Research focus
Trained as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, I am strongly interested in human-ocean interactions for the conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystems. My research history consists of a wide range of fields: from sustainable tourism, climate change adaptation, international development cooperation between the global North and South to coral reef and reef fish ecology and their functional biogeography. Besides this, I am an underwater photographer and am passionate about enhancing ocean literacy as well as contributing to education and outreach activities regarding marine conservation and climate change.
Current research topic
My work contributes to the CREATE project, which is part of the DAM research mission sustainMare and which aims to develop concepts for reducing the impacts of anthropogenic pressures and uses on marine ecosystems and biodiversity. In particular, I am focusing on the governance of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the German North Sea for the conservation of mobile marine predators such as the harbour porpoise (Phocoena Phocoena) and am assessing the opportunity to establish dynamic MPAs that cross different and transboundary jurisdictions from an institutional perspective. This I will compare to a similar situation in a socio-economically different region in West Africa, where local communities - due to declining fish resources - increasingly catch sharks and other predators as they are heavily dependent on fisheries for their livelihoods.
Master thesis
Homes, W. (2021). Quantifying the state of the coral reef ecosystem in relation to biophysical benthic and pelagic indicators and biological drivers of change in the Saba National Marine Park, Dutch Caribbean. Master thesis, Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Uppsala: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Responsibilities
- since October 2022: Doctoral candidates' representatives