2024

Dr Larry Swatuk

Urban Development and the water nexus - Climate issues globally and for the Nelson Mandela Bay

Monday, 28 October 2024, 13:00 - 14:30, Online and Venue (Hybrid event)

Larry Swatuk is Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo where he is also Director of the Master of Development Practice (MDP) program. Dr. Swatuk holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Dalhousie University. At Waterloo, he is cross-appointmented to the Balsillie School of International Affairs, the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, and the School of Planning. In addition, he sits on the senior management committee of the University's Water Institute. Dr. Swatuk came to the University of Waterloo from the University of Botswana where he spent eleven years, seven on the main campus in Gaborone as Lecturer in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies and four as Associate Professor and Director of the Natural Resources Governance Unit in the Okavango Research Institute in Maun, Botswana. Among other things, Swatuk sits on the Board of Directors of Oxfam Canada, is Vice-President of the Environmental Peace building Association, and is Extraordinary Professor in the Institute of Water Studies at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. His research focuses on the challenges of governing and managing natural resources at various scales with a primary focus on freshwater resourcesin the Global South. Among his recent publications is the co-authored (with Dr. Natasha Tang Kai) book Prioritizing the Environment in Urban Sustainability Planning: Policies and Practices of Canadian Cities (Palgrave, 2023), and the multi-authored, open-access book Towards the Blue-Green City: Building Urban Water Resilience (Pretoria: WaterResearch Commission, 2021).

The presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recording of the presentation.

Professor Erik Franckx

Access to courts under national and international law: A civil dichotomy with a salty international exception

Tuesday, 17 September 2024, 13:00 - 14:00, Online and Venue (Hybrid event)

Unlike civil courts on the national level, where rulings in absentia are often times accepted, international courts and tribunals require the consent of States before they can look into the merits of an inter-state dispute. The International Court of Justice, for instance, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, even though well-established and generally accepted by the world community of States, nevertheless lacks jurisdiction. And it is only after the disputing States have consented to grant jurisdiction, that the Court will be able to look into the merits of the case. To this international system based on consent, the law of the sea forms today a notable exception.

Professor Franckx is a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, vissiting professor at Ghen University, honorary professor at the Nelson Mandela University, as well as professeur émérite at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He holds teaching assignments at the Sorbonne Université Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; the University of Akureyri, Iceland; and the Nelson Mandela University. He is appointed by Belgium as an expert in marine scientific research for use in special arbitration under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 Convention) since 2004, as expert in maritime boundary delimitation to the International Hydrographic Organization since 2005, and as arbitrator under the 1982 Convention starting in 2014. For publications, see: https://researchportal.vub.be/nl/persons/erik-franckx/publications/.

The presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recording of the presentation.

Dr Mia Strand

Reimagining Ocean Stewardship Through Arts-Based Participatory Research

04 September 2024, 13:00 - 13:30, Online

Current ocean governance approaches are often characterised by economic or environmental objectives, paying limited consideration to socio-cultural dimensions, as well as Indigenous and local knowledge systems. These approaches tend to inhibit ocean stewardship, often marginalising coastal communities or limiting people’s access to spiritual, traditional and recreational uses of the ocean and coast. Piloting arts-based participatory research methods to co-create knowledge with co-researchers in Algoa Bay, South Africa finds that these methods can be useful in highlighting cultural connections to the ocean, and remembering and imagining, or reimagining, ways in which people relate to and care for the ocean and coast.

Dr Strand is a Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Postdoctoral Research Fellow, who’s research centres around socio-cultural and equity dimensions of ocean governance and conservation, which are often overlooked or neglected. Her PhD research explored the value of arts-based participatory research for more inclusive and equitable ocean governance in South Africa, specifically emphasising the need to better recognise Indigenous and local knowledge systems in decision-making processes.

Dr Strand's presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recordng of her presentation.

