Title: International Conflict and Food Security in Pacific Fisheries
Speaker: Keiko Nomura, ESIIL

Abstract:

Keiko Nomura is a marine social-ecological systems scientist focused on fisheries sustainability and marine resource management. Her ocean-centered research has covered topics like marine spatial planning, small-scale fisheries adaptation, and conflict and cooperation in international fisheries. She combines quantitative network and spatial analyses with qualitative governance contexts to address key questions on ocean resource use. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at ESIIL, she is now exploring how social-ecological factors influence seafood trade in the Pacific and, in turn, how this supports food security and sustainable development in the region. The Pacific Ocean supports diverse, highly productive fishing grounds - supplying most of the world’s tuna, providing essential income, and attracting fishing fleets from around the world. Such a globalized fisheries system requires coordination across scales and actors to ensure sustainable fishing and development goals. In this presentation, we will explore two aspects of globalization affecting fisheries in the Pacific: i.) fisheries conflict and ii.) seafood trade. In the first part of this talk, I will present a paper assessing the risk of international fisheries conflicts stemming from spatial competition and long-standing rivalries. Leveraging publicly available data on these factors, we are able to identify both actors and regions that may be at risk of conflict due to shared international resource use. Additionally, I will discuss my ongoing research at ESIIL about international seafood trade and implications for food security in Pacific Island countries. By combining fisheries trade data and nutrition data, we assess the net nutrient flows between countries and their roles in distributing fisheries-derived nutrients globally.

Speaker Bio:

Keiko Nomura is a marine social-ecological systems scientist focused on fisheries sustainability and marine resource management. Her ocean-centered research has covered topics like marine spatial planning, small-scale fisheries adaptation, and conflict and cooperation in international fisheries. She combines quantitative network and spatial analyses with qualitative governance contexts to address key questions on ocean resource use. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at ESIIL, she is now exploring how social-ecological factors influence seafood trade in the Pacific and, in turn, how this supports food security and sustainable development in the region.