Coastal human ecology (CHE) for environmental management and conservation

Abstract:

CHE is not a particular theory or a single approach but a collection of lines of research that address human-environmental interactions in coastal and marine systems at the local scale and through long-term fieldwork. More specifically, CHE is the study of how humans adapt (biologically, cognitively, culturally) and transform (ecologically, socioeconomically, and politically) coastal and nearshore marine environments. The relevance of CHE for marine resource management and conservation is discussed in this seminar.

Biography:

Shankar Aswani Canela is Professor of Anthropology and Ichthyology and Fisheries Science at Rhodes Univdersity, South Africa. His research has focused on a diversity of subjects including property rights and common property resources, marine IEK/ethnobiology, vulnerability and resilience of coastal communities, human behavioral ecology of fishing, economic anthropology, tourism, ethnohistory, and historical and applied anthropology among other subjects. Besides his 30 years of research in Oceania, he is now involved in projects in Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, Canary Islands, and South Africa among other countries.