Social Scientist Joins Cooperative Extension and the California Sea Grant Extension Program

July 19, 2005

Contact: Christina S. Johnson, csjohnson@ucsd.edu, 858-822-5334

Carrie Pomeroy, a scientist who studies the social, cultural and economic implications of marine resource management decisions, in July began her position as a California Sea Grant Marine Advisor.

A former researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, Pomeroy will be working to build sustainable fisheries and fishing communities that also protect and enhance natural resources. Her research, outreach and education efforts will focus on fisheries issues with statewide implications as well as those with special meaning to Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.

Carrie Pomeroy

"California Sea Grant and Cooperative Extension are very fortunate to bring on board an individual with Carrie's breadth of experience and detailed knowledge of the fisheries in the region," said Paul Olin, director of the California Sea Grant Extension Program. "She is a skilled researcher who genuinely enjoys working with people and is indeed a welcome addition to our statewide program."

Pomeroy is one of three new California Sea Grant Marine Advisors hired this year through a special initiative funded by the National Sea Grant College Program and University of California Cooperative Extension. Among the goals of this initiative is to better respond to the needs of fisheries constituencies and to better use science to make demonstrable differences in understanding and promoting sustainable fisheries and fishing communities.

"The initial notion of the initiative was for Sea Grant to help NOAA Fisheries with its outreach needs," said Jim Murray, outreach director of the National Sea Grant College Program. "This idea expanded to include all fisheries management entities."

"The goal is to use Sea Grant's extension techniques to help fisheries managers with specific issues," Murray said. "We are hoping extension advisors like Carrie Pomeroy will be able to assist in the two-way flow of information between fisheries managers and fishers."

As a social scientist, Pomeroy comes to her new position with a unique expertise and perspective on fisheries management issues one that emphasizes the social, cultural and economic dimensions of policies. "I am interested in understanding how coastal fishing communities tick so that when there is a management decision, managers and communities understand the potential impacts of that decision," Pomeroy said. "We need to understand how people respond to management decisions and the repercussions for communities and the environment. That way managers can choose options that maximize benefits to communities and fishery resources."

Pomeroy holds a bachelors degree from Yale University (Southeast Asian studies, 1985), a masters degree from the University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (marine affairs and policy, 1989) and a doctorate from Texas A&M University (wildlife and fisheries sciences, 1993). From 1993 to 1995, Pomeroy was a visiting scientist at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, where she studied alternatives to traditional government-centered fishery management systems. She moved to the West Coast in 1995 to take a position as a research scientist at the Institute of

Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, a position she held until beginning with Sea Grant.

Reflecting her ability to collaborate with a spectrum of fishing-related interests, Pomeroy in recent years has been an investigator or co-investigator on grants from California Sea Grant, NOAA Fisheries, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, California Policy Research Center, California Seafood Council, Monterey County and Minerals Management Service. Among some of the topics studied through these grants, she and colleagues have evaluated the socioeconomic organization of the California market squid and wetfish fisheries, assessed the socioeconomics and the viability of the commercial fishing industry at Moss Landing Harbor and measured the socioeconomic impacts of pinniped-fishery interactions on salmon trollers in Central California.

Some of her ongoing work focuses on the Monterey Bay area, where she and economist Michael Dalton of California State University at Monterey Bay have been collecting economic and social data that may be used to predict consequences of potential management decisions in the region. Pomeroy and anthropologist Monica Hunter are also evaluating the use of social science data in the state's fishery management plans, part of a broad effort to provide recommendations to state managers on how they might better collect and use social science data. In addition, she is collaborating with economist Cindy Thomson of NOAA Fisheries on a project to analyze existing fishery data to better understand fishing communities on the West Coast.

Pomeroy has also long had an interest in the role of social sciences in the marine reserve process. One of her most recent articles, co-authored with Hunter, now with the Pacific Conservation League Foundation, and published in the proceedings of the California and the World Ocean 2002 conference, discusses the role of socioeconomic data in the establishment of reserves around the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. Pomeroy also recently authored a chapter outlining the potential shore-side as well as "on-the-water" socioeconomic impacts of marine reserves for a volume of the Marine Sanctuaries Conservation Series, edited by California Sea Grant Marine Advisor Rick Starr and published in 2004 by NOAA Marine Sanctuaries Division.

Although as a California Sea Grant Marine Advisor, Pomeroy's duties will be closely tied to state-issues, Pomeroy has had significant experience in international fisheries issues. Indeed, her first exposure to fisheries management, and the conflicts that often surround it, was as a Southeast Asian studies major at Yale University. Her senior thesis explored how artisanal fishers in Indonesia and Malaysia were affected by conflicts in resource management. Her doctoral research looked at how fishers in Mexico dealt with the challenges of using a shared resource and what they did to avoid a "tragedy of the commons." Pomeroy is conversant in Spanish and French.

Pomeroy's office is located at the Santa Cruz County Cooperative Extension Office in Watsonville. She can be reached at (831) 763-8002 or by email at cmpomeroy@ucdavis.edu

NOAA's California Sea Grant is a statewide, multi-university program of marine research, extension services, and education activities. It is the largest of the nation's 30 Sea Grant programs and is headquartered at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. The National Sea Grant College Program is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Commerce.