Speakers

Invited Speakers

Dr Mahfuzuddin Ahmed

Dr Mahfuzuddin Ahmed is Principal Social Scientist and Director for Policy, Economics and Social Science of the WorldFish Center. since 1996. Dr. Ahmed is currently the President and Chair of the Board of the International Institute for Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET). Also, an adjunct associate professor if UPLB, Philippines, Dr. Ahmed is currently scientific adviser to the International Foundation for Science and associate editor of Asian Fisheries Science Journal. He has recently co-authored a book on the future of fish entitled “Fish to 2020-Supply Demand in Changing Markets”. Living in Southeast Asia since mid-1980s he worked for the Mekong River Commission, D ANID A, Asian Development Bank and Center for Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific (CIRD AP). His current work focuses on trade, market access, poverty reduction and sustainable governance of fisheries. He is a member of the Board of Trustee of Bangladesh Shrimp and Fish Foundation.

Prof Ragnar Arnason

Ragnar Arnason is a professor of fisheries economics and the chairman of the Institute of Economic Studies at the University of Iceland. Professor Arnason has primarily conducted his research in the area fisheries economics and fisheries management where he has a publication record of over 100 scientific articles and several books. Professor Arnason has played an important role in the development of the Icelandic tradable fisheries quota system (ITQs). He was a member of the country's Committee on Natural Resources which was charged with the responsibility of proposing the best arrangements for natural resource utilization. Professor Arnason has also provided advice on fisheries management and environmental issues to the governments of several countries in Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

Dr Pablo Vigliano

Dr. Pablo Vigliano has a Licenship in Zoology (UNLP) and a Doctor in Natural Sciences degree. (La Plata University, Argentina). He is Senior Scientist of National University of Comahue (UNCo), Argentina and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Biology of UNCo. He presently directs the Fish Resources Evaluation and Management Group of UNCo, conducting several research projects on recreational fisheries, fish ecology and fish feeding in lakes and rivers of Patagonia , Argentina. He has published about 50 research papers, book chapters and technical reports. He has one Master Science student and two Doctoral students under his direction or co-direction and has supervised other three postgraduate students in the past.

Dr Wendy Craik

Dr Wendy Craik took up her position as Chief Executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) on 26 August 2004.

Prior to this Wendy was President of the National Competition Council, Chair of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and Chair of the National Rural Advisory Council. Other former positions include Chief Executive Officer of Earth Sanctuaries Ltd, a publicly listed company specialising in conservation and eco tourism, Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation, Australia’s peak farm lobby group, and Executive Officer of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, responsible for the conservation and management of the Great Barrier Reef. She has also worked as a consultant for AcilTasman Consulting.

Wendy is a member of the Board of the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, and of the Minter Ellison National Government Advisory Board. She has been a member of a variety of other Boards and advisory councils.

Wendy has extensive experience in organisational and natural resource management. She completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the Australian National University, a PhD in Zoology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and has a Graduate Diploma of Management from the then Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education.

Wendy was awarded Executive Woman of the Year for the Rural Sector in 1998, and Telstra Ansett Australia Private Sector Business Woman of the Year for the ACT in 1999. She was awarded a Federation medal in 2003.

Mr. Alastair Graham

Alastair Graham is a lifelong conservationist active at state, national and international levels on a range of issues, including development of the international Convention on Biological Diversity and the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.  Presently a member of the national Biodiversity Advisory Committee and the Management of Australia's Biodiversity Hotspots Advisory Committee and an NGO representative on government delegations to selected international oceans meetings (CCAMLR and UNICPOLOS).  Established and managed ISOFISH, with financial and operational support from Austral Fisheries and the Commonwealth Government to document and expose the activities of poachers of Patagonian toothfish in the Southern Ocean, including formalisation and elaboration of the concept of IUU fishing. 

Currently working for WWF(International) on high seas governance reform to establish enforceable rules for eliminating IUU fishing, and to ensure integration of oceans management and ecosystem based management of marine living resources exploitation, including the establishment of MPAs.

Prof Gordon Munro

Gordon Munro is Professor Emeritus with the Department of Economics, and the Fisheries Centre, at the University of British Columbia. He is, as well, a Distinguished Research Fellow with the Norwegian Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration. For over 30 years, he has devoted most of his research activities to the study of fisheries management problems, domestic and international, and has published extensively on the subject. In this research, he has given particular attention to the fisheries management problems arising under the New Law of the Sea. In so doing, he published a pioneering, and widely cited, article of the economics of the management of internationally shared fishery resources.

