Cafe Sci - Brave New Ocean: Ecosystem Health, Livelihoods and Food Security with Fiorenza Micheli

The ocean has entered an era of upheaval – propelled by climate change, overfishing, coastal development, pollution, plastics, and other stressors. The results of this are unprecedented risks to ocean ecosystems and to the people who depend upon them, but also unprecedented opportunities for technological advances, multi-stakeholder action and political momentum. Fiorenza Micheli will present examples of how small-scale fishing communities and island nations are developing innovative solutions needed to support ocean health and human well-being in the face of this upheaval. Fiorenza Micheli is a marine ecologist and conservation biologist conducting research and teaching at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, where she is also the David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science and the Co-director, along with Jim Leape, of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions. Micheli’s research focuses on the processes shaping marine communities and incorporating this understanding into the management and conservation of marine ecosystems. Her current research projects investigate social and ecological drivers of the resilience of small-scale fisheries to climatic impacts in Baja California, Mexico; the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of coastal hypoxia and ocean acidification in the California Current large marine ecosystem; the ecological role and spatial ecology of parrotfish and reef sharks in the coral reefs of the Pacific Line Islands; the effects of ocean acidification on seagrass, rocky reef and kelp forest communities; and the performance and management of marine-protected areas in the Mediterranean Sea. Micheli is also a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and senior fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment.