People

Colette Wabnitz

Ph.D., Geography

University of British Columbia

Colette Wabnitz is interested in understanding the functioning of ecosystems, how they respond to human pressures and natural forcing, and the design of measures for the sustainable use of their resources and the long term conservation of their services. Her current research focuses on developing global and regional scenarios, models and databases for oceans assessment under global change. Colette obtained her PhD from UBC, was a PostDoc Fellow at UBC and the Pacific Island Fisheries Science Centre in Hawai’i, then spent 4 years as a Fisheries Scientist for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in New Caledonia.

Publications

Singh, G. G., Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Swartz, W., Cheung, W., Guy, J. A., Kenny, T. A., McOwen, C. J., Asch. R., Geffert, J. L., Wabnitz, C. C. C., Sumaila, U. R., Hanich, Q., Ota, Y., 2017, A rapid assessment of co-benefits and trade-offs among Sustainable Development Goals, Marine Policy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.05.030, link

Andréfouët, S., Van Wynsberge, S., Kabbadj, L., Wabnitz, C., Menkes, C., Tamata, T., Remoissenet, G., 2017, Adaptive management for the sustainable exploitation of lagoon resources in remote islands: lessons from a massive El Niño-induced giant clam bleaching event in the Tuamotu atolls (French Polynesia), Fisheries, Fisheries Management, Climate Change, Environmental Conservation, doi:10.1017/S0376892917000212, 1-11, link

Wabnitz C.C.C., Lam V.W.Y., Reygondeau G., Teh L., Al-Abdulrazzak D., Khalfallah M., Pauly D., Palomares D., Zeller D., and W.W.L. Chung. 2018. Climate Change Impacts on Marine Biodiversity, Fisheries and Society in the Arabian Gulf. PLoS One 13(5): e0194537, link

Blasiak, R., Jouffray, J.B., Wabnitz, C.C.C., Sundstrom, E. and Osterblom, H., 2018. Corporate control and global governance of marine genetic resources. Science Advances 4(6), eaar5237. link

Wabnitz, C. C. C, Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Hanich, Q., Ota, Y., 2017, Ecotourism, climate change and reef fish consumption in Palau: Benefits, trade-offs and adaptation strategiesMarine Policylink

Oyinlola, M.A., Reygondeau, G., Wabnitz, C.C.C., Troell, M., Cheung, W.W.L., 2018. Global estimation of areas with suitable environmental conditions for mariculture species. PLoS ONE 13(1): e0191086. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0191086, link

Blasiak, R., Jouffray, J-B., Wabnitz, C.C.C., Österblom, H. (2019). Scientists Should Disclose Origin in Marine Gene Patents. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2019.02.004 link

William WL Cheung, Vicky WY Lam and Colette CC Wabnitz (2019). Future scenarios and projections for fisheries on the high seas under a changing climate. Changing Oceans Research Unit / International Institute for Environment and Development – Working Paper 2019, 43pp. link

Wabnitz, C. & Blasiak, R. (2019). The rapidly changing world of ocean finance. Marine Policy, 107, 103526. link

Blasiak, R., Wabnitz, C., Daw, T., Berger, M., Blandon, A., Carneiro, G . . . Wiegler, K. (2019). Towards greater transparency and coherence in funding for sustainable marine fisheries and healthy oceans. Marine Policy, 107, 103508  link

Pittman, J., Wabnitz, C., & Blasiak, R. (2019). A global assessment of structural change in development funding for fisheries. Marine Policy, 109, Marine Policy. link

Oyinlola, M.A., Reygondeau, G., Wabnitz, C.C.C., & Cheung, W.W.L. (2020). Projecting global mariculture diversity under climate change. Global Change Biology, 00:1-15. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14974 link.

Österblom, H., C.C.C. Wabnitz, D. Tladi et al. 2020. Towards Ocean Equity. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Available online at www.oceanpanel.org/how-distribute-benefits-ocean-equitably. link.

 

Nereus Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (UBC) and Fellow Tyler Eddy (University of South Carolina) attended the ‘Scenarios Forum 2019’ in Denver, CO on March 11-13, 2019. The forum hosted researchers from 41 countries across diverse disciplines who use climate change and sustainability scenarios and policy analysis to address current knowledge gaps.

