UConn, Sea Grant’s Bob Pomeroy: Devoted to Enhancing Marine Ecosystems Across the World

[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Fall-Winter 2020-21 issue of Wrack Lines, the magazine of the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program, located at UConn Avery Point.]

Rising up on Cape Cod, Bob Pomeroy spent many hours crusing, clamming and fishing.

He knew industrial fishermen personally, and appreciated their frankness.

“They all the time mentioned they hated the federal government telling them what to do,” he recalled.

The extra he listened, he started to marvel: was there a greater method to make sure the preservation of each fish and fishermen? May a partnership of fishermen and authorities regulators work higher than the top-down method?

Discovering solutions to these questions turned a lifelong pursuit. It took him far bodily for months at a time from the waters of the boyhood residence he beloved, however by no means in spirit. Honoring relationships with each the folks and surroundings of the ocean would all the time information him.

“It’s actually been an thrilling life,” mentioned Pomeroy. “I’ve traveled and labored in additional than 70 international locations. I’ve had this nomad life. I’ve had numerous houses however I actually love the Philippines [where he met his wife Leni]. I’ve household there and numerous pals.”

At age 67, Pomeroy is wanting again with satisfaction on his profession of engaged on analysis and growth tasks with small-scale fisheries in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This spring he retired from his place as an extension specialist and marine useful resource economist with Connecticut Sea Grant and UConn, a novel place that allowed him to faucet outdoors grants to fund his abroad work, whereas additionally contributing to Connecticut Sea Grant tasks. He’s not planning on a sedentary retirement, although. Between common visits from his residence in southeastern Connecticut to Cape Cod, the place his mother and father nonetheless reside, he’ll seek the advice of on a fishery co-management venture in Myanmar, amongst others.

Connecticut Sea Grant Director Sylvain De Guise has traveled twice with Pomeroy to Vietnam and Cambodia to find out about his tasks. There, he witnessed first-hand the form of impacts Pomeroy has had by the affect of his analysis and direct involvement on the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and men in impoverished communities who depend upon the ocean to feed their households.

“The end result of numerous the work he’s performed has helped feed the poor,” De Guise mentioned. “There’s a social justice facet that’s actually built-in within the organic administration and regulatory processes. He’s helped develop other ways of managing fisheries. His work focuses on the intersection of economics and balancing what we harvest from the ocean and might develop with defending the ecosystem.”

He’s been efficient, De Guise mentioned, as a result of he builds relationships of respect that cross cultures, language limitations and social divides. Whether or not which means crowding right into a slender canoe to entry an aquaculture pond, singing karaoke with fishermen, or assembly with native mayors, nationwide authorities officers, environmental teams and interesting to the United Nations, Pomeroy has constructed bridges with all of them.

“He has broad recognition and respect from folks in fishing communities, NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), authorities companies and teachers,” De Guise mentioned. “He’s one of many few folks I do know who’s acknowledged and revered in all 4 of those areas.”

Pomeroy is fast to credit score the numerous companions he’s labored with. These vary from non-profit companies to universities in Southeast Asia to the governments of Denmark, america and different international locations, which helped fund tasks to construct sustainable fisheries. His work has helped persuade fishermen to cease utilizing explosives on delicate coral reefs to attract fish into their nets; superior the institution of tracing techniques to make sure sustainable harvests; empowered girls in aquaculture operations and fostered cooperation between fishermen to keep away from essential spawning areas so that everybody may gain advantage from catching fish elsewhere.

“Bob did some very groundbreaking, considerate analysis that basically formed my enthusiastic about how we handle the ocean and fisheries sources,” mentioned John Parks, marine scientist with Tetra Tech, one of many teams Pomeroy has labored with. “He’s develop into a buddy and mentor.”

Pomeroy has introduced not solely a deep understanding of economics and fisheries to his tasks, but in addition an endearing persona that makes others wish to work with him, Parks mentioned.

“He’s such a humble, honest individual, and really obsessed with his work,” Parks mentioned. “And he’ll all the time name it like he sees it.”

He recalled one venture specializing in conserving coral reefs whereas enacting a sustainable fisheries administration program in an space the place high-value species akin to grouper, sardines and anchovies have been being caught.

“Bob stored asking, ‘what in regards to the folks?’ He was involved about peoples’ livelihoods and meals safety.”

Ultimately, Parks mentioned, “Bob’s fact” prevailed, and a plan was developed that addressed the wants of each the reefs and the fishermen.

