The interactive action thriller ‘Full Metal Aquatic’ was performed online on February 1st and 2nd 2022 to celebrate the launch of the Future Seas Project and to showcase the upcoming Future Seas special issue in the journal Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. ‘Full Metal Aquatic’, written by David Finnigan and Jordan Prosser in collaboration with researchers from the Future Seas project and animated by Sacha Bryning, is set in the ocean a decade from now and takes place in two different futures – one we hope to see and one we want to prevent. It is designed to explore what our future could feasibly look like, depending on the actions we take now. Watch the video to find out the whole story!
Watch the recording here
What future did YOU prefer?
The online performance was followed by a game and discussion which unpacked the critical forces that are shaping the future of our oceans. Participants were divided into groups each representing a local authority responsible for managing a stretch of coastline. Each group was given the same budget and a list of twelve possible projects aimed at improving resource management, climate and ecosystem financing, research and education. Each group was then asked to spend its budget on a selection of projects based on the project’s costs and positive impacts in diverse areas related to ecosystem health, climate resilience, community development, food systems, and community connectedness. At the end of the game, each group was given a snapshot summary of what its coastline would look like in 2030 as an outcome of the group’s decisions.
Watch the game instructions here and find the game rules here. Enjoy!
The interactive action thriller ‘Full Metal Aquatic’ was performed online on February 1st and 2nd 2022 to celebrate the launch of the Future Seas Project and to showcase the upcoming Future Seas special issue in the journal Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. ‘Full Metal Aquatic’, written by David Finnigan and Jordan Prosser in collaboration with researchers from the Future Seas project and animated by Sacha Bryning, is set in the ocean a decade from now and takes place in two different futures – one we hope to see and one we want to prevent. It is designed to explore what our future could feasibly look like, depending on the actions we take now. Watch the video to find out the whole story!
What future did YOU prefer?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released the second part of its 6th Assessment Report – Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, based on the work from IPCC Working Group II.
To coincide with the release of this report, the first global update on climate change since 2014, the Centre for Marine Socioecology (CMS) hosted an in person and online forum on Tuesday 1 March at 12:00 pm AEDT to help inform and support policy makers and those interested in how Australia can reduce its vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.
The Working Group II contribution of the IPCC report assesses global and local impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity, societies, cultures and settlements. It further addresses the vulnerabilities, capabilities and limits of the natural world and societies to adapt to climate change, and informs efforts to reduce climate-associated risk. This builds on the published Working Group I contribution on the physical basis of climate change, and not-yet released Working Group III contribution on climate change mitigation.
The panel hosted by CMS included CMS Lead Authors of the IPCC assessment report and climate experts from CSIRO and IMAS, and discussed the new report findings and what they mean for Australia and Antarctica.
The panel was held in Hobart/nipaluna at the University of Tasmania on the 1st of March 2022, and was attended by approximately 200 people (in-person and online).
Topics covered included:
The event also included a tribute to UTAS IPCC Lead Author Dr Rebecca Harris who sadly passed away at the end of 2021, and a short welcome introduction by UTAS Vice Chancellor Professor Rufus Black.
Please watch the recording here (note, this is an automated webinar recording, professional video production was not available).
Redmap (the Range Extension Database and Mapping Project), led by Prof Gretta Pecl, was included as a citizen science case study in the State of the Marine and Coastal Environment 2021 Report. Learn more here.
This section of the report, "Citizen scientists helping track unusual marine species", was written in collaboration with CMS Director Prof Gretta Pecl and CMS member Dr Barrett Wolfe.
The Centre for Marine Socioecology is a partner institution of the Global Ecosystem for Ocean Solutions Programme (GEOS).
The goal of the GEOS Programme is to support the development, testing, and deployment of equitable, durable, and scalable ocean-based solutions for addressing complex ocean health and climate challenges. The GEOS ecosystem will work through three building blocks: the (1) the GEOS Network, which brings together international partners representing a multi-sector community of researchers, engineers, innovators, investors, and decision-makers, (2) the GEOS Task Forces, which will engage the Ocean Decade’s Community of Practice and the GEOS Network to co-design solutions “roadmaps” that identify critical research and innovation needs and articulate a shared vision and agenda to advance ocean-based solutions,, and (3) the GEOS Innovation Engine, which will use the roadmaps as blueprints to catalyze action for co-creating new Decade Actions and activating the research, startup, industry and civil society innovation ecosystem to prototype and deploy those solutions for system-level impacts.
Prof Gretta Pecl has been appointed to CORDIO’s new Advisory Board.
CORDIO (Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean) East Africa is a non-profit research organization, registered in Kenya, with a network of projects, collaborators and partners that extends across the Indian Ocean. CORDIO specialises in generating knowledge to find solutions that benefit marine ecosystems and people. CORDIO has released a new Strategic Plan for the next 5 years to address the mission to improve the health and resilience of marine ecosystems and coastal peoples’ well-being in the Western Indian Ocean.
Congratulations to CMS’s most recent PhD graduate Dr Hannah Fogarty for her PhD on "Climate ready: identifying adaptation preparedness in Australia’s State fisheries", supervised by Prof Gretta Pecl, Dr Alistair Hobday and Dr Chris Cvitanovic.
Read publication here
