Written by Samantha Wong-Topp
Dr Leslie Roberson has been announced as the winner of the 2024 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award, recognised for her ground-breaking research titled Combining data and expert knowledge: working with skilled fishers to identify feasible conservation targets for threatened species.
Tackling bycatch
Within this body of work, Leslie uses her data in novel ways to find fisher- centric solutions to environmental problems in fisheries. Her project focuses on addressing bycatch – when fishers unintentionally catch species they weren’t aiming for.
“Bycatch is one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of a more sustainable global seafood supply”, Leslie says. “Traditionally, managers have tried to tackle this by setting fleet-level restrictions on fishing. These top-down approaches fail to account for the behaviour and skill of individual fishers, which has fuelled industry conflicts and failed to resolve many pressing bycatch issues. This project takes a different approach by using advanced statistical models and behaviour change theories to work with the fishing industry to identify and spread practices already used by individual ‘gold star’ fishers”.
Leslie has been involved in environmental conservation and resource management projects around the world for the past 15 years, working in Latin America, West Africa, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia. Collectively, these experiences have shaped her passion for marine conservation, now leading to her current focus on innovative fisheries management approaches. Winning the 2024 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award allows Leslie to continue pursuing this work further. “I was super excited to receive the FREA award. It’s a great award because it not only acknowledges the impact and importance of this research but also provides resources to advance the project further”.
Image credit: Olivia Graham, UQ Marketing Communications
Harvesting fishers’ knowledge
“The inspiration for this project is so simple it’s almost silly I’ve been able to publish it. The foundational idea is that instead of scientists coming up with solutions on their own, why not ask fishers how to fish better? Fishers are people, and just like all people, they don’t act the same way”, Leslie explains. “In many conversations with fishers and managers, it was clear that this idea is understood anecdotally, yet it is very rarely translated into fisheries management strategies. Over the years, working closely with industry partners, it became obvious that there’s a huge opportunity to better combine fisher knowledge with scientific data to create more effective and fair strategies for tackling bycatch”.
“The FREA will be a big boost in expanding my research, building collaborations both locally and internationally, and bringing on more people to start crunching some of these big datasets!” she says.
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