URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2021_Melissa-McCarthy

One of several Ghana students the project supported to study at URI, Ivy S. G. Akuoko, who worked on the SFMP project in 2016 and earned her master of arts in marine affairs in 2018, became an assistant research fellow at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. Her research interest is in waste management, pro- environmental behavior, GIS and remote sensing. “Waste was being indiscriminately dumped on a wetland in the flood path of a lagoon to claim it for development,” explains Akuoko. “Our research using unmanned aerial vehicle images revealed a gradual loss of the lagoon, which had potential impacts on the fisheries. Inadequate dumpsters were also a contributing factor. The study recommended providing dumpsters and placing them at convenient locations as one of the ways to solve this problem.” The project also made progress toward developing a vessel registration mechanism and more cost-effective processing technology. The project ended in April 2021 and showed considerable progress and change on Ghana’s journey toward fisheries recovery and sustained management, yet there is still much to be done, Crawford says. made it more enticing to comply with the closure, and the cost would be less than what they spend in fuel subsidies.” - Brian Crawford “The pilot demonstrated that the government could mitigate temporary income loss and likely

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