An expertise early in his profession cemented Pomeroy’s need to make an impression abroad, the place it was wanted most. After a number of years as an extension agent in South Carolina, he returned to high school for his doctorate in pure useful resource economics from Cornell College. There he met Peace Corps volunteers engaged on fisheries tasks in Southeast Asia, and was instantly intrigued.

“I began to rethink what I needed to do,” he recalled.

This led to an project with the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID) to a rural fishing neighborhood in Leyte Province within the Philippines.

“I lived on this bamboo hut, subsequent to the poorest fishermen,” he mentioned, recalling how younger males within the village would typically serenade their sweethearts at evening from outdoors their home windows. “These have been individuals who gave me the whole lot. I fell in love with the work. I needed to assist empower fishermen to handle their very own fish.”

His connection to USAID and different teams working within the Philippines would proceed for the remainder of his profession. Rebecca Guieb, regional and coastal marine specialist for the company within the Philippines, Pacific and Mongolia, recalled first assembly Pomeroy within the early 1990s when she was a part of an NGO and he was working for the WorldFish Heart.

“We began our collaboration of fisheries co-management,” she mentioned in an e-mail message. “It was a considerate and strategic motion that demonstrated the worth he locations on partnerships.”

In 2005, the 2 collaborated on a e book about fisheries co-management that’s nonetheless thought of a key reference on the topic. Along with the e book, collectively additionally they supplied technical help to Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines about sustainable administration of fisheries that preserves folks’s livelihoods.

“Our collaboration concerned your entire fisheries sector of the Philippines,” she mentioned, including that it includes a number of species of fish and contributes billions yearly to the nation’s financial system. “I’ve been blessed to have Bob as a technical co-collaborator and buddy for a few years and now I can vouch for his real love and concern for the fisheries sector, notably the small scale fishers globally.”

In Vietnam, Pomeroy’s impression has been felt on the ocean tuna fishery, which employs hundreds of thousands there, mentioned Nguyen Thu Hue, founding father of the Heart for Marinelife Conservation and Neighborhood Growth. Pomeroy labored along with her not too long ago on a worth chain evaluation for the fishery and on making a workable digital system to doc and hint the catch. The work was important in lifting European Union sanctions towards the fishery and enacting reforms in order that it could possibly be thought of “sustainable and modernized,” Hue mentioned.

“Bob is a trusted buddy,” she mentioned in an e-mail message. “He all the time gives good connections, alternatives and nurtured younger expertise in creating international locations for native sustainability in fisheries.”

Nancy Balcom, affiliate director of Connecticut Sea Grant, described Pomeroy as “the diamond you discovered and simply stored polished.”

She takes delight in realizing that Sea Grant may do its half to assist proceed doing the form of work that modifications lives for the higher.

“He actually desires to assist folks assist themselves, to assist them to be considerate about how they fished,” she mentioned. “I’ve simply been in awe of the sorts of modifications he has been instrumental in making together with his partnerships.”

One of the vital important achievements of his profession culminated in 2016 in Cambodia and Vietnam. In these international locations, a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals make their livings by elevating snakehead fish by small-scale aquaculture. For a few years the fish farmers fed their crop with small “trash fish” that many very poor folks additionally trusted as a primary supply of protein. Catches have been beginning to dwindle.

To cease additional depletion of the small fish populations, the Cambodian authorities closed the snakehead fishery in 2005. A yr later. Pomeroy started working with USAID and the AquaFish Innovation Lab at Oregon State College to discover a resolution. A partnership with Can Tho College in Vietnam and different teams was shaped.

“We requested, ‘Can we develop a method feed to substitute because the meals supply and a sustainable administration system for the trash fish?’” Pomeroy recalled.

A rice and soy-based feed was developed by researchers at Can Tho College. At first, the fish farmers have been reluctant to make use of it, and the snakehead weren’t keen shoppers both. However with some coaxing, they each got here round.

“The fish really needed to be taught to eat it, by totally different life cycles,” Pomeroy mentioned. “We began working with the folks, and the farmers began to love the feed.”

Feed producers in america benefited, too, after they began producing the product. By 2016, the snakehead fishery in Cambodia reopened. Farmers in each Vietnam and Cambodia may as soon as once more help themselves by rising fish.

“We modified the lives of 1000’s of individuals, and allowed wild shares of fish to get better,” Pomeroy mentioned.  “I nonetheless have a World Financial institution-supported venture happening within the Mekong River in Cambodia.”