Following on from the launch of the new MSC scholarship programme earlier in 2012, the emphasis for this round of research projects was to support students and projects in Asia, South America or Africa.
A panel of four selected two projects which aim to study of some aspect of environmental improvement, performance or best practice in fisheries management.
Innovative research
Floor Bokkes an MSc student at Wageningen University in the Netherlands was awarded a scholarship for her project Analysis of the effectiveness of the Blue Swimming Crab Fisheries Improvement Project (BSC FIP) in Indonesia.
Following news of her successful scholarship award, Floor said "FIPs are quite recent initiatives and there has not been very much research on their effectiveness. It is important that knowledge about FIPs is made available, so the relatively young concept can keep improving and therefore fisheries worldwide can be increasingly sustainable".
The second award went to Jos Alberto Zepeda Domnguez, a PhD student at the Marine Interdisciplinary Research Centre (Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas - CICIMAR) in Mexico. Joss project is titled Management Structures for Successful fisheries and aims to identify key management structures which drive sustainability in Gulf of California fisheries.
Jos said, "The northwest coast of Mexico is one of the most important fishing areas in the northern hemisphere. It also contains one of the most unique marine ecosystems, the Gulf of California. Due to poverty, low levels of education and the lack of economic opportunities, people have been involved in the vicious cycle of overfishing. With new insights into socio-economic and environmental management, its possible to regain sustainability in fisheries."
The two research projects will be delivered over the next 12 months.
David Agnew, Standards Director at the MSC said "This is the second round of scholarships that the MSC have awarded this year. On this occasion we are delighted to be supporting further research in Asia and Central America. We look forward to publishing the research findings."
Sharing the science
The MSC have now made four scholarship awards during 2012. These include:
- Chris Poonian, a PhD Life Sciences student at the University of Nottingham, England who was awarded a scholarship for his project: Coastal fisheries management traditions of the Bedu of South Sinai and implications for modern?day conservation in Egypt.
- Giulia Gorelli, a student at Institut de Cincies del Mar Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona, Spain for her project: Effects of closing the fishery of the deep sea shrimp Aristeus atennatus during winter season in the canyon heads of the north western Mediterranean.
All research from the MSC scholarship programme will be made publicly available through the MSC Science Series, which launches early in 2013 on www.msc.org
