This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 13-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum and the G8 countries Heads of Research Councils. The Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world?s major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international environmental research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. The G8 Heads of Research Councils developed a funding framework to support multilateral research projects that address global challenges in ways that are beyond the capacity of national or bilateral activities. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.
Working together in an inaugural call of the International Opportunities Fund, the Belmont Forum and G8HORCs have provided support for research projects that seek to deliver knowledge needed for action to mitigate and adapt to detrimental environmental change and extreme hazardous events that relate to either Freshwater Security or Coastal Vulnerability. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry).
This award supports research activities that will deliver new understanding of climate change responses and management options of freshwater indiscriminate fisheries. Freshwater fisheries provide food security and income for hundreds of millions of people worldwide in some of the poorest countries on the planet. These fisheries are composed of diverse assemblages of species and indiscriminate fishing practices. Indiscriminate fishing practices are likely to have important but yet unconsidered implications for the sustainability and management of ecosystems. This project will (1) construct a general theory to understand the social and ecological implications of indiscriminate fisheries under climate changes and (2) develop and test this theory in the economically and socially important Tonle Sap fishery in Cambodia. The Tonle Sap Lake is one of the largest and most productive indiscriminate fisheries in the world, receiving large annual flood pulses from the Mekong River. Recent changes in fisheries regulations present the opportunity to understand how governance and management, climate, and ecology interact to regulate the sustainability and maintenance of food production. These efforts will contribute an understanding of the implications of indiscriminate fisheries and local governance structures and options have for millions living in Cambodia and for indiscriminate fisheries worldwide.