Nereus researchers Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Center – SRC), Colette Wabnitz (University of British Columbia) and Henrik Österblom (SRC) recently published a paper, ‘Scientists Should Disclose Origin in Marine Gene Patents’ in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Here you can read a brief description of their work, as well as access the article in full.

March 5, 2019 | Biodiversity

Nereus Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (University of British Columbia) wrote a blog about the Sargassum mass bloom event that occurred in 2018, and how it impacted countries throughout the Caribbean. She discusses the origins of Sargassum, factors that trigger mass blooms, and what can be done about it.

A workshop on ocean finance co-organized by Nereus Program researchers Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Centre) and Colette Wabnitz (University of British Columbia) took place on December 6-7, 2018 at the Stockholm Resilience Center. Nereus fellow Robert Blasiak writes about the workshop, which included Solène Guggisberg (Utrecht University) presenting her recent publication on funding coastal and marine fisheries projects under the climate change regime.

December 28, 2018 | Climate ChangeFisheries

Nereus Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (University of British Columbia) attended, and Nereus Fellow Jessica Spijkers (Stockholm Resilience Center) co-facilitated a workshop on fisheries resources and conflict at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at University of California, Santa Barbara. The purpose of the workshop was to better understand exiting types of fisheries conflicts, and which drivers spark different types of conflict and intensities.

October 30, 2018 | Fisheries

Past Event

6 December 2018 - 7 December 2018

Nereus Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (UBC) and Fellow Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Center) will be co-hosting a workshop on ocean finances at the Stockholm Resilience Center in Sweden.
Past Event

22 October 2018 - 26 October 2018

Nereus Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (UBC) and Fellow Jessica Spijkers (Stockholm Resilience Center) will be attending a workshop on renewable natural resources, with a focus on conflict over resources in the anthropocene at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Past Event

11 March 2019 - 13 March 2019

Nereus Fellow Tyler Eddy (University of South Carolina), along with Director (Science) William Cheung (University of British Columbia - UBC) and Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (UBC), will be attending the Scenarios Forum 2019 from March 11-13th in Denver, Colorado.

Nereus Research Associate Colette Wabnitz (University of British Columbia) writes about attending the OceanVisions2019– Climate Summit, ‘Successes in resilience, adaptation, mitigation, and sustainability’ in Atlanta, Georgia on April 1-4th, 2019. She was co-chair of session VI – Integrated Modelling of Human and Climate Impacts on Ocean Systems. Fellow Becca Selden (Wellesley College) and Principal Investigator Malin Pinsky (Rutgers University) also attended.

Nereus Program Director (Science) William Cheung (University of British Columbia – UBC) and Research Associates Vicky Lam (UBC) and Colette Wabnitz (UBC) recently published the working paper ‘Future scenarios and projections for fisheries on the high seas under a changing climate’. You can read the abstract and access it here.

January 25, 2019 | Climate ChangeFisheries

Nereus research associate Colette Wabnitz (UBC) recently appeared in a Reuters article, ‘Toxic seaweed a menace to Caribbean tourists’.

January 25, 2019 | Extreme EventsCoastal

Colette Wabnitz (UBC) and Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Centre) are guest editors this month for a special issue on Ocean Finance in the journal Marine Policy. Solène Guggisberg (Utrecht University) also contributes with a paper on funding fisheries projects under the climate change regime.

Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Centre), Colette Wabnitz (UBC) and Solène Guggisberg (Utrecht University) are all co-authors on a publication in the Marine Policy special issue on Ocean Finance. Their paper resulted from a two-day workshop focused on the transparency of ocean financial resources, which took place at the Stockholm Resilience Centre in December 2018.

Colette Wabnitz (UBC) and Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Centre) are co-authors on a new paper in the journal Marine Policy – ‘A global assessment of structural change in development funding for fisheries’.

Muhammed Oyinlola is lead author with Gabriel Reygondeau, Colette Wabnitz, and William Cheung as co-authors on a new study in Global Change Biology, “Projecting global mariculture diversity under climate change.” In their study, they look at how climate change will affect 85 of the most commonly farmed fish and invertebrates in coastal and open ocean areas.

Henrik Österblom and Colette Wabnitz are lead authors with many collaborators on a new Blue Paper for the High Level Panel for the Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP), “Towards Ocean Equity”, which was also the focus of a recent webinar.