New series! Sharing about migratory species for World Fish Migration Day!

Today seems like the right day to show some love for our migratory fishes and their freshwater cousins! After all, May 16, 2020 is World Fish Migration Day (WFMD) and we here at FIRE Lab have some exciting plans on the horizon!

For those who might not know about WFMD, it is a world-wide celebration of our migratory fish species, and an opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges that these species, and the people who depend on them, face under global changes. WFMD occurs one-day every two-years and has been happening since 2014 with activities around the world.

The year 2020 is also notable, because this is the year that the global community are meant to achieve a series of goals established by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); goals collectively known as the Aichi Targets. We unequivocally have not achieved the targets, and this is particularly the case for freshwater ecosystems, and the species that depend on them, that continue to be recognized as some of the most impacted by human changes on our planet.

Our team here at FIRE Lab focuses on addressing diverse challenges for freshwater ecosystems. We currently do this in diverse ways, filling data gaps necessary to inform decision making at broad spatial scales, and working to better understand and grow people’s relationships with these ecoystems. Even if the world hasn’t achieved the Aichi Targets, we at FIRE Lab continue to work to achieve those and related goals for our fresh waters through our research and engagement. One way we are doing this is through this blog, and our sharing about the world’s diversity of freshwater species, the impacts that human-lead changes can have on freshwater ecosystems, and to highlight actions we can take to support more sustainables uses.

Over the next three months FIRE Lab team are focused on using our blog as a space to share about the diversity of freshwater dependent species and their migratory behaviours. A new post to the series will go live on the blog on 28 February, 13 and 27 March, 10 and 24 April. After that we have posts planned about our events in April and May in celebration of WFMD 2020. We leave you with a teaser for our next post, focused on Amphidromous fishes in Papua New Guinea.

Stay tuned for our next post on 28 February! Thank you for reading!