Research project Seagrass biodiversity, social-ecological systems and poverty alleviation:

This project studies the joint influence of biodiversity and characteristics of people to alleviate poverty. We use a comparative study of small-scale fisheries across the Indo-Pacific Ocean region to investigate human use and dependence on seagrass ecosystems; the highly productive but largely neglected ‘ugly duckling of marine conservation’. We hypothesize that seagrass beds are ‘the ecosystem of last resort’, providing food and income to vulnerable people when other ecosystems fail. We have together with colleagues from many countries formed the Indo-Pacific Seagrass Network (IPSN) and performed coupled socioecological surveys across environmental and socio-economic gradients, to address 3 questions: 1) does seagrass biodiversity support the production of invertebrate resources, 2) do seagrass fisheries support livelihoods, and how is this role influenced by characteristics of people, 3) what are the main obstacles for sustainable use of seagrass meadows to alleviate poverty.