9:00 am up until 12:00 noon every Wednesday: At the Coastal Fisheries Building
Lectures run each Wednesday throughout the year unless notified otherwise. The lectures are for Fisheries Staff only – at present we are unable to accommodate people from outside the department. Lectures will run for approximately an hour, followed by a session of putting the skills in practice – up until lunchtime. Participants should bring their laptop computer to do the exercises.
4/5/16 | From Database to Report – Finding out what Data are Telling Us (IFA)
Once data have been collected from the field and entered into the database for storage and organisations how do we get them back out in ways that make sense? And how do we use them for fisheries? This lecture will cover the use of queries from databases and give you some methods for preparing the outputs for reporting. Although we will use the creel data in this training as an example, the techniques are applicable to all our data collections throughout the department.
11/5/16 | How to Summarise Loads of data – Part II – Introduction to GIS (IFA)
For some fisheries applications, particularly ecosystem approaches, mapping the results of our work is the logical choice. For example, if we want to describe where fishers fished, or where they landed catches, we would probably find it easier to describe in maps than in text or graphs. If we want to describe Ciguatera hotspots on the reef, or where water quality is poor a map is really the only choice. In this lecture we will take a look at Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and how they can be applied to Fisheries problems. We will look at Google Earth (internet permitting) and MapInfo as two possible GIS platforms for our work.
25/5/16 | GOT Core Training: Job Description design and development (HRD)
Good job design increases the value of the job to the Government, Ministry and individual officers, which will lead to improved government effectiveness and efficiency through more motivated public servants.
1/6/16 | GOT Core Training: Customer Service (HRD)
The benefits of providing excellent customer service are: satisfied customers, enhanced reputation of the public service, reduction in complaints, trust objectives are achieved, improved working relationships, increased job satisfaction, and our wellbeing is protected.
8/6/16 | GOT Core Training: Workforce planning and Work level standards – all Senior Management (HRD)
A whole of government formal process to ensure the workforce meets current and future demands whilst maintaining the size and salary expenditure of the public service.
15/6/16 | Women in Fisheries (Gender Department)
The lecture on Women in Fisheries will be divided into three main areas: We will start with a general introduction by presenting the gender concept and how this affects the freedom of choosing and practicing an occupation. We will discuss women’s access to the Fisheries sector and the different roles women play. In this context we will discuss the effects of clichés and stereotypes for women in fisheries. The second part will provide an overview of policies that addresses the issue of gender in the Fisheries sector, in particular looking at gender-balanced recruitment. Examples will be presented – highlighting good and bad practices. In the third part of the presentation we will talk about women’s contributions on the household level. This shall give a clear picture of women’s economic activities in the fisheries sector to support the livelihood of their families which often remain unrecognized.
22/6/16 | Socio-economic Surveys
Lecture will cover approaches, how to design a survey, what it should contain based on what the questions are, what traps a surveyor may fall into with the questions and how to avoid them (like leading questions), how to store the data, how to deal with text answers (coding, spanning) and how best to present results and interpret outcomes. Confidentiality, code of conduct, and data quality will also be covered.
6/7/16 | Monitoring, Control & Surveillance (MSA)
Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) – what is it, why do we need it, how do we do it, …..and who is ‘we’? Proper and effective MCS is hard to define let alone achieve, so what is the ideal? What do we actually do, with what? Once we figure all this out, we shall then take a look at how we do it, both in terms of the present, and then the changes ahead. We will discuss partnering and processes, challenges and capabilities, aims and ambitions. We shall look at it from a Tuvalu perspective, as well as regionally and across various stakeholders. We’ll cap it off with ‘what’s in it for you?’ – opportunities that can help us work together and deter Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing.
13/7/16 | Old Wives Tales and Ciguatera (IFA)
Everyone talks about Ciguatera, but what do we really know about it? Who are the main researchers and what did they find out? Is it really caused by ship-wrecks, and can we detect it using a coin baked in the fish? What other kinds of seafood poisoning are there? And how do we tell them apart? This lecture will cover the history of ciguatera research, its natural history, methods of detection, how to monitor it, all the different toxins involved and a whole lot more.
20/7/16 | Sampling Designs & Green’s Rules (IFA)
In this lecture we will learn how to frame sampling questions and how to use Green’s Rules to develop sound sampling programmes. It is not enough to go out into the field and start measuring things in the hope you might get some useful and informative data. The solve problems we have to plan our surveys, structure them around logical tests (arguments) and then design them so we can be sure they will give us the information we need. Sampling is not cheap: we need to make sure it counts.
27/7/16 | Introduction to Experimental Design and Statistics (IFA)
Although in Lecture 6 we started looking at ways to examine our data using techniques to summarise them, in this lecture we are going to take the next step. Here we will learn how to frame different kinds of questions that will allow us to form logical tests. We will learn about hypotheses, Karl Popper, falsification and the hypothetico-deductive argument. Heady stuff, but crucial to understanding what science actually is and how to go about doing good science. We will also learn about some simple forms of statistics that can be used coastal fisheries.
3/8/16 | Beche-de-mer (FA)
Beche-de-mer or sea cucumbers are some of the most economically important – and most abused – coastal fisheries in the Pacific Region. Fortunes have been made, and impacts have been extreme so that in some areas species have disappeared and may not recover any time soon. This lecture covers the biology and exploitation of the group, how stocks are assessed and their current status. We will cover the history of exploitation in Tuvalu and realistic options for management.
HRD=Human Resources Department; MSA=Maritime Surveillance Adviser; FA=Fisheries Adviser; IFA=Inshore Fisheries Adviser
More topics will be added… watch this space.