First FarFish UNUFTP students graduated this week
On March 12, 2019, the United Nations University Fisheries Training Programme celebrated the graduation of its 21st cohort of research fellows participating in the annual six-month post-graduate training in Iceland. This year, UNU-FTP was pleased to welcome two fellows from Cabo Verde as part of its work relating to capacity building within the FarFish project. Both research fellows were selected through the FarFish training needs assessment work conducted at Instituto Nacional de Desenvolvimento das Pescas (INDP) in Mindelo, Cabo Verde last year. Through the training needs assessments at INDP, it was established that stock assessment was a priority area for building institutional capacity, and both fellows specialised on that line of study while in Iceland.
One of the UNU-FTP fellows from INDP selected to participate in the six-month training was Ms. Alicainy da Luz. Alciany is a marine biologist working at INDP in Mindelo. Her research conducted through the UNU-FTP related to the creation of an age-length key for the blackspot picarel, an important species in the artisanal sector in Cabo Verde. Though INDP had collected otoliths from the blackspot picarel for several years, these samples had never been analysed. Alciany took on the ambitious task to analyse otoliths from 134 specimens and along the way, create a procedure which will guide the ageing of similar samples in the future.
Now that Alicainy has successfully completed the training, she will return to Cabo Verde and INDP, where she is better equipped to contribute new scientific knowledge to the institution’s stock assessment unit.
Below is the abstract from Alciany’s work. The full text will be made available shortly on the UNU-FTP and FarFish websites.
