SCELG awarded Cefas consultancy on governance of recreational fisheries

September 2018: SCELG members Dr Daniela Diz & Mitchell Lennan have been awarded a consultancy from the UK’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Studies (Cefas) to produce a study assessing governance structures and legal instruments for recreational sea fishing.

The study will explore fisheries management systems in light of the ecosystem approach to fisheries as they apply to recreational sea fisheries under international law. It will also involve a comparative analysis of how international obligations have been implemented under different national frameworks (e.g. US, Australia, New Zealand, Norway). Further, the study will consider other environmental considerations (conservation measures, species protection, threats) in recreational fishing in international law and whether or to what extent these elements have been incorporated into national frameworks on recreational fishing.

The study will assess how the combination of measures addressing recreational fisheries can contribute to an effective, fair and sustainable recreational fisheries governance regime, and aid in the achievement of relevant Sustainable Development Goals.

Practice-led LLM teaching and on-the-job training for PhDs

Dr Diz teaches on the LLM in Global Environmental Law and Governance. Both the LLM and the PhD programmes hosted by SCELG are based on policy-relevant research and specifically targeted to provide students with the opportunity to contribute to consultancy projects with leading practitioners and international partners in SCELG areas of expertise (international biodiversity law and the law of the sea as well as the SDGs).

Mitchell Lennan is also involved in other SCELG projects, such consultancies to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the right to water for food and agriculture, and on market-based approaches to illegal fisheries, as well as in the externally funded research programme BENELEX, focusing on cutting-edge research on legal informatics, international biodiversity law and the human rights of indigenous peoples. He has written a blog post for the BENELEX project in relation to benefit-sharing negotiations at the International Seabed Authority.