Projects

Remote illumination of small-scale fishery impacts in Sarawak, Malaysia

Overview:  An integrated masters in biological sciences under primary supervisor Gwilym Rowlands, co-supervised by Hollie Booth.

Outline of research:

Using methods previously developed using Google Earth to monitor fisheries in other areas of the world, to robustly identify and estimate proxies for the impacts of, small-scale fisheries in Sarawak, Malaysia with scope for future in-situ field validation.

Objectives:

1. Identify and characterise potentially unknown small-scale fisheries, and develop a database of their locations and characteristics.

2. Validate a portion of the data, by comparing findings with locations previously reported in the literature.

3. Analyse the data, to make inferences regarding the size and potential coverage of these small-scale fleets, and identify discrepancies with published literature.

4. Develop a sampling protocol for further field-based data collection to build on and validate the findings.

(Planned) Project outputs:

A database of potential landing sites and their observed and estimated characteristics, for use in further research / management. A mechanism for remotely estimating unmonitored fleets coverage and impact through fishing intensity, readily translatable to other areas of the Coral Triangle. As well as a sampling protocol for further research to validate and build upon.