Omar Defeo, D.SC.

Research

Omar Defeo is a titular professor at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay. In Latin America, artisanal or traditional small-scale shellfisheries are vital to the livelihoods and sustainable future of coastal communities. However, after several decades of intensive fisheries extraction, exacerbated by coastal degradation, most are overexploited, and many shellfish resources and their ecosystems are near or over the point of functional extinction. Defeo’s Pew fellowship project addressed the need to develop well-identified guidelines for best practices of integrated, adaptive co-management in Latin American shellfisheries. His project sought to document and disseminate new tools for shellfish conservation, management, and governance, as well as to raise awareness on how to adapt management to climate-driven changes in shellfish.