College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

Areas of Expertise:

Small-scale fisheries; fisheries governance; human dimensions of fisheries management; sustainable aquatic foods; conservation science; institutional analysis.

Education: 

Ph.D., Environmental Life Sciences, Arizona State University, 2017

M.S., Biology, Ecology and Evolution, University of Poitiers, France, 2011

M.S., Environmental Management, Christian-Albrechts-Universitat, Kiel, Germany, 2011

B.S., Marine and Freshwater Biology, University of Texas at Austin, 2008

Background:

Mar Mancha-Cisneros is assistant professor of global inland fisheries. As a fisheries scientist and institutional scholar, she works at the interface of natural and social sciences to understand how institutions – which include policies, rules, or norms – mediate the interactions between humans and natural resources, affect outcomes for resource sustainability and equity, and can incentivize human adaptation and collective response to both ecological and social change.

Her work centers around institutions that influence governance of inland fishery resources in the context of aquatic food production for human consumption, nutrition security, and the balance between environmental protection and people’s livelihoods. She relies on mixed method approaches to study institutions in comparative settings with the goal of proposing policy and management alternatives with higher potential to influence decision-making and effective fisheries management. She draws from the fields of biology and ecology, environmental management, economics, and political science, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods (e.g., coupled human-natural models, institutional analysis, and some ethnography and participatory approaches).

Her research focuses on three key areas: (1) the multi-dimensional contributions of inland small-scale fisheries to sustainable development, (2) the institutional design of governance structures that enable sustainable resource management for inland fisheries, and (3) the effectiveness of engagement and communication across multi-actor groups in the context of sustainable fisheries. She works closely with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other international organizations in the design, implementation, and dissemination of her research and to bring attention to fisheries in policy dialogues on sustainable development goals. Along with FAO and WorldFish, and as part of her postdoctoral work at Duke University, she co-authored the Illuminating Hidden Harvests study: The Contributions of Small-scale Fisheries to Sustainable Development in 2023, which highlights the global importance of the contributions of both inland and marine small-scale fisheries to multiple aspects of sustainable development, including nutrition and food security, employment, economic benefits, and in consideration of their environmental, gender, and governance implications throughout the supply chain, with the goal of improving the sector’s visibility in policy and decision-making arenas.

Click here to view Mar's website.

Selected Publications: 

• FAO, Duke University & WorldFish. 2024. Applying the Illuminating Hidden Harvests approach – Compiling data on the contributions of small-scale fisheries to sustainable development. Rome. Mancha-Cisneros, M.M. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/cc9005en
• Belant, J.L., Bennett, A., Kellner, K.F., Mancha-Cisneros, M.M. 2024. The benefits of wild harvests to food security. Nature Food. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01023-9
• FAO, Duke University & WorldFish. 2023. Illuminating Hidden Harvests: the contributions of small-scale fisheries to sustainable development. Rome, FAO; Durham, USA, Duke University; Penang, Malaysia, WorldFish. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc4576en
• Virdin, J., Basurto, X., Nico, G., Harper, S., Mancha-Cisneros, M.M., Vannuccini, V., Ahern, M., Anderson, C., Funge-Smith, S., Gutierrez, N., Mills, D., Franz, N. Fishing for subsistence constitutes a livelihood safety net for populations dependent upon aquatic foods around the world. Nature Food 4 (10), 874-885.
• Robinson, J.P.W., Mills, D.J., Asiedu, G.A., Byrd, K., Mancha Cisneros, M.M., et al. 2022. Small pelagic fish supply abundant and affordable micronutrients to low- and middle-income countries. Nature Food, 3,1075–1084.
• Mancha-Cisneros et al. 2018. The role of stakeholder perceptions and institutions for marine reserve efficacy in the Midriff Islands Region, Gulf of California, Mexico. Ocean and Coastal Management 162: 181 – 192.