Professor Peter Jones

Incentive divesity is key to the more effective and equitable governance of marine protected areas

Tuesday, 01 August 2024, 13:00 - 14:00, Online

A target to conserve 30% of oceans by designating marine protected areas (MPAs) has been agreed, yet the effectiveness of existing MPAs is often low, with few weakly implemented restrictions on impacting uses. CMR honorary Professor Jones, will be presenting a multiple case study empirical analysis of the governance of 50 MPAs which demonstrates that:
(a) there is strong correlation between the effectiveness of MPAs and the number of governance incentives used;
(b) combinations of economic, legal, communication, knowledge and participatory incentives are shown to be employed in effective MPAs and mostly needed in less effective MPAs;
(c) whilst some incentives are frequently identified as being important to promote effectiveness, no particular 'magic wand' incentive or 'best practice' combinations of incentives guarantee this.

The findings from this study shows that effectiveness is not determined by any specific governance approaches or incentives, but rather the combination of a diversity of functionally integrated incentives, which interact with and support one another to promote MPA effectiveness and resilience, i.e. diversity is the key to resilience, both of species in ecosystems and incentives in governance systems.

The presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recording of the presentation.

Professor Mike Elliot and Professor Alan Whitfield

Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles - Learn from the Experts

Tuesday, 30 July 2024, 10:30 - 12:30, Online

Key aspects that were discussed in this online event:

Prof Elliot is the Director for International Estuirine and Coastal Specialists (IECS) and Emeritus Professor at the University of Hull. Prof Whitfield is a Chief Scientist Emeritus and Research Associate for the South African Instutute for Aquatic Biodiversity (NRF-SAIAB).

The presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recording of the presentation.

Prof Lorien Pichegru

A Decade of Biodiversity Management Plan for African Penguins - Lessons Learnt

05 June 2024, 13:00 - 14:00, Online and Venue (Hybrid event)

The African Penguin Biodiversity Management Plangazetted in 2013, was the first Biodiversity Management Plan (BMP) for a marine species in SouthAfrica. It was gazetted in 2013 to “halt the decline of the African penguin population(…)” within the five years of its implementation, by “establishing guidelines around various aspects of African penguin conservation and consolidating existing conservation work”. Many conservation actions were implemented or strengthened, with scientific monitoring, strong engagement took place across institutions. Despite these efforts, African Penguins numbers continued decreasing and the species is currently being considered for up-listing to “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN Red List. Reviewing the success and failures of this BMP allows to pave the way for successfully implementation stronger conservation actions for African penguins.

Professor Pichegru is currently an Adjunct Professor with the CMR. Her research focus is on seabird foraging ecology and life history traits in relation to prey availability and local competition with industrial fisheries. She is involved in marine waste initiatives and is active in public and community engagement. Professor Pichegru works closely with governmental institutions, NGOs and civic society to improve the conservation of these charismatic species.

Prof Pichegru's presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recordng of her presentation.

Prof Sophie Von Der Heyden

Evolving Molecular Approaches for Conserving Southern Africa's (Marine) Biodiversity: From Data Generation to Supporting Conservation and Management

12 March 2024, 13:00 - 14:00, Online and Venue (Hybrid event)

The past 15 years have seen a concerted effort in generating phylogenetic and phylogeographic data for southern African marine systems, which has provided unique insights into the evolutionary history and processes driving the patterns of marine biogeography and biodiversity in the region. In South Africa, molecular tools, including mtDNA microsatellites and more recently analyses based on Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms and environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, have progressively been used to study a large variety of invertebrate and vertebrate taxa (and the odd angiosperm), however the uptake into the conservation and management of species and environments have been slow. This talk provided an overview of our state of knowledge of marine genetics and genomics in the region, including recent development in community genetics and the first attempts of biodiversity monitoring using environmental DNA. Further, Prof von der Heyden provided examples of how seascape analyses can support the management of cross boundary fisheries and how genomic data can contribute to coastal spatial planning that could enhance the resilience of populations to ongoing climate and anthropogenically driven changes.

Prof von der Heyden is a marine molecular ecologist Her research is by necessity broad, but primarily focusses on the conservation and sustainable utilisation of species and the marine environment. Her particular interests lie in the applicability of molecular ecological and genomics tools to inform marine spatial planning, understanding MPA connectivity patterns and resilience and adaptation of marine species to ongoing and future change, as well as the impacts of changing marine communities on society.

Prof Von Der Heyden's presentation is available via this link. Please click here to access the recording of her presentation.