr. Asha de Vos – Oceanswell
Dr. Asha de Vos is an internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan marine biologist, ocean educator and pioneer of long-term blue whale research within the Northern Indian Ocean. She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Oceans Institute of the University of Western Australia. She has degrees from the University of St. Andrews, University of Oxford and the University of Western Australia but escaped academia to establish her own Sri Lankan grown non-profit, Oceanswell – Sri Lanka’s first marine conservation research and education organization. Her work has been showcased internationally by the BBC, the New York Times, TED and National Geographic to name a few. Amongst her many accolades Asha was listed on the BBC 100 Women 2018 list of most inspiring and influential women from around the world and named Lanka Monthly Digest’s Sri Lankan of the Year also in 2018.
Dr. Jeffrey Maynard – SymbioSeas
Dr. Jeffrey Maynard is the Director of SymbioSeas, a non-profit based in coastal North Carolina in the US. Dr. Maynard assembles and then leads teams that support marine conservation and management. SymbioSeas teams use statistics, climate models, GIS, and ecological modeling to develop decision-support frameworks. Examples of work led by SymbioSeas teams include: climate projections of future green sea turtle population viability in Hawaii, forecasts of epizootic shell disease prevalence in New England and Canada, and maps of cumulative exposure to disturbances in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Dr. Maynard recently co-led a team supported by the United Nations and the Bertarelli Foundation (with others) to develop state-of-art climate model projections of future coral bleaching conditions. Dr. Maynard has authored 100+ peer-reviewed publications in the fields of climate science, coral reef ecology, and marine and reef conservation and management.
Nick Wise – OceanMind
Nick Wise is founder and CEO of OceanMind, a non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting the world’s fisheries. Using satellites and artificial intelligence, OceanMind empowers effective fisheries enforcement and enables more responsible seafood sourcing, increasing compliance and sustainability. Nick has been designing large scale, highly secure software solutions for over 20 years, using innovative techniques focused on market needs. Before joining the ranks of social entrepreneurship, Nick’s journey saw him starting an Internet security business, as CTO of a mature SME, and managing product development in a billion-dollar multinational. Nick now empowers people to solve global issues with technology.
Claire Collins – University of Exeter
Claire is a social scientist interested in how understanding of social dimensions can be better integrated into marine policy and management. Her PhD focuses on shark fisheries in Sri Lanka, looking at how value chains are structured and how fishers perceive regulations and management. Her work also looks at how social science approaches and techniques can be used to characterise and manage illegal fishing and is currently studying non-compliance of fishers with the MPA surrounding the Chagos Archipelago.
Nakul Saran – Minderoo Foundation
Nakul Saran is the Chief Operating Officer of Sea the Future, Minderoo Foundation’s global industry-led initiative to end plastic leakage to nature and accelerate the transition toward a circular plastics economy. At Sea the Future, Nakul leads a global team to design innovative market-based mechanisms that can enable plastics circularity and kick-start commercially viable recycling markets. Nakul’s work has largely focused on developing financing and governance solutions to restore the world’s fragile ecosystems. Prior to joining Minderoo, he served as an independent consultant for major public and social sector clients including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, and Friends of Ocean Action. A passionate lover of oceans, Nakul has served as Vice President, Fish Forever at Rare, where he led the global conservation organization’s efforts to revitalize oceans, scaling the program to span five countries and over 100 coastal communities, and was awarded the Mulago Foundation’s Rainer Arnhold Fellowship for his leadership.