Country: Australia
Born in Ghana, George Freduah is an Adjunct Academic at the University of Sunshine Coast’s Sustainability Research Centre, Australia. After completing high school at Osei Kyeretwie Secondary School in Kumasi, George attended University of Ghana where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Geography with Honours. George has also completed a Master of Philosophy degree in Resources and Human Adaptations at the University of Bergen, Norway, and a PhD in Environmental Studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
George employs interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to research, drawing on environmental science, human geography and development studies. He is interested in vulnerabilities and responses of small-scale fisheries to environmental and socio-economic challenges, and small-scale fisheries governance. For the past years, he has worked on these issues in partnership with coastal communities and small-scale fishers in Ghana and the Asia Pacific.
Q: What are you currently working on within the context of small-scale fisheries?
As part of a research group, I am currently working to ascertain key attributes that support fisheries’ resilience to climate change impacts, and how these attributes can be promoted and best used in global marine fishery management systems. In addition, I am working to understand capacity needs for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries in Ghana, and how these needs can be met in the context of multiple socio-ecological problems.
Q: If you could single out one or two most significant factors for securing sustainability of small-scale fisheries, what would these factors be?
Multiple interacting challenges confront small-scale fisheries all over the world and this will increase in the future. To secure a sustainable future for the sector researchers, policymakers, and managers should constantly work together to find effective ways to build the sector’s capacity to respond to current and future multiple stressors.