He gained perspective on the problems of developing international fisheries cooperation in practice by serving the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), from 1984-1996, as the Coordinator of the PECC Fisheries Task Force. He has served on panels with the National Research Council (USA), and the Royal Society of Canada. He has undertaken consultation work for the governments of Canada and the UK, the OECD, the FAO.

He is currently doing consultation work for the UN sponsored project on the Benguela Large Marine Ecosystem (South Africa, Namibia and Angola). In 2001-2002,he worked as a consultant, with the FAO, in the mounting of the Norway-FAO Expert Consultation on the Management of Shared Fish Stocks. The Expert Consultation subsequently led him to co-author, with two FAO colleagues, a recently published FAO Fisheries Technical Paper on the legal and economic aspects of this issue. In 2004 he was doubly recognized. He was presented with the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET) Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to the advancement of fisheries economics, and an international conference on fisheries economics and management was held in his honour.

Dr Peter Rogers

As Executive Director of the Department of Fisheries since 1991, Peter Rogers has overseen a dramatic transformation of the agency.

From being principally focused on the commercial fishing sector since its formation, the Department of Fisheries' responsibilities have developed into other key areas over the past decade.

These include sustainably managing recreational fisheries; overseeing the development of aquaculture, further development of customary fishing principles and the protection of fish habitats.  Dr Rogers’ role in the Department of Fisheries has been integral to the implementation of Ecological Sustainable Development of fisheries and their reporting and dealing with allocation under a now Government-adopted Integrated Fisheries Management framework.

Dr Rogers has worked for the Department of Fisheries for all but two of the last 32 years, accumulating a broad experience and specialist knowledge of all facets of fisheries resource management.

This commitment to fisheries management and the community of Western Australia was publicly recognised when Peter was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science from Murdoch University in April 2005.

Dr Rogers is a former chairman of the Western Australian Rock Lobster Industry Advisory Committee [RLIAC], which oversees the nation's most valuable single species fishery, and which is regarded as one of the best managed in Australia.  He remains a member of the committee and also of the Pearling Industry Advisory Committee (PIAC).

Dr Rogers has visited over 20 countries examining their fisheries and aquaculture projects, often providing advice on management practices. These include Indonesia and Oman. He has also been a member of trade missions to Taiwan, India and the United States.

He has a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science (Agric.) Honours, both from the University of Western Australia, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD).

Dr Chandrika Sharma

Ms. Chandrika Sharma is the Executive Secretary of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), an international NGO based in Chennai, India. ICSF draws its mandate from the International Conference of Fishworkers and their Supporters in Rome in 1984. Founded in Trivandrum, India, in 1986, the organization has members in 18 countries, two thirds of whom are from countries of the South. Since then ICSF has been acting as a catalyst to influence decision-making processes in relation to marine fisheries and to support artisanal fishworker organizations. As part of its efforts towards disseminating information for and about small-scale fisheries, particularly in countries of the South, ICSF brings out the SAMUDRA Report and Yemaya (a newsletter on gender and fisheries) three times a year. It also beings out SAMUDRA News Alerts electronically on a daily basis.

Ms Alison Thom

Alison Thom is currently the Deputy Secretary, Relationships & Information Wāhanga, responsible for Regional Operations within Te Puni Kōkiri (Ministry of Māori Development), based in Wellington, New Zealand. In her previous role for three and a half years, Alison was the Chief Executive for Te Rūnanga A Iwi O Ngapuhi, the representative body for New Zealand’s largest populated tribal group. In this role she worked on behalf of the iwi (tribe) to influence the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Settlement to be reflective of Ngapuhi’s rights and interests, as well as turning around and managing Ngapuhi Fisheries Ltd into a $1.5m profit after tax Company.

Prof Rosemary Rayfuse

Dr Rosemary Rayfuse is an Associate Professor and the Director of International Law Programs in the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Professor Rayfuse specialises in public international law and, in recent years, her research has focused on the Law of the Sea and International Fisheries Law with particular reference to the issues of sustainability and compliance and enforcement in high seas fisheries. She has provided advice on the international legal aspects of high seas fisheries management and high seas enforcement regimes to the EC and the Australian and Canadian governments and to a number of regional fisheries management organisations and NGOs involved in fisheries and ocean’s governance issues.

...Keynote Speakers >