Blue Tenure Transitions (BTT) will be led by the University of Cape Town in South Africa. The working group’s goal is two-fold:
- Build the transdisciplinary knowledge base on the specific impacts and implications of marine tenure in the WIO region, focusing on South Africa and the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar; and
- Co-design and scale-up participatory methodologies that enable communities to map and share their stories about marine tenure.
The core methodological approach will centre on co-production of ideas and actions linked to learning sites. The BTT working group aims to operate on three levels:
- working group activities will prioritize building a WIO regional perspective through synthesis activities and by bringing together interdisciplinary experts and Indigenous and community-based knowledge holders to summarize overarching challenges and opportunities.
- BTT working group activities will emphasize local learning sites and co-define a working set of principles for BTT to support the co-development of novel methodologies needed to empower communities that reflect shifting political and economic contexts associated with blue economy and global conservation narratives.
Building on the regional synthesis efforts and insights gained from co-development activities in the context of local learning sites, the BTT working group will build capacity for WIO stakeholders to lead and/or contribute to Pan-African and global dialogues on blue tenure transitions in partnership with regional and international actors for marine spatial planning. Many of the BTT working group members are active participants in broader research and policy networks, including the One Ocean Hub, Empatheatre at Rhodes University and the Durban University of Technology in South Africa (a form of transdisciplinary and transgressive research to inspire empathy with the experiences of ocean-dependent people) and the Small-scale and Artisanal Fishers Association.
Working group members in the BTT project are from:
- University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at the Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
- Rhodes University, South Africa
- Institute of Marine Science at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
- Ministry of Fisheries and Blue Economy, Zanzibar
- The South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s Oceans and Coasts
- South African National Biodiversity Institute
- Vulnerability to Viability Global Partnership for Small-Scale Fisheries at the University of Waterloo in Canada
