Profiles

Professionals Profiles
Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project

Short biographies are provided for the following professionals associated with the PI Oceanic Fisheries Management Project:

PROJECT COORDINATION UNIT & PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM FISHERIES AGENCY (FFA), Honiara, Solomon Islands

• CAMERON, Darren – Fisheries Management Adviser
• GHOLOMO, Royden - Project Finance and Administration Officer
• HANCHARD, N. Barbara - Project Coordinator

PACIFIC COMMUNITY (SPC), OCEANIC FISHERIES PROGRAMME, Noumea, New Caledonia

• ALLAIN, Valerie - Fishery Scientist, Ecosystem Analysis
• BROGAN, Deirdre - Fishery Monitoring Supervisor
• BROMHEAD, Dr. Don - Fishery Scientist, Stock Assessment
• LEROY, Bruno - Fishery Scientist, Ecosystem Monitoring

The World Conservation Union (IUCN).

• HURD, Andrew - Senior Programme Officer, Global Marine Programme
• RODGERS, Dr. Alex - Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London

Biographies:

CAMERON, Darren

Darren Cameron has commenced his appointment as a Fisheries Management Adviser at FFA. He started his fisheries career as a Fisheries Scientist with the Queensland Government in Australia and was as a Fisheries Manager with the Queensland Fisheries Management Authority. In 1999 he took up a management and liaison position with the Fisheries Issues Group at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority based in Townsville. Over the last seven years Darren’s main responsibilities have been to introduce effective on-the-ground ecosystem approaches to fisheries management in the Great Barrier Reef. He was required to consult with a range of fisheries stakeholders to acquire and coordinate the incorporation of fisheries information into management of the Great Barrier Reef. In commencing his new position at FFA, Darren completes a full circle again working on oceanic pelagic fisheries after having been the logbook coordinator and observer with the then fledgling Queensland East Coast Tuna Long- Line Fishery in the late 1980's. Darren is a keen recreational fisher and his wife and young son will be moving to Honiara after the birth of their second child in August.

ALLAIN, Valerie

Valerie was born in France and obtained her PhD in Biological Oceanology at the European Institute of Marine Studies in France in 1999. She studied the ecology, biology and the fishery of deep-sea fish populations from the North Eastern Atlantic before coming into the Pacific region in 2000. She then started work at SPC in the Tuna Ecology and Biology section of the Oceanic Fisheries Programme. Valerie was involved in the first GEF project 2000-2005 Strategic Action Plan for the International Waters of the Pacific Small Island Developing States. She was in charge of implementing the ecosystem analysis study which focused on the trophic structure of the pelagic ecosystem. This involved organising a large sampling programme for fish diet studies and the analysis of these data. In the new GEF project 2005-2010 Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project, Valerie will continue to analyse the trophic structure of the pelagic ecosystem with a new focus on the interactions between seamount and pelagic fisheries.

BROGAN, Deirdre

Deirdre is Irish, and her entry into the marine world started with a National Diploma in Aquaculture. She used the skills she gained from her academic training to manage the broodstock, spawning and the on-growing of several shellfish species in the wind swept coastal waters of the West of Ireland. Enjoying the work she returned to complete her B.Sc in Applied Aquatic Sciences which she obtained in 1993.

While fully intending to return to aquaculture, fate sent her out to sea to observe on the national pelagic and demersal fishing fleets. These trips were interspersed with specific projects looking at marine mammal interactions. In February 1995, funded by the European Union, she took up employment with the Oceanic Fisheries Programme, SPC in the SPRTRAMP-EU project as an at-sea observer, spending five years covering the multiple tuna fleets that fish in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Subsequently in 2000, funded by GEF, the focus of her work moved towards improving the quality of sampling data received from the growing Pacific Island sampling programmes. She is the author of the observer newsletter ‘ForkLength’ as well as the ‘Port Sampling Manual’. In the new GEF project her work will focus on supporting countries to enhance their overall approach to tuna data collection. This work should leave countries well placed to comfortably meet their data obligations to the Western and Central Pacific Fishing Commission (WCPFC).

