People
Yoshitaka Ota
Ph.D., Anthropology
Program Director (Policy)
Director of Nippon Foundation, Ocean Nexus Center
Professor of Practice (University of Washington)
Yoshitaka Ota is Director (Policy) of the NF-UBC Nereus Program. He is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington. His main research is anthropology of fishing, assessing current global outlook of indigenous fishing and coastal food security. He also works on ocean governance and policy, marine spatial planning and knowledge communication.
Publications
Swartz W., Ishimuar G., 2014, Baseline assessment of total fisheries-related biomass removal from Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zones: 1950-2010, Fisheries Management, Fisheries Science, 80, 643-651, DOI 10.1007/s12562-014-0754-6., link
Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Pauly, D., Weatherdon, L. V., Ota, Y., 2016, A Global Estimate of Seafood Consumption by Coastal Indigenous Peoples, Fisheries, Governance, Policy, Indigenous issues, PLoS ONE, 11(12):e0166681, link
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
Miller, D. D., Ota, Y., Sumaila, U. R., Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Cheung, W. W. L., 2017, Adaptation strategies to climate change in marine systems, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.13829, link
Bennett, N. J., Teh, L., Ota, Y., Christie, P., Ayers, A., Day, J.C., Franks, P., Gill, D., Gruby, R. L., Kittinger, J. N., 2017, An appeal for a code of conduct for marine conservation, Governance, Marine Management, Marine Policy, 81, 411-418, link
Merrie A., Dunn D.C., Metian M., Boustany A.M., Takei Y., Elferink A.O., Ota Y., Christensen V., Halpin P.N., Österblom H., 2014, An ocean of surprises – Trends in human use, unexpected dynamics and governance challenges in areas beyond national jurisdiction., Governance, Transboundary Resources, Global Environmental Change, 27, 19-31, DOI 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.012, link
Kittinger, J. N., Teh, L. C. L., Allison, E. H., Bennett, N. J., Crowder, L. B., Finkbeiner, E. M., Hicks. C., Scarton, C. G., Nakamura, K., Ota, Y., Young, J., Alifano, A., Apel, A., Arbib, A. Bishop, L., Boyle, M., Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Hunter, P., Le Cornu, E., Levine, M., Jones, R. S., Koehn, Z., Marschke, M., Mason, J. G., Micheli, F., McClenachan, L., Opal, C., Peacey, J., Peckham, S. H., Schemmel, E., Solis-Rivera, V., Swartz, W., Wilhelm, T. A., 2017, Committing to socially responsible seafood, Science, 356(6341), 912-913, link
Packer, H., Swartz, W., Ota, Y., and Bailey, M. (2019). Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Practices of the Largest Seafood Suppliers in the Wild Capture Fisheries Sector: From Vision to Action. Sustainability, 11: 2254 doi:10.3390/su11082254 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 strategies, Marine Policy, link
Österblom H., Merrie A., Metian M., Boonstra W.J., Blenckner R., Watson J.R., Rykaczewski R.R., Ota Y., Sarmiento J.L., Christensen V., Schlüter M., Birnbaum S., Gustavsson B.G., Humborg C., Mörth C-M., Müeller-Karulis B., Tomczak M.T., Troell M., Folke C., 2013, Modeling social-ecological scenarios in marine systems., Marine Ecosystem, Fisheries Management, Governance, BioScience, 63, 735-744, DOI 10.1093/bioscience/63.9.735, link
Hanich Q.A., Ota Y., 2013, Moving beyond rights-based management: a transparent approach to distributing the conservation burden and benefit in tuna fisheries., Governance, Transboundary Resources, Food Security, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts – Papers, 135-170, DOI 10.1163/15718085-12341268, link
Weatherdon L., Ota Y., Jones M., Close D., Cheung W., 2016, Projected Scenarios for Coastal First Nations’ Fisheries Catch Potential under Climate Change: Management Challenges and Opportunities, Fisheries, Fisheries Management, Food Security, Climate Change, Indigenous issues, PLoS ONE, link
Tanaka T., Ota Y., 2015, Reviving the Seto Inland Sea, Japan: Applying the Principles of Satoumi for Marine Ranching Project in Okayama, Marine Ecosystem, Fisheries, Marine Management, Marine Productivity: Perturbations and Resilience of Socio-ecosystems, 291-294, link
Swartz, W., Schiller, L., U. Sumaila, R., Ota, Y., 2017, Searching for market-based sustainability pathways: Challenges and opportunities for seafood certification programs in Japan, Economics, Fisheries Management, Food Security, Marine Policy, 76, 185-191, link
Cheung, W.W.L., Jones, M.C., Lam, V.W.Y., Miller, D.D., Ota, Y., Teh, L.S.L, Sumaila, U.R., 2016, Transform high seas management to build climate resilience in marine seafood supply, Food Security, Marine Management, Fish and Fisheries, link
Singh, GG, Hilmi, N, Bernhardt, J, et al. Climate impacts on the ocean are making the Sustainable Development Goals a moving target travelling away from us. People Nat. 2019; 00: 1– 14. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.26 link
Cisneros-Montemayor, A.M., Moreno-Báez, M., Voyer, M., Allison, E.H., Cheung, W.W.L., Hessing-Lewis, M., Oyinlola, M.A., Singh, G.G., Swartz, W. and Ota, Y. (2019). Social equity and benefits as the nexus of a transformative Blue Economy: A sectoral review of implications. Marine Policy, 109: 103702. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103702
Vierros, M.K, Harrison, A.L., Sloat, M.R., Ortuño Crespo, G., Moore, J.W., Dunn, D.C., Ota, Y., Cisneros-Montemayor, A., Shillinger, G.L., Watson, T.K., & Govan, H. (2020). Considering Indigenous Peoples and local communities in governance of the global ocean commons. Marine Policy, 119: 104039. link.
