Robert Blasiak, Nereus Fellow at Stockholm Resilience centre, has published a new study on climate change vulnerability.

By Robert Blasiak, Nereus Program Fellow at Stockholm Resilience Centre

Fachidiot! This wonderfully direct word from the German language describes a person who knows their subject (Fach), and nothing else. It was on my mind recently as I read articles in a new special issue of the journal Ecology & Society on “Reconciling Art and Science for Sustainability”. The issue is filled with contributions from scientists and artists who have in some sense travelled into unknown and unfamiliar territory, and discovered along the way that this was feeding innovation and adding value to their work.

By Robert Blasiak, Nereus Program Fellow at Stockholm University

Let’s turn the clock back 113 years. The prominent German zoologist Franz Doflein is about to embark on a two-year journey with the dream of becoming one of the first scientists to study the marine flora and fauna of the deep-sea trenches off the coast of Japan. Reports that the Japanese and Russian empires have just declared war on each other are troubling, yet months of preparation cannot be abandoned, and in the summer of 1904, he boards the Prince Heinrich, a steamship bound for East Asia.

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.

Nereus fellow Robert Blasiak writes about the negotiations at the United Nations (UN) on conserving biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ), and the timely appearance of marine genetic resources in the mainstream media.

Nereus fellows Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Center) and Harriet Harden-Davies (University of Wollongong) both appear in The New York Times article ‘What 13,000 Patents Involving the DNA of Sea Life Tell Us About the Future’. Both fellows attended the United Nations debate earlier in September, about the future global legal framework for genetic resources on the high seas, and were interviewed for the article.

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.

Nereus research fellow Jessica Spijkers’s (Stockholm Resilience Centre – SRC) recent publication on the rise in international fisheries conflicts is the focus of an article in Hakai Magazine – ‘International Fish Fights on the Rise’.

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’.

Robert Blasiak and Henrik Österblom from the Stockholm Resilience Centre are part of a research team on a new publication in One Earth, “The Blue Acceleration: The Trajectory of Human Expansion into the Ocean.” You can read a short summary and access the article here.

Nereus alumnus Robert Blasiak (Stockholm Resilience Centre) wrote an article for The Conversation about the newest publication he co-authored concerning the Blue Acceleration. You can read it and access the original article here.