BROMHEAD, Dr. Don

Don was born in Canberra, Australia and successfully completed his PhD (on condition and growth in fish) at the Australian National University in 2001. Before joining the Oceanic Fisheries Programme at the SPC in February 2006, he worked at the Bureau of Rural Sciences (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) in Canberra where he was involved in a range of fisheries research, including annual reports on the status of Australia’s domestic fisheries. Other primary areas of research have included work on the biology and fisheries for striped marlin, analyses of the catch and economics of byproduct species taken in longline fisheries, analyses of factors influencing seabird bycatch rates, and the analyses of interactions between domestic fisheries. Recruited specifically to work under the new GEF project 2005-2010 Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project, Don will be part of a team of scientists working to help build the capacity of Pacific Island Countries and Territories to analyze and interpret fisheries data and assessments. This will be achieved via the development and implementation of annual stock assessment workshops, the production of national tuna fishery status reports (in collaboration with participating Pacific Island Countries and Territories), and the hosting of attachments of national fishery personnel to the OFP.

LEROY, Bruno

Bruno was born in France in 1963. After a BSc in 1986 at the University of Rennes (France), Bruno has been successively a biologist in a sub-Antarctic island and a lobster fisherman in the North coast of Brittany, France.
From 1992 to mid 1996 he worked for IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) in many roles, his experience included at sea-observing, catch sampling, fishery activities surveys, cetacean sighting surveys and fish growth studies.
Bruno joined the Oceanic Fisheries Programme of SPC in June 1996 with the SPRTRAMP-EU project. During this project and its successor, the PROCFISH-EU project, Bruno established a research laboratory devoted to fish ageing studies and completed tuna and by-catch growth studies by reading otoliths. He trained students to lab techniques and observers at sea. He also started to tag tunas and this last role has expanded with the development of the tagging with electronic devices.

With the GEF/OFM project, Bruno will be more involved in coordinating field and laboratory research to provide the data needed to enhance our knowledge of the pelagic ecosystem. Bruno will also be in charge of organising a large scale tuna tagging project.

Bruno is married and has three children.

HURD, Andrew

Andrew Hurd is Senior Programme Officer, Global Marine Programme, for the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Based at IUCN Global Headquarters in Gland, Switzerland, Andrew oversees the development and implementation of a wide range of marine conservation initiatives around the world. Andrew holds a Masters degree from the George Washington University, Washington DC, and worked for the World Bank and other international agencies on environment and natural resource management projects across many regions, before joining IUCN in 2003. Andrew is coordinating IUCN's involvement in the Pacific Islands OFM project.

RODGERS, Dr. Alex

Dr Alex Rogers is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, and provides scientific advice to IUCN – The World Conservation Union on seamounts and deep sea habitats. Dr. Rogers is the Principal Investigator for the seamount research cruises to be carried out under the auspices of the Pacific Islands OFM project.
Dr. Rogers studied for his first degree in Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and completed a Ph.D. in the taxonomy and genetics of marine worms in 1992. He then moved to the Marine Biological Association (MBA) of the UK in Plymouth to undertake a fellowship in the systematics and population genetics of marine animals. It was while he was at the MBA that Alex became interested in deep-sea biology and undertook his first work on the genetics of deep-sea animals.

In 1997 Dr. Rogers moved to the University of Southampton on an advanced fellowship to continue his studies on the genetics and ecology of deep-sea animals, in particular cold-water coral reefs. During this period he acted as an expert witness in a judicial review on the application of the EU Habitats Directive to deep-sea ecosystems, especially those associated with the coral Lophelia pertusa and he demonstrated that these corals are, like their shallow-water relatives, reef-forming.

Dr. Rogers has published over 40 papers on marine ecology, population genetics and phylogenetics, including a book on the marine animals and plants of Britain.