Stories and Simulations: Compliance and Periodic Octopus Closures in the WIO region

The amazing experts that joined our workshop September 2021.

In September 2021 we hosted a three hour online workshop to present our work and get feedback and discuss together with experts around temporal octopus closure models in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. The objectives of this meeting were to:

1. Reconnect and build on the network established at Wiomsa 2019 and facilitate discussions between expert participants.
2. Share and discuss findings from our empirical work on perceptions of closures and compliance in Zanzibar.
3. Share and invite comments on the scope and behaviour of our octopus closure agent-based model.

The workshop demonstrated how a combined fieldwork, modelling and expert consultation process helps to develop systems understanding. The sharing of the fieldwork results through storytelling, painted a deep and rich description of how local fishery actors perceived the closure model’s intricate dilemmas around compliance. The sharing of the agent based model’s design, such as fishery actors and processes around compliance and patrolling, sparked discussions around interactions of the different components in the closure model. These two approaches of studying and presenting the issues around interventions herein the closure model in turn lead to deeper discussions around the social and ecological dynamics embedded in the closure model. 

This blog contains the first part of the Workshop Report, but you can download the full report here.

What experiences and knowledge was shared by participants?

Despite the variety of geographical, cultural and historical realities in which participants situated their work, the social mechanisms of compliance characteristics in Zanzibar were jointly experienced by workshop participants. They highlighted a plethora of factors shaping compliance in their local contexts, such as weather conditions, seasonality of closures and supporting livelihoods and food security. Social consensus was particularly regarded as a key attribute of compliance, the former being influenced by factors such as community consensus prior to starting a closure project, engaging actors such as commercial buyers,the presence of strong leaders and feelings of trust and pride towards closures. On the contrary, participants stated elements like intrusion of outsiders, and kinship relations impeding rule enforcement while blame towards other social groups’ activities also damaged compliance. Participants shared their experiences concerning the technicalities of closures. Here, closure entering schemes (who could enter at what point in time), levies, and income distribution at openings were mentioned, and the importance of allowing for appropriate placement of closures e.g. avoiding coincidence with other protected areas. A learning-by-doing approach for conservation’s success was emphasised,  one considering the geography and history of usage in the chosen closure area. This approach was regarded as an important tool to ensure flexibility and facilitate the achievement of community consensus over closures.

What outstanding questions, concerns & ideas emerged?

On Biological Dynamics: The biological dynamics characteristic of octopus closures were deeply discussed during the workshop, in light of the current quite simple representation of the octopus population model. Depending on the purpose of the current OctoPINTS model (or the usefulness of other future models) the need for including biological and ecological mechanisms were mentioned as these aspects may contribute to a better understanding of these interventions. Notably these mechanisms are not yet fully investigated empirically.

Participants proposed a plethora of dynamics to potentially integrate into the OctoPINTS model, such as growth and replacement rates, spawning potential, habitat preferences, seasonal variability and age-dependent mobility. Climate change was also mentioned as a threat to reef health, leading to higher uncertainty of the above parameters. After considering the various biological factors adding complexity to the current OctoPINTS model, participants asked themselves how much of such complexity was needed if the purpose is looking at compliance and fishery actors’ perceptions of the closure. As adding too much complexity might instead compromise the efficacy of the model. 

On Social Dynamics: Thoughts and questions on social dynamics flourished during the discussion, leaving us with various inspirations for future research and future models. Topics such as community’s heterogeneity and inequality were analysed. Here, questions were raised on the potential for measuring community cohesion levels and their effects on compliance in reality but also how to formalize into the model. Furthermore, individuals’ interaction to closures was examined as uniquely shaping compliance and acceptance. The example of women gleaners was proposed, describing the negative effects that the mismatching of tides and openings might have on their access, income, and ultimately on their acceptance of the closure model. Solutions to tackle intrinsic heterogeneity of communities were advanced away from blaming certain non-compliant groups of people, to promoting the distribution of “disproportional benefits” to those individuals who were the most “disproportionately disadvantaged” (e.g. fisherwomen or octopus dependent skin divers). The diversity of issues across communities was also mentioned. Examples include communities struggling with outsiders entering the fishery, but also positive examples where communities experienced successful projects, e.g. when combined with government funded alternative livelihoods, or previous experience of programmes or interventions helped communities better organize to implement the closure model. To have all different groups in a community involved and have consensus on a new project project, and the question of how to get there was also raised.

