Rebecca Borges

The Workshop ‘Tropical Fisheries in a Changing World’ took place at the Leibniz-Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Bremen (Germany), from February 7 - 9, 2017. The aim of the meeting was to bring together researches in the field of tropical fisheries and to promote a discussion on current changes and future challenges related to research and management of small-scale fisheries in the Tropics. We discussed methods assessing the pressing issues of today’s tropical fisheries and approaches for reconciling sustainable fishing with ecosystem protection. The workshop also provided a forum for scientists to exchange their knowledge from the different core areas of ZMT research in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There was also a very thorough discussion on balanced harvest, and how the results presented could further contribute to the discussion around the idea of balanced fisheries.

I had the opportunity to present recent changes and current challenges of the crab fisheries in North Brazil, with a focus on my current study site, the Bragantinian mangroves. After presenting these important aspects of my study site, I had the chance to discuss with some of the participants about the current issues surrounding the crab fisheries in Brazil, and how those could be taken into account in spatial management of the two protected areas in the study region.

Another direct result is a plan to further explore the data in our working group in order to answer the following questions: 1. How far/near are our nearshore artisanal fisheries that we have looked at from the situation of balanced harvest?; 2. Are differences in total catch/area between models explicable by the slope of the Balanced harvest graph?; and 3. Are there other inter model differences, which can explain differences in total catches? 

Having been organized by my working group of ZMT, the Workshop also gave us in the group the opportunity to learn about organizing an event, as well as having the experience to present for an audience that included, besides out colleagues at ZMT, senior researchers in the field of fisheries.