Who controls the narrative on the environment? Nereus researchers have been delving deeper into work on coastal Indigenous fisheries and as they develop relationships with Indigenous community members around the world, some are starting to rethink many of the core concepts of ocean governance.
Yoshitaka Ota, Nereus Program Director (Policy), and Rashid Sumaila, OceanCanada Research Director and Nereus Program Honorary Research Associate, acted as panelists during a talk by Marjo Vierros, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability and Liu Institute Visiting Fellow, given at the Liu Institute for Global Issues on April 27th.
Nereus’s Yoshitaka Ota (Director of Policy, University of Washington) and Wilf Swartz (Program Manager, Dalhousie University) are co-authors on a recent article, entitled ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Practices of the Largest Seafood Suppliers in the Wild Capture Fisheries Sector: From Vision to Action’. In it they discuss a framework that identifies and categorizes seafood suppliers’ practices based on their approaches to issues in the wild capture fisheries sector.
Nereus Director of Policy Yoshitaka Ota acted as moderator at the International Symposium on Capacity Building for Sustainable Oceans from July 19 to 20 in Tokyo, Japan.
Nereus Director of Policy, Yoshitaka Ota, gave the keynote lecture at the 20 year anniversary symposium for Satoumi (Japanese coastal restoration) in the Okayama Prefecture in Japan.
“Emptying seas, mounting tensions in fish-hungry Asia” was published yesterday by Nikkei Asian Review. It discusses the state and future of oceans and fisheries in Asia, with increasing demand yet overfished stocks, and features insights by Nereus Director of Policy Yoshitaka Ota.
Nereus Program Director of Policy Yoshi Ota (University of Washington) attended the Association of Pacific Rim Universities’ (APRU) Annual Meeting, where he delivered a keystone speech on the interrelationships between oceans, climate change, and social equity, with an emphasis on their importance in contributing to sustainable development.
Nereus Principal Investigator Quentin Hanich (University of Wollongong) was recently named Editor-in-Chief for the journal Marine Policy and is joined by Nereus Director of Policy Yoshitaka Ota (University of Washington) and Megan Bailey (Dalhousie University) as Associate Editors.
Nereus Program Research Associate Lydia Teh (UBC), Principal Investigator Jack Kittinger (Arizona State University), and Yoshi Ota (University of Washington) joined a webinar organized by EBMTools to discuss “Socially Responsible Seafood.”
30 January 2019 - 1 February 2019
10 December 2018 - 11 December 2018
9 May 2018 - 10 May 2018
25 October 2018 - 25 October 2018
Nereus Fellow Guillermo Ortuño Crespo (Duke University) writes about the first Global Planning Meeting of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development that he, fellow Harriet Harden-Davies (ANCORS, University of Wollongong) and policy director Yoshitaka Ota (University of Washington) attended in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 13-15th.
Research associate Suzanne von der Porten, Yoshi Ota, and Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor are co-authors on a new paper published online in the journal Coastal Management – ‘The Role of Indigenous Resurgence in Marine Conservation’.
School of Marine and Environmental Affairs (SMEA) master’s student Sallie Lau (University of Washington) wrote a blog about her experience at the recent Nippon Foundation Nereus Science Conference. Both English and Chinese versions are posted here.
Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor is lead author with co-authors William Cheung, Muhammed Oyinlola, Gerald Singh, Wilf Swartz and Yoshitaka Ota on a new paper in Marine Policy – “Social equity and benefits as the nexus of a transformative Blue Economy: A sectoral review of implications”.
Research Associate Marjo Vierros is lead author with a research team that includes Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, Daniel Dunn, Director Yoshi Ota, and Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor on a new study published in Marine Policy, “Considering Indigenous Peoples and local communities in governance of the global ocean commons.”