Ethical considerations on the contextual setting of non-compliance were raised, highlighting the need to consider global-to-local structures of power, ultimately shaping in some part illegal activities in closures. From here, there was a call for NGOs to take sensitive action at the local scale, specifically the continuous consultations with communities from a project’s start. The question of bottom-up was raised, are these interventions really so if it is often fishery managers and officers who drive and implement the project, in this way closures are still top down, however the top is closer to the bottom. Finally, the use of the OctoPINTS model was proposed as a way to allow managers to better understand and experiment with the complexities of adaptively managing fisheries

What will the OctoPINTS project do next with workshop results?

Model development

This workshop held two aims for the model, firstly to share the current model and get feedback on its current design with particular focus on key mechanisms and processes such as compliance and acceptance. Second, we are complexifying the biological and ecological components of the model, partly through a master’s thesis within the OctoPINTS project, so we intentionally focused the workshop on getting input for that part of the model. 

The current OctoPINTS model will be updated with smaller fishing grounds for the deep reefs and the divers. The growth model will likely be a choice of the Herwig et al. (2012) who worked with free octopus, rather than van Heukelem (1973) who had them in captivity. Include the individual economic benefits from one opening to another. Foot fishers fishing in the free area will be in relation to tides, however noting we are really only concerned with the closure dynamics so this is primarily to include some more realism. We will look into fishers moving to favourite areas versus moving random. 

The scenarios we explore with the model, will be informed by the diversity of context that we have learned from this workshop. This means looking at different contexts that represent different community characteristics to see based on the included model processes, which community type has higher or lower probability to develop or maintain high acceptability of closures and make them successful.

Empirical investigations

As a result of our workshop we summarize questions that came up during the workshop as potential future investigations. Can we rethink and reevaluate what really contributes to increased or decreased acceptance? And the same for compliance. Is individual compliance more affected by a) individual acceptance, or b) the acceptance of the community as a whole (representing social pressure), or the c) acceptance in their peer groups (e.g., fellow skin divers). How does the issue of pride and identity contribute to compliance and acceptance? How does trust in compliance play a role? As an example – I trust my peers completely, but do I trust that others comply? What is the influence of that on acceptance of the closure model? What is the role of market dynamics with regards to export of the octopus, and how does it link to compliance and the acceptance of the closure model? However, we are not sure to what degree we will be able to explore these questions within our project timeline. 

Summary of future dream outputs

Just before closing the workshop we asked participants to dream away and Tim asked what they would like to see as next steps. Everyone had a go at this question! “I would be interested to see how the model and/or fieldwork can represent ____”. 

• The model should take into consideration the biological, ecological, fishery related characteristics – to be able to propose management measures for the species.
• More biological influences in the model. How do we measure social cohesion and how does it affect the model?
• Interesting to have a model to ensure adaptive management. Is there potential for a real-time model that could be applied at the local community level? Interesting question that we’d love to discuss in a future conversation.
• The wider impacts on biodiversity that the octopus fishery has (e.g. the reef, bycatch, biological diversity)
• There is potentially so much that could be added to the model. Global warming and how it affects growth parameters. Although there is only so much to be added in order not to compromise the efficacy of the model.
• My lens now is responding to the critiques of community cohesion and homogeneity and learning to live with the disensus, discussing the critiques laid against Ostrom and CBNRM in failing to grapply with heterogeneity and conflict. 
• How does the NGO consult with the community at the start of the project? There will be more emphasis in making sure that procedures such as FPIC (Free, Prior and Informed Consent) are used. Having a focus on compliance pre-conservation projects and wondering if that could be a factor that could be added to the model. How thorough was the consultation process? Also, does it make a difference who breaks the rules? Is it a woman gleaner, a village leader, are they going to have different influences on the level of compliance? And then apply different fines to different people.
• Great, interesting model! a need or question: how to include additional biological components? And how much do biological components influence compliance beyond the financial benefits? Are we adding (unnecessary) complexity by adding all this detail? 
• Fascinating to continue with the discussion and summarise complexity and agree on some objectives. The model could be used for discussion. Market dynamics are not considered much, but could be enriching the model.

We, the OctoPINTS team, are truly grateful for the deep engagement of the participants in the workshop and are keen to continue collaboration within this network to further develop the model, disseminate knowledge on closure dynamics and explore how the OctoPINTS project can contribute to sustainable collaborative fishery management in the region. Warm wishes, the OctoPINTS participants Emilie, Tim, Liz, Andrew, Benedetta, and Jineth and OctoPINTS members Rosemarie Mwaipopo and Maja Schlüter who were not able to participate.

Organizers

The OctoPINTS research project (https://octopints.wordpress.com/), a transdisci- plinary research project based at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden and funded by the Swedish Research Council Dnr 2018-05862.

Contributors

Workshop prepared by Emilie Lindkvist, Elizabeth (Liz) Drury O’Neill, Tim Daw, Benedetta Veneroni, and Jineth Berrío-Martínez. Contributions of all the participants of the session as listed at the end of this report.

Keywords

Fishery Closures, Collaborative Conservation, Closure models, WIO region, Story telling, Agent-based modeling, Octopus, Small-scale fisheries.

Suggested Citation

Lindkvist, E, Veneroni, B., Daw, T., Drury O’Neill, L., Berrío-Martínez, J. (2021). Stories and Simulations: Compliance and Periodic Octopus Closures in the WIO region. Workshop Report. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden.

OctoPINTS first year!

Our OctoPINTS project has officially been running for one whole year! This is a summary of our activities and milestones for the first project year June 2019-June 2020.

OctoPINTS background

The OctoPINTS project is based on the belief that the intersection between participatory empirical research and agent-based modeling is a useful way to understand critical aspects of sustainability in small-scale fisheries. In collaboration with researchers from Sweden (Emilie Lindkvist, Liz Drury O’Neill, Tim Daw, Maja Schlüter), Kenya (Andrew Wamukota), Tanzania (Rosemarie Mwaipopo) and the local NGO MWAMBAO in Zanzibar (Represented by Lorna Slade) we took our first small steps in Stockholm during a few sunny spring days before the official start of the project.

Throughout the year we have combined face-to-face workshops and online meetings to progress on our project and its key activities, such as fieldwork, workshop, conference sessions, and designing the agent-based model. We have had in-depth discussions to refine our research questions, aims, goals and developed a theory of change for the project. This document summarizes the key activities and outputs that we have accomplished so far within OctoPINTS.

Overarching Project Aims

1. Untangle what defines success of Octopus closures for different stakeholders in Zanzibar and across the WIO.
2. Identify the mechanisms leading to successful outcomes in Zanzibar and across the WIO
3. Reveal the trade-offs between short- and long-term outcomes and between different social groups within fishing communities in Zanzibar.
4. Understand fishers and fish workers perceptions of closures in Zanzibar in different points in time and how that affects fishers’ motivations and actions.

We take a gendered perspective, thus include gender, and gender processes, in our understanding of success, mechanisms and trade-offs as well as in the models we develop.

Activities

OctoPINTS kick-off Workshop (April 2019)

Co-developing our research questions by clustering individual research questions, walk and talk in Bergianska botanical gardens, and flower watching in Kungsträdgården.

Just after Easter we met in Stockholm to continue to develop the ideas and research questions that we together wanted to explore during these next three years. We had the opportunity to learn from Rose about gendered research, Andrew about Octopus value chains, Lorna about their thinking and development of closure models in the local context of Zanzibar, from Maja and Emilie about agent-based modeling and social-ecological systems thinking, and from Tim and Liz about their earlier experiences from small-scale fisheries in East Africa. To make sure that all participants wishes and expectations were incorporated into OctoPINTS we redesigned our research questions. We let each participant formulate their personal questions on post-its to refine a new set of questions within the broader scope of our project. These questions directly informed our fieldwork and workshops later on in the year. During the course of the project different emphasis will be given to different questions.

 Co-developed research questions

1. Which factors influence the closure model design, compliance and outcomes under different conditions? Such as community relations, neighbours & migrant fishers, history of conservation, tourism, national policies, power relations and roles (by gender, age, class/wealth), enforcement agencies or NGOs.
2. How does the closure model design process influence compliance and outcomes? For example, with respect to participation, equity, agency, communication and information sharing, design of closure.
3. How do different fishery actors perceive the process and outcomes? AND How are different social groups affected by the closures?
4. How do outcome dynamics reinforce or change factors and future process?
   • How do perceptions of process and outcomes affect relationships between fishery actors?
   • How do process and outcomes affect agency and capacity?
   • How do process and outcomes affect institutional dynamics?

In subsequent discussions we also developed our common theory of change as a way to uncover our different understanding and visions of our project, from the different activities we will undertake, the outputs we will produce, the outcomes and impacts we strive for.

Figure 1: OctoPINTS theory of change. Impacts: we hope to contribute one small piece of the puzzle in this direction. Outcomes: local effects within Zanzibar/Pemba, knowledge outcomes, and methodological outcomes. Outputs are project deliverables. Purple = empirical domain. Pink=Academic domain. Blue=influences both empirical and academic domain.

Outputs from the Kick-off and our follow up discussions during the first months

• Refined operational model of MWAMBAO closure model by Lorna.
• Project directive document including refined goals, aims, objectives, and research questions.
• Project stakeholder list.
• Draft MoU within our team and between OctoPINTS and MWAMBAO
• OctoPINTS theory of change
• Blog (Lindkvist, 2019a)

April 2019 Start-up workshop for grantees of our research program

Closing panel of the workshop with both Rose and Lorna sharing their knowledge and reflections on the workshop.

Immediately after the OctoPINTS inception workshop Emilie Lindkvist, Liz Drury O’Neill, Tim Daw and María Mancilla organized a workshop for all grantees of ”Sustainability and resilience – Tackling consequences of climate and environmental changes”, which all of the OctoPINTS team had the opportunity to participate in. We had two days of in-depth discussions on north–south collaborations with around 50 participants from the project and representatives from the funders; The Swedish Research Council and SIDA. We have summarized our insights and workshop material in the report “Challenges and Solutions for Fair and Productive International Collaborative Research Projects” (Drury O’Neill et al., 2020).

Outputs

• Report from workshop (Drury O’Neill et al., 2020)

July 2019 Special Session at WIOMSA

Poster from our WIOMSA session.

In preparation with the whole OctoPINTS team and Tanguy Nicholas from Flora & Fauna International we held a full day workshop in conjunction with the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) symposium at the University of Mauritius, Mauritius. With stakeholders representing the whole WIO region we had a well visited workshop to explore three topics as a part of our first and second aim:

Objective 1 – Investigate how success in Octopus closures was defined by different participants, and why successful outcomes are achieved across different cases.

We found that academics and practitioners identified similar outcomes as constituting success in closures. The factors raised by participants related to Economic success included improved incomes, economic conditions and trade opportunities. Ecological success included increases in stocks, individual sizes, and catch per unit effort of target species, as well as positive impacts on other marine organisms. Social success related to acceptance of management by local communities, reduced conflict, and improved governance capacity.

Objective 2 – Explore commonalities and context specific factors across different cases, thinking about mechanisms – i.e. trying to get at common factors and processes across the cases in different situations of the closure model planning and implementation.

We discussed the importance of exchange visits, gender analysis and capacity building for women’s associations, prior to closure implementation as well as location and timing of closures (patrolling practicalities, reef productivity), cultural, biological and market dynamics, engagement with traders to minimize poaching and collectively to increase their bargaining power. During implementation the enforcement, neighboring fishers and post the opening distributions of benefits, attracting “outsiders”.

Objective 3 – Together summarize the most urgent research and management questions for octopus management are in the region.

The questions we identified spanned from social to ecological, from detailed planning issues to how to include women in the decision-making processes (from the community level up to the national level), and what is really defining success of closures.

Outputs

• Workshop Report (Lindkvist et al., 2019) with first answers to our research questions from people representing closures around the whole WIO region.
• Blog  (Lindkvist, 2019b)

Oct-Nov 2019 Fieldwork, Zanzibar

Liz organizing a photo elicitation dialogue.

After meticulous planning we finally set in motion our first fieldwork trip. Our aim was to collect the views and opinions of all the different types of people that are or were involved in, or affected by closures. We were aiming for a grounded understanding how different groups of people view the “success” of closures. We also wanted to unpack what people directly involved see as success and how they feel they have been affected by this fishery intervention process over time- from its introduction to where they are today.

Octopus Closures as part of the Marine Protected Area (MPA) toolbox have been deemed a success by different academic groups, social enterprises or practitioners, so one important aim for us during the field season was to use a gender lens, thus embracing intersectionality and the diversity in types and identities of people, to know how the many different stakeholder groups felt they were impacted and their willingness to adopt or repeat the process.

Liz, Fatma from MWAMBAO, and Shariff (independent enumerator) visited 3 sites. In each site they carried out three types of dialogues with each stakeholder group. They met with village leaders and the fishing committee, octopus fisherwomen, octopus fishermen of different types (divers and/or footfishers), octopus tradermen and octopus traderwomen. They also divided the groups by age when possible and met all the groups separately. The method combined Story circles (session 1), photo elicitation (session 2), and finally a focus group discussion (session 3). We will share the results from this first round over the next year.

