Sustainable Oceans, Livelihoods and food Security Through Increased Capacity in Ecosystem research in the Western Indian Ocean (SOLSTICE-WIO)

世界上10%的人口依靠海洋获得容易获得的蛋白质和就业来源，其中大多数(95%)生活在发展中国家。贫穷的沿海社区处于气候变化影响的前沿，再加上人口增长和粮食需求，但对未来挑战的适应能力最差。SOLSTICE-WIO将重点关注东非九个发展中国家和岛国的沿海社区，这些社区在文化和生态上相互关联，统称为西印度洋(WIO)地区。所有九个国家(南非、毛里求斯、塞舌尔、肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚、莫桑比克、索马里、马达加斯加、科摩罗)都在官方发展援助受援国名单上，其中五个国家被确定为最不发达国家。在世界渔业组织，有1亿多人生活在海洋100公里以内，其中相当大一部分受雇于当地渔业。这使得该地区高度依赖海洋实现经济稳定、粮食安全和社会凝聚力。这些沿海社区应对过度捕捞、栖息地破坏和日益增加的环境压力造成的鱼类种群急剧减少的适应能力有限--所有这些都因气候变化而加剧。WIO渔业的衰落产生了深刻的社会政治影响，从海盗行为的抬头到普遍的政治不稳定。鱼类资源减少的破坏性影响的一个明显例子是南非Chokka鱿鱼渔业的崩溃。Solstice-WIO将利用这一案例研究来展示人类-生态系统-渔业研究的整体方法的优势以及它可以提供的潜在解决方案。鱿鱼渔业在南非最有价值的渔业中排名第四，为这个最贫穷的省份之一带来了外汇。它直接雇用了5000名渔民和3万名家属。2013年的坠机事件对东开普省造成了毁灭性的影响，但根本原因尚不清楚：当地渔民认为，坍塌是由环境变化造成的。在了解崩溃背后的机制之前，几乎没有帮助复苏或指导适应的潜力。Solstice-WIO将提供这一迫切需要的理解，以帮助渔业和政府了解当地生态系统的命运，它是否会恢复，以及崩溃是否可以预测或防止。Solstice将如何实现这一点？海洋生物资源稳定的关键在于渔业的生态系统方法(EAF)，该方法将人-自然系统视为一个整体、综合的实体，而不是单独考虑个别目标物种。简单地说：你不能管理你不理解的东西，也不能通过管理改进来适应变化，除非你能描述、衡量和理解变化。Solstice-WIO的核心优势在于其对粮食安全的综合方法，借鉴了英国在物理海洋学、海洋生态学、自主观测、环境经济学和人文方面的专业知识，以及WIO在渔业、海洋经济和区域政策制定方面的专业知识。Solstice-WIO将为该地区提供最先进的技术，以提供具有成本效益的海洋研究，并提供所需信息，以最大限度地利用该地区的海洋生物资源。在英国，海洋机器人、海洋模型和来自卫星观测的新型数据产品在过去十年中发展迅速，现在为欧洲的蓝色经济和海洋治理奠定了基础。这些技术高度灵活，随时可以作为最大限度地了解和可持续开发海洋生物资源的成本效益方法应用于发展中国家。这种“技术飞跃”可以克服世界知识产权组织严重缺乏研究船的问题，并省去了从零开始开发预测模型系统的数十年努力。

Ten percent of the world's population depend on the ocean for a readily accessible source of protein and employment, with the majority (95%) living in developing countries. Poor coastal communities are at the frontier for climate change impacts, compounded by population growth and food demand, but are among the least resilient to the challenges of the future.SOLSTICE-WIO will focus on coastal communities in nine developing countries and island states in eastern Africa, interlinked culturally and ecologically and collectively known as the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. All nine (South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Somalia, Madagascar, Comoros) are on the list of Official Development Aid recipients, with five identified as Least Developed Countries.In the WIO over 100 million people live within 100 km of the ocean, with a significant proportion employed in local fisheries. This leaves the region highly dependent on the ocean for economic stability, food security, and social cohesion. These coastal communities have limited adaptive capacity to cope with dramatic reductions in fish stocks caused by overfishing, habitat destruction, and increasing environmental pressures - all aggravated by climate change. The decline of WIO fisheries has had profound socio-political ramifications, from the rise of piracy to general political instability. A clear example of the devastating effect of a fish stock reduction is the collapse of the Chokka Squid fishery in South Africa. SOLSTICE-WIO will use this as a case study to demonstrate the strengths of a holistic approach to human-ecosystem-fisheries research and the potential solutions this can offer. The squid fishery was the 4th most valuable fishery in South Africa, bringing foreign currency into one of the poorest provinces. It was directly employing 5000 fishermen with 30,000 dependents. The 2013 crash had a devastating effect on the Eastern Cape, yet the underlying reasons are unknown: local fishermen believe the collapse was caused by environmental change. Until the mechanisms behind the collapse are understood, there is little potential for aiding recovery or guiding adaptation. SOLSTICE-WIO will provide this urgently needed understanding to help inform the fishery and Government as to the fate of the local ecosystem, whether it will recover, and whether the crash could have been predicted or prevented. How will SOLSTICE achieve this?The key to stability of living marine resources lies in an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF), which sees human-natural systems as a whole, integrated entity rather than separately considering individual target species. Simply put: you cannot manage something you don't understand, nor can you adapt to change through management improvements unless you can describe, measure and understand the changes. The core strength of SOLSTICE-WIO lies in its integral approach to food security, drawing on UK expertise in physical oceanography, marine ecology, autonomous observations, environmental economics and the human dimension,and WIO expertise in fisheries, the marine economy and regional policy development.SOLSTICE will provide the region with the state-of-the-art technology to deliver cost-effective marine research and provide the information needed to achieve maximum potential from the region's living marine resources. In the UK marine robotics, ocean models and novel data products from satellite observations have developed rapidly in the last decade, and now underpin Blue Economies and Ocean Governance in Europe. These technologies are highly agile and ready to be applied in the developing world as cost-effective ways to maximise understanding and sustainable exploitation of living marine resources. Such "technology leapfrogging" can overcome the severe lack of research ships in the WIO and save decades of effort in developing predictive modelling systems from scratch.