Clockwise from top left: Matthew Ansell, MSc student;  James Hehre, Associate & Programme Manager – Marine Futures Lab; Dirk Zeller, Director Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean; Jessica Meeuwig, Director Marine Futures Lab;  Gabriel Vianna, Postdoctoral Fellow; Rachel White, Researcher; Hanna Jabour Christ, Associate & Communications and Data Manager – Marine Futures Lab; Lincoln Hood, Senior Researcher; Amy McAlpine MSc Student.

The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean is growing!

Clockwise from top left: Matthew Ansell, MSc student; James Hehre, Associate & Programme Manager – Marine Futures Lab; Dirk Zeller, Director Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean; Jessica Meeuwig, Director Marine Futures Lab; Gabriel Vianna, Postdoctoral Fellow; Rachel White, Researcher; Hanna Jabour Christ, Associate & Communications and Data Manager – Marine Futures Lab; Lincoln Hood, Senior Researcher; Amy McAlpine MSc Student.

Clockwise from top left: Matthew Ansell, MSc student; James Hehre, Associate & Programme Manager – Marine Futures Lab; Dirk Zeller, Director Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean; Jessica Meeuwig, Director Marine Futures Lab; Gabriel Vianna, Postdoctoral Fellow; Rachel White, Researcher; Hanna Jabour Christ, Associate & Communications and Data Manager – Marine Futures Lab; Lincoln Hood, Senior Researcher; Amy McAlpine MSc Student.

The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, founded in 2017 at the University of Western Australia and led by Dr. Dirk Zeller, is starting to grow.

A while back, former members of the Sea Around Us at UBC, Lincoln Hood and Rachel White, followed a tern flock and moved southwards to work with Dr. Zeller on establishing the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, and to initiate the newest round of updated and improved catch reconstruction database for all maritime countries around the Indian Ocean.

More recently, Dr. Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Vianna joined the team as a postdoctoral fellow working on the Global Fishing Index, a joint project that is being developed with a major Australian philanthropic foundation and in collaboration with a number of international research partners in the global fisheries and marine conservation fields.

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Rottnest Island, just offshore from the city of Perth in the Indian Ocean. Photo by Holgi, Pixabay.

Gabe is a marine scientist broadly interested in applying fisheries science and marine ecological approaches and data to important marine conservation issues. Prior to joining the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, he worked as a fisheries scientist for conservation NGOs in Brazil, using his technical expertise to translate scientific knowledge into science-based management recommendations for small-scale and industrial fisheries.

Another new addition to the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean is Amy McAlpine, who is pursuing a Master of Biological Science degree, focusing on the marine fisheries of two neighbouring East African countries: Kenya and Tanzania. Amy’s research aims to improve the quality of marine fisheries statistics in the two countries by reconstructing their marine fisheries catches, and to examine the emerging issue of legal and illegal foreign fishing in the waters of these two countries.

Matthew Ansell is also a new member of the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean. As a Master’s student, Matt is focusing on fisheries data for India, the second most populated country in the world. He became interested in this topic due to the fact that India’s population has a heavy reliance on coastal, small-scale fishing as a source for livelihoods and food security.

Thus, the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean is growing and expanding at a steady pace, while maintaining deep links with Sea Around Us at UBC and the Marine Futures Lab at UWA. The next step is to attract PhD students to address major questions and issues in fisheries and marine conservation in the Indian Ocean basin (https://seaaroundus-io.org/phd/).