Human Ecology has been a research area that provides us with conceptual, empirical and practical connections between humans and natural resources. In that regard, it provides interesting modelling processes based upon evolutionary ecology (such as optimal foraging theory and cultural transmission models), cultural ecology (food preferences), and ecological economics (trade-off of decision making-processes), among other research lines. Small-scale fisheries have been dealing with resource fluctuations and changes, which affects their food security. In that regard, baselines are reference points that need to be approached through different perspectives, such as human perception, history and ecological estimates. In this lecture, an overview is provided concerning the human ecology of small-scale fisheries, illustrating with examples from South America and focusing on some of the aspects that surrounds their food security.

About the speaker

Alpina Begossi is an ecologist specialising in Fisheries and in Human Ecology. She is a Researcher at UNICAMP, a Professor at UNISANTA, and Research Director of Fisheries and Food Institute. With a PhD in ecology and a post doc in ecological economics, Alpina has been researching fisheries of the Atlantic Forest coast and of the Amazon in Brazil for more than 25 years. She studies fisheries on the research themes of ecological models (optimal foraging theory), ethnobiology, reef fisheries and food security.