Merle Sowman

I have been working with coastal fishing communities in southern Africa on issues of rights, social justice, environmental sustainability and governance over the past 25 years. This work has included serving on a National Task Team and Technical Task Team to develop a small-scale fisheries policy for South Africa (promulgated in 2012), working with communities to challenge top-down plans to declare marine protected areas, developing guidelines for integrating human rights principles and socio-economic considerations into marine protected area planning and management, and analyzing policy processes that affect the cultural practices, food security and livelihoods of coastal communities. More recent work has focused on developing and applying a vulnerability assessment tool in fishing communities living along the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem region, and based on this information, developing local climate adaptation plans.