Outputs

• Qualitative and quantitative field data from sites and experts
• Blog (Drury O’Neill, 2019)

Nov 2019 Workshop #2, & Field trip Zanzibar

Liz presenting initial reflections from the field together with Fatma.

Finally we in the OctoPINTS team met with our MWAMBAO and Blue Ventures (BV) collaborators at the end of the rainy season in Zanzibar. This was an exciting workshop that brought together the wide experience of MWAMBAO and Blue Ventures in supporting Octopus Closures and community development in Zanzibar with the conceptual and modeling approaches of the Stockholm team and the academic expertise on East African societies and fisheries of Rosemarie (Rose) Mwaipopo and Andrew Wamukota.

To kick off Tim started us with a high-energy opening playing a fishery game for us to get a chance to know one another. After a short reflection on the game (which is in itself a type of fishery ‘model’) we launched into breakout groups to discuss the focus of the modeling effort in OctoPINTS, and exploring the key social-ecological dynamics of Octopus Closures. Although the OctoPINTS project is focused on temporary octopus closures, for NGOs working on the ground, the long-term aim is to develop the capacity of coastal communities and their local institutions to self-organize and implement sustainable development initiatives. This capacity needs to be reflected in our conceptual model and is in any case, a critical determinant of how Octopus Closures play out. We also discussed the modeling approach, sharing insights into the agent-based modeling methodology and how the project aims to build understanding through reciprocal relationship between empirical field research, expert knowledge and iterations of agent-based modeling. Rose also led an insightful discussion of the role of gender relations in environmental governance in coastal Tanzania and Andrew fed back on the WIOMSA special session outcomes. Liz and Fatma shared initial reflections on fieldwork for the team and our MWAMBAO colleagues to discuss. We also had a visit from Andrew Gordon, Marine Stewardship Council, and the Southwest Indian Ocean Octopus Project (SWIOCeph).

We also embarked on a fieldtrip to Kizimkazi where we participated in Octopus hunting, observed local octopus trade, as well as having a unique meeting with the SFC (Shehia Fisheries Committee; a local management committee) to better know their struggles and positive experiences of the closures they have implemented.

The workshop and fieldtrip gave the non-Zanzibari team members much deeper familiarity with the system, allowed us to build a common understanding, and friendships across the team and sharing our perspectives on the road-map for the OctoPINTS project. MWAMBAO served as exemplary facilitators, and give us such a rewarding meeting and participating with so much commitment.

Outputs

• Co-develop a conceptual model of the closure divided into pre, during and post closure processes combining a SES perspective and knowledge of MWAMBAO & BV (Report from WS shared between participants only)
• Blog, refined conceptual closure model with focus on processes (Daw, 2019)

The Agent-based Model

The modeling permeates our research by inspiring the way we ask our research questions, and is embedded in our fieldwork, workshops and our special session at WIOMSA. Each of the events so far has led to a better understanding of the entities and activities to include in the modeling component of OctoPINTS which is detailed in Figure 2. Each of the processes or activities are further detailed in our modeling documents.

Figure 2. Conceptual draft model. The top row represents the entities in the model. Under each entity you can see which activity they are involved in. The activities are color coded as follows; activities in yellow occur continuously, purple activities occur during closing, blue activities occur during opening, red happens before or after a closure implementation and opening.

Outreach

We have engaged in different outreach activities. Emilie and Liz presented the OctoPINTS project to Swedbio and their director Henrik Brundin and Hanna Wetterstrand who is leading Swedbio’s marine related work. Emilie presented OctoPINTS to the MAREA research project in Mexico, and to the CauSES research project where the OctoPINTS case may be part of the ongoing work on causality in social-ecological systems research. We also presented the project to the SES-LINK research group at Stockholm Resilience Centre to introduce the project but also to get feedback on our fieldwork plans. We have been active on twitter to share links to our blogs and reports. MWAMBAO has featured selected OctoPINTS events on their website, as well as the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s news section on their website, face book and twitter.

We have regular conversation with Blue Ventures (BV), a key actor on Octopus closures in the WIO. BV have also been participating in our workshops on Zanzibar and Mauritius. We also have had conversations with other key actors in the WIO region and broader, such as Shauna Maharajan and Morena Mills at the Alliance for Conservation Evidence and Sustainability (ACES).

