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The webinar has its origins in a session at the 5th International Marine Protected Area Congress, held in February 2023, with the same speakers and topics.
The session will discuss the need to integrate conservation, restoration, and management of freshwaters and transitional waters (e.g., estuaries and lagoons) with marine and coastal waters. The session will promote an ‘aquascape approach’ that recognizes connectivity and co-dependence of the species that live in or move between these different aquatic systems, and the ecological function that such biodiversity supports. Speakers will explore how the process of management and governance of marine, transitional, and freshwaters can be integrated, involving people and agencies across the continuum of the aquascape, with the objective of enhancing biodiversity and supporting sustainable use across the aquascape.
Speakers and Panelists:
Madeline BEATTIE is the Global Environment Facility project manager for the Blue Nature Alliance, a global partnership to advance the conservation of 18 million square kilometers of ocean area. Based at Conservation International in the USA, she is interested in exploring strategies that take a holistic approach to freshwater and marine conservation, applying successful methods from ocean conservation to rivers and other freshwater ecosystems.
Amanda VINCENT is Professor of marine conservation at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia, Canada. She is Chair of the IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Committee and Chair of the IUCN SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group. She is also Director of Project Seahorse (www.projectseahorse.org), a leading team in marine conservation. Amanda has spent much of her life in developing countries and is deeply interested in reconciling fisheries with conservation. In 2021 she was honored with the Indianapolis Prize, the World’s leading award for animal conservation.
Rebecca FLITCROFT is a Research Fish Biologist, with the US Forest Service and is co-Chair of the Freshwater Specialist Group of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas. She is interested in holistic approaches to watershed analysis and management. Her work is focused on statistical and physical representations of stream networks in analysis and monitoring that realistically describe stream complexity and connectivity for aquatic species along four primary lines of research: multiscale salmonid ecology; stream network analysis; climate change and salmonid life history; integrated watershed management.
Ian HARRISON is the Freshwater Specialist for Conservation International’s (CI) Moore Center for Science in the USA, where he is helping develop CI’s Freshwater Science Strategy as well as CI’s broader, institutional-wide Freshwater Initiative. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Synchronicity Earth, and Shoal, and is on the Grant Review Board of the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. He is an Adjunct Professor for the School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, where he is based.
Erin LOURY is a fisheries biologist and science communication specialist based in Santa Cruz, California, USA. Erin has worked on projects with the fisheries consulting company FISHBIO to establish freshwater community-managed Fish Conservation Zones (FCZs) in Laos and Myanmar, standardize fisheries research methods, and engage community participation in fisheries research and management in Southeast Asia. She also has extensive experience communicating scientific findings to broad audiences and has written multiple guidebooks related to FCZ establishment and management. She is currently consulting with the interdisciplinary Wonders of the Mekong project in Cambodia to expand project activities into Vietnam.
Monni BOHM is the Freshwater Conservation Coordinator at the Global Center for Species Survival at Indianapolis Zoo, USA, working with the Species Survival Commission to support the network’s freshwater conservation activities. She is the Chair of the IUCN SSC Butterfly & Moth Specialist Group and the IUCN SSC Terrestrial and Freshwater Invertebrate Red List Authority. Previously, Monni was based at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) where her research included work on freshwater species (especially invertebrates), terrestrial mammals, and biodiversity indicators. Monni also worked on ZSL’s Edge of Existence programme and some media projects (ZSL WildScience podcast).
Matthew GOLLOCK is the Aquatic Species and Policy Programme Lead at the Zoological Society of London, UK, and has over 20 years’ experience researching and conserving aquatic species. He is interested in migratory species – particularly elasmobranchs and anguillid eels – and the management and policy mechanisms required to conserve their unique life histories. He is the Chair of the Anguillid Eel Specialist Group.