Former centre Master’s student wins Swedish award for best Master's science theses in the marine sciences

The Swedish Society for Marine Sciences (SHF) have selected Vera Telemo’s M.Sc. thesis as winner of their annual Dyrssen award. The award is given to the author of the best Swedish bachelor and master science theses in the marine sciences. It consists of a price sum of 15000 Swedish Crowns and an invitation to present at the Swedish Marine Science conference to be held in Göteborg 6-7 November.

Committed but sceptical

Telemo’s thesis investigates the commitment and willingness of Swedish fishers to uphold the landing obligation. This new regulation is recently introduced to halt the widespread practice of discarding dead fish. The Landing Obligation (LO) forces fishers to land all catch and requires monitoring at sea rather than on land. Monitoring at sea is particularly difficult to enforce. Based on this, the perceived legitimacy of the policy among fishers is believed to be of greatest importance to ensure successful implementation.

Telemo concludes that Swedish fishers express a dual commitment towards upholding the LO. On the one hand, they are committed to avoiding bycatch, which is shown by a positive attitude towards the use and development of selective gear. On the other hand, they are also skeptical about the practical implementation of the LO, which they perceive at times as incoherent and overtly complex.

Future projects: resilient mill towns

On the basis of her work, Vera Telemo suggests to improve sustainability in fisheries through redirecting attention from an exclusive focus on compliance with regulation to fishers’ commitment to policies.

Currently, she is setting up her own company and project focused on investigating what a future resilient “mill town” could look like. The project aims to explore questions on how life on the countryside can be lived within the planetary boundaries and how the polarization between urban and rural and within rural citizens can be addressed.