Workshop: Philippines aquarium fish trade

This weekend we had a 2-day workshop in Hornby to hone a new, 1-year research project: Emily Malsack and Becca Turley will be collaborating to understand and improve the sustainability of the trade in wild reef fish for aquaria, as part of their MRes. project at Lancaster. This project, co-supervised with Jo Murray from Cefas, Christina Hicks and Amy Collis from Lancaster, will use a mixed-methods approach to engage local fish harvesters and government bureaucrats in Batangas Municipality, southern Luzon. Emily and Becca are collaborating with the NGO, Community Centred Conservation (C3) to gather species lists, explore possible impacts of harvest, establish socio-economic baselines, document de facto harvest rules, and understand the perceptions of bureaucrats responsible for operationalising environmental policies -- to help improve the design, practicality and fairness of policies on-the-ground.

Dr. Jo Murray with PhD student, Amy Collis, and MRes students, Emily Malasack and Becca Turley, developing a conceptual diagram for the new project.

We finished the workshop by attending a chamber music performance by the Benedetti Elschenbroich Grynyuk Trio, including of Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013), Arlene Sierra's remarkable composition, inspired by a natural science discovery of the hard-wired memories of migrating monarch butterflies.