Advancing marine conservation
Winning an individual award is an exciting yet awkward experience for me. Exciting because it’s lovely to be acknowledged for hard work, persistence and insights. Awkward because I am hugely conscious that the recognition directed at me should embrace the entire Project Seahorse team of wonderful people, along with a large number of other contributors. …
I am truly thrilled that more than 1400 conservation agencies and organizations have just adopted new policies that had their genesis with our Project Seahorse team. This huge alliance is really going to move us forward – on fisheries, bycatch, ecosystem restoration and on conserving seahorses and their relatives. It’s a bit tricky to explain …
In September, Tanvi (our great PhD student from Chennai) and I spent two weeks in India roaming around the fisheries landing areas of the southern Tamil Nadu coast, the part that faces Sri Lanka. It was enthralling and appalling, the sort of work I really enjoy, even when it sickens me. Our goal was to …
By Amanda Vincent I may have been shivering with cold, but my heart was leaping with excitement … I was face to face with the Patagonian seahorse, Hippocampus patagonicus, and it was magical. The species was only described in 2004 and is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. It is still only known …
In 2000, I was given one of the best awards in marine conservation, a Pew Fellowship. It came with generous funding, which we applied towards work on non-food fisheries and towards obtaining the first global export controls on marine fishes (for seahorses) under CITES. It also came with the most wonderful gift of a meeting each year. But not your ordinary meeting…
I was excited to be the opening keynote speaker at the Student Conference on Conservation Science in Bengaluru/Bangalore. Hundreds of aspiring conservationists from South Asia and a few from farther afield gather each year to share professional hopes and nurture ambitious dreams. … Read more
Today we had a chat with hope. We were at a dry and somewhat desolate landing beach up the coast from Tuticorin when along came a conservation hero. I didn’t see anything particularly meaningful at first. Pairs of people – man and woman, old and young, adult and child – grabbed meagre shelter from the …
By Amanda Vincent I’m not sure whether to be enthralled or appalled by the trawl fisheries of southern India. Probably both. I’ve spent the past week hanging about fishing communities of Tamil Nadu, guided by our wonderful Indian PhD student, Tanvi Vaidyanathan. It’s been a considerable education, even for somebody used to Asian fisheries. I’ve been …
My mind keeps dancing back to ten momentous days in September/October last year, when the world came together in Johannesburg, South Africa to figure out how best to look after trade in endangered species. So much got done and so much remains to be done. The conference in Johannesburg was really all about helping guide the 182 countries that are members of CITES to take active measures for conservation. Sarah Foster and I were part of the powerful IUCN delegation, providing the technical information that might influence countries’ decisions.… Read more
Having laws to conserve nature and knowing how to use them are two different things – if done well, seahorse conservation in the Philippines could pave the way for other species, writes Dr. Amanda Vincent on World Wildlife Day. By Amanda Vincent, Chair of the IUCN SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Stickleback Specialist Group and Director of …
