Speaker: Dr. Anna Schuhbauer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Fisheries Economics Research Unit
Small-scale fisheries (SSF) sustain the livelihoods, cultures, and food security of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. While recognition of the need for comprehensive, rather than reductionist, approaches to understanding SSF is growing, most assessments still focus too narrowly on income, catch, or employment—overlooking the broader social, cultural, and subjective dimensions of human well-being.
In the spirit of “Reimagining the Future of Oceans and Fisheries,” this talk presents a human well-being lens as a more holistic framework for assessing SSF sustainability. Drawing on case studies from Peru and The Bahamas, Dr. Schuhbauer will discuss how such frameworks can be adapted to different contexts, the challenges and trade-offs that emerge in practice, and how to navigate data limitations and interdisciplinary collaboration when moving from theory to practice.
Bio
Anna has been part of the Fisheries Economic Research unit since 2012. Her expertise in the field of fisheries extends from transdisciplinary research approaches, to developing high level theoretical research frameworks in the fields of ecology, socio-economics and social-ecology. During the almost 15 years of her career, she has mainly focussed on small-scale fisheries related work, in both academic, NGO and government environments, at the local and at the global scale.
Anna holds a master’s degree in aquatic ecology from the University of Bremen, Germany and a PhD in fisheries economics from UBC. She has worked and lived in Peru, the Falkland Island, the Galapagos Islands and Mexico before moving to the Sunshine Coast in BC, Canada. In April this year Anna launched her own consultancy (annaschuhbauer.com) currently working on a variety of projects such as socio-economic assessments, up-dating global fisheries subsidies and impacts of bottom trawling on food security.