NERC funded PhD Student
Current research
Stephen’s interests lie in ensuring the sustainable management and exploitation of natural resources, particularly in marine environments. His research has addressed fishery management in the UK, Madagascar and now Greenland.
PhD project - Sustainable fishing in Greenland: impact of deep-sea trawling on benthic ecosystems
The entrance of Greenland’s fisheries to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification scheme has highlighted the paucity of knowledge on the impacts of bottom-trawling on deep-sea benthic ecosystems in the Arctic. This PhD research contributes to a wider project to explore benthic communities and the impacts of trawling in the Greenland halibut fishery, using photographic, video, bycatch and environmental data. This is part of an ongoing collaboration between ZSL and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR). Further the PhD research will conduct a critical evaluation of the role of the MSC certification scheme in fishery governance, with wider applications to the management of deep-sea fisheries and those engaged in the MSC certification scheme.
Community-based lobster fishery management in southeast Madagascar
SEED Madagascar's Project Oratsimba began in 2013, and aimed to establish community-based lobster fishery management, including the introduction of periodic No Take Zones, in Sainte Luce, southeast Madagascar. This led to Sainte Luce being established as locally managed mairne area (LMMA), with local fishers now being active contributors to MIHARI – Madagascar’s LMMA network. Findings from participatory fisheries monitoring,established in 2015, have been used to inform local management with applications to small-scale fisheries across the Western Indian Ocean.
With funding from the Darwin Initiative the project has now entered a refinement and scale-up phase. Stephen continues to provides onoing technical support to the participatory fisheries monitoring programme now scaled up to three communities. Further, in collaboration with UCL, the Sainte Luce LMMA has now been subject to a critical governance analysis, employing the Marine Protected Area Governance (MPAG) framework.
Past research
The Fal oyster fishery, Cornwall, has been in operation since Roman times and is the last remaining commercial sailing fleet in Europe. Fishers continue to employ traditional methods, deploying hand-hauled dredges and from sailing boats and rowing punts. This offers a stark counterfactual to the increasing power and mechanisation of commercial fisheries in the last 100 years. Working with collaborators at the University of Exeter, data from GPS loggers on boats and fisheries monitoring data was combined to gain insights into this unique fishery.
Ongoing involvement in a long-term terrestrial ecological monitoring project in the dry-forest and mangroves of the Mahamavo watershed, northwest Madagascar. The project combines multi-taxa survey data with remote sensing to understand long-term trends and inform conservation. This is achieved through collaboration between the University of Oxford, Operation Wallacea, Development and Biodiversity Conservation Action Madagascar (DBCAM) and the community of Mariarano.
Supervision and funding
Funding is provided as part of the London NERC Doctoral Training Programme (DTP). The project is supervised by: Dr Chris Yesson, Institute of Zoology; Dr Kirsty Kemp, Institute of Zoology; Dr Peter Jones, University College London; and Dr Martin Blicher, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.
Curriculum vitae
2018 - 2021: Consultant to SEED Madagascar's Darwin Initiative Project
2016 - present: London NERC DTP PhD Studentship, Institute of Zoology and University College London
2014 - 2017: Database Manager and Lecturer, Operation Wallacea
2015 - 2016: Marine Research Co-ordinator, SEED Madagascar
2013 - 2014: MSc Conservation and Biodiversity, University of Exeter
2009 - 2012: BSc Biology, University of Durham
Publications
Long, S., Jones, P.J.S., Zoavina, R. and Hadj-Hammou, J. (In press) Governance analysis of a community managed small-scale crab fishery in Madagascar: novel use of an empirical framework. Marine Policy https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.11.022
Long, S. (2017) Short-term impacts and value of a periodic no take zone (NTZ) in a community-managed small-scale lobster fishery, Madagascar. PLOS ONE Link
Long, S., Ffrench-Constant. R, Metcalfe, K. and Witt, M.J. (2017) Have centuries of inefficient fishing sustained a wild oyster fishery: a case study. Fish Aqua J 8:198. doi: 10.4172/2150-3508.1000198