Education

During the year we have had two master students working with us. Michael Bohlin from Stockholm Resilience Centre investigated the demand for Octopus from Zanzibari hotels. He quantified the scale of the demand as well as looking at hotels’ preferences for fresh vs frozen, and size. He did his fieldwork around Unguja and was supervised by OctoPINTS’ Tim Daw, Liz Drury O’Neill, and Lorna Slade. Link to thesis Link to thesis (Bohlin, 2020).

Visiting Stockholm Resilience Centre was master student Clara Larissa Wreissnegger from Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany. She made a thorough investigation on how to build ecological models of small-scale fisheries with medium complexity and used OctoPINTS as a case to test her findings. She was co-supervised by Emilie Lindkvist. Link to thesis (Wreissnegger, 2020).

The Coming Year

June 2020 – June 2021 we aim to have a first version of the agent-based model, where our work so far will come together to detail model processes, hypothesis, and observed structural patterns that the model can be validated against. When Liz is back from parental leave (late 2020), she will lead and start writing up the fieldwork results together with a core subgroup of OctoPINTS. We will plan the next round of fieldwork and around mid 2021 in conjunction we will also have our annual OctoPINTS workshop (corona permitting). We hope to involve a master student from the University of Dar es Salaam Development Studies through Rose. In the fall of 2020, we plan to start on our first joint publication, potentially focused around our results from our Special Session at WIOMSA. Due to time constraints MWAMBAO will be less involved in the coming year.

References

Bohlin, M., 2020.Tourism and marine resource conservation tentacle in tentacle? Zanzibari hotels as biosphere stewards in support of octopus closures (Master’s Thesis). Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.

Daw, T.M., 2019. OctoPINTS website. OctoPINTS workshop #2, Zanzibar.

Drury O’Neill, E., 2019. OctoPINTS website. Fieldwork part 1 – Reflections from the field.

Drury O’Neill, E., Daw, T.M., Mancilla García, M., Lindkvist, E., 2020. Challenges and solutions for fair and productive international collaborative research projects (Workshop Report). Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.

Lindkvist, E., 2019a. OctoPINTS website. OctoPINTS kicks off @SRC. 

Lindkvist, E., 2019b. OctoPINTS website. Reporting back: Octopus Closure session @WIOMSA 2019.

Lindkvist, E., 2019c. OctoPINTS: Octopus & People In Novel Transdisciplinary Simulations. (the website)

Lindkvist, E., Drury O’Neill, L., Wamukota, A., Nicolas, T., 2019. Gathering Experiences of Octopus Closures in the WIO region: Towards a synthesis of actors, interactions and outcomes. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University.

Lindkvist, E., Wijermans, N., Daw, T.M., Gonzalez-Mon, B., Giron-Nava, A., Johnson, A.F., van Putten, I., Basurto, X., Schlüter, M., 2020. Navigating Complexities: Agent-Based Modeling to Support Research, Governance, and Management in Small-Scale Fisheries.Frontiers in Marine Science 6, 733.

Wreissnegger, C.L., 2020. How to formalise complex population dynamics for a stylised ecological model of small-scale fisheries?(Masters Thesis). Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg.

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OctoPINTS gets granted!

Written by Emilie Lindkvist. 

December 11th 2018 was the day VR revealed the receivers of the grant “Sustainability and resilience – Tackling consequences of climate and environmental changes”. That day I was desperately working to meet a deadline for a special issue on the manuscript on the usefulness of agent-based modeling for small-scale fisheries research, governance and management. One of the reasons for writing the paper was to make agent-based modeling more accessible to potential funders and collaborators. Apparently the I had already convinced funders that the intersection of agent-based modeling and participatory empirical observation would be an excellent methodological approach to meet the aims of the Sustainability and Resilience grant – because it got granted! After receiving a cryptic whatsApp message from my colleague and friend who also received the grant, it took me and my co-applicant Liz many iterations into the funding system and online list of grantees to check if this really could be true. The attempt to submit this “practice application” by me and Liz because more than a practice and we really got the grant. The novel approach of methods, the combination of the teams in-field expertize, modeling skills, and in-depth knowledge about gender especially in octopus fisheries was probably some of the reasons this became such a compelling proposal.

I am extremely excited to be able to perform this research with the excellent team of researchers and NGOs both in Sweden, Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar, and Kenya. More to come!

Brainstorming session at Stockholm Resilience Centre with Liz and Emilie. We were in desperate need of a group name and for some initial planning to prepare for our first team meeting.