Understanding and managing the overseas impacts of UK food systems transformation
Active Project
Annabelle Bladon
Senior researcher (aquatic food systems)
Annabelle is an interdisciplinary researcher leading IIED’s work on aquatic food systems.
Focusing on small-scale fisheries and the communities they support, she works to identify and reduce the social and ecological trade-offs that sustainability transitions typically entail, through:
- Building evidence and capacity for more effective use and uptake of practical tools that can incentivise environmental stewardship and uphold the rights of fishing communities – including social protection, subsidies, and market interventions
- Building evidence and capacity for finance solutions to support more sustainable and equitable aquatic food systems, and
- Advocating for and facilitating knowledge sharing on more collaborative, intersectoral and systems-based approaches to aquatic foods.
Annabelle has experience working on these issues in Bangladesh, Myanmar, East Africa, the UK and the Caribbean.
Expertise
Small-scale and artisanal fisheries; aquatic food; compensation and incentives; social protection; marine protected and conserved areas; payments for ecosystem services; conservation finance.
Before IIED
- Independent consultant and associate at Innovations in Conservation, LLC (ICONS), New York
- Visiting researcher at New York University, University of Oxford, and IIED.
- Worked with a range of public and private organisations including UNDP and FAO, Conservation Finance Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bahamas Protected Area Fund, WorldFish, the Zoological Society of London, and the Bangladesh and Cayman Islands governments.
Education
- PhD in Marine Conservation Science, Imperial College London
- MRes in Ecology and Environmental Management, and BSc (Hons) Biology, University of York
Current work
Annabelle works in close partnership with the World Bank on their bue social protection agenda, supporting countries to use social protection for more sustainable and productive fisheries.
She is IIED lead for the FCDO-funded and WorldFish-led Asia-Africa BlueTech Superhighway (AABS) programme, which is assessing, strengthening and scaling incentive-based approaches to coastal conservation and fisheries management.
And she is also working to understand, manage and positively influence the impacts of efforts to transform the global food system on small-scale aquatic producers and coastal communities.
Projects
