Rashid Sumaila, Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia and Associated Faculty at the Sea Around Us, will be visiting Perth and offering a lecture on February 19, 2019.

In his public talk, titled How to achieve a sustainable blue economy, he will explore the different options our society has to successfully manage the ocean and ensure its long-term sustainability.

In Sumaila’s view, there are effective strategies to tackle global warming and climate change, to provide good subsidies to the fisheries sector, and to effectively manage the high seas.

He argues that the chance to manage our ocean successfully for people and nature depends strongly on our ability to tackle the issues that affect the conservation and fair sharing of benefits from our ocean in such a way that positive feedbacks are transmitted between the two. The alternative –he says- is for negative feedbacks from conservation to people, and vice versa, to the detriment of both people and nature.

The lecture in which Dr. Sumaila will elaborate on these points will be held at the Theatre Auditorium of the University Club of Western Australia from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. RSVP here.

Professor Rashid Sumaila is a globally recognized fisheries economist, with over 230 peer-reviewed publications, and over 60 books or book chapters. He has a Google Scholar h-index of 70 with over 20,000 citations. Rashid specializes in bioeconomics, marine ecosystem valuation and the analysis of global issues such as fisheries subsidies, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the economics of high and deep seas fisheries.

Professor Sumaila has experience working in fisheries and natural resource projects in Norway, Canada and the North Atlantic region, Namibia and the Southern African region, Ghana and the West African region and Hong Kong and the South China Sea.

He is currently UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow and a UWA Forrest Visiting Fellow.