E53: How Sargassum impacts the communities of Quintana Roo and Florida with Judith Rosellon, Justin Suca and Laura McAdam-Otto

Judith Rosellon is a biologist and oceanographer with extensive experience in fisheries management and ecology, marine spatial management, evaluation of marine protected areas, and fisheries stock assessment. She has a Ph.D. from the School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) at UMass Dartmouth and worked as a Postdoctoral fellow at the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (CFOS) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). She is currently a lead researcher at the National Council for Science and Technology or CONACYT (Consejo National de Ciencia y Tecnología). Her international background, and oceanographic studies both in Mexico and USA make it possible for her to understand, develop, and coordinate complex marine co-management and policy projects between US and Latin American countries.   

Justin Suca is a  fish ecologist at the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. His research includes studies on the diet and growth of fish, but he typically focuses on understanding and predicting the distribution and abundance of fisheries-relevant species. He got involved with this project because he grew up in Florida and had experienced sargassum inundation in his high school and college years. It also provided an opportunity to connect with the fishing communities he grew up around.   

Laura McAdam-Otto is an anthropologist at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Her work focuses on governance practices in the field of both forced migration and anthropogenic environmental change. Her research and teaching are located at the interface of anthropology, cultural studies, science, and technology studies.    Together as a team, they worked on the project  "Binational local knowledge of Sargassum events" which was supported by the US Department of State through the "Partners of the Americas" grant program. The objective of this project in particular was to document local knowledge of coastal communities of Mexico (Quintana Roo) and the US (Florida) regarding atypical influxes of Sargassum.   

Listen to the episode to learn about:  
0:31 - Introduction of the guests
5:13 - What’s Sargassum to you?
9:32 - Project and activities from guests  
27:58 - As the Sargassum problem is inter-regional and at the same time often territory-specific, have you extended your research beyond Mexico and Florida, to other territories in the Caribbean or have you had exchanges with inhabitants or scientists or politicians from other places affected by Sargassum?
39:16 - Sargassum flyer in Maya
43:15 - Methodology: social science research  
1:04:00 - Justin’s fieldwork experience
1:06:46 - Social Injustice and Environmental Injustice Association with Sargassum  

To get to know more about our guests:  

Website of Laura McAdam-Otto  
Lab group of Judith Rosellon