Dr Josie South

Can you tell us about your research, work and expertise in Southeast Asia?

My work in Indonesia focuses on sustainable management and conservation of freshwater and marine fishes.

I work closely with Universitas Airlangga, Universitas Bangka-Belitong and an NGO The Tangokkers on the conservation of critically endangered peat swamp fishes on Bangka-Belitung Island. This covers species descriptions, biological inventories, population assessments and threat assessment and mitigation to provide conservation actions aswell as sustainable harvesting recommendations for the aquarium trade.

We have recently started a marine fisheries project to develop more robust methods to determine sustainable harvesting for the marine ornamental aquarium trade. Results will be fed into policy and used in CITES assessments.