Congratulations to UBC’s Amanda Vincent - first place winner of the Terre de Femmes Awards

The Terre de Femmes (Women of the Earth) Awards, created by the Yves Rocher Foundation, support the environmental work of women around the world.

Bio

As a teen, Amanda Vincent fancied a career in politics, but, after acing Grade 12 biology, she fell in love with science. A female version of Jacques Cousteau, the UBC associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation is also the director of Project Seahorse.

Project

When Dr. Vincent co-founded the project in 1996, her dream was to raise awareness about bottom trawling – a technique that involves dragging a net along the ocean floor, indiscriminating scooping up sea life. “The goal is not to stop fishing but to ensure we have fish for the future by encouraging sustainable practices like mid-water trawling or trapping,” she says.

Motivation

Dr. Vincent fell in love with sea horses while studying their sexual behaviour. (In a biological twist, it’s the male that becomes pregnant.) Dr. Vincent isn’t the only one with a thing for sea horses: there’s a high demand for them in traditional Chinese medicines and as aquarium pets, which has led to overfishing and habitat destruction in coastal waters around the world. “They are a flagship species for bigger issues,” says Vincent. “People treat the ocean as amine from which they can extract without reflection. They are enormously disrespectful of that part of the world where 99 percent of our planet’s living space is found.”

Inspiration

Dr. Vincent says she has always had an emotional attachment to the ocean. She credits her parents with instilling in her a love of nature. “I was only six weeks old when they took me camping,” she says.

Biggest Success

“We have motivated people around the world to care about marine conservation. We developed 28 no-fishing zones in the Philippines and generated the first international trade controls for valuable marine life.”

Info

http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca