Kickoff Humboldt Tipping Project in Kiel and Lima

The project „Social-Ecological Tipping Points of the Northern Humboldt Current Upwelling System, Economic Repercussions and Governance Strategies (Humboldt-Tipping)“ funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and led by the Kiel University started on 1 March 2019. At the Beginning of March the German project partners of the Humboldt-Tipping project came together in Kiel for a small pre-kick-off meeting. The universities of Kiel, Hamburg and Bremen as well as the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research Bremen (ZMT) and the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, who hosted the meeting, discussed the next steps and prepared for the big kick-off meeting in Lima with the Peruvian project partners and 35 stakeholders in mid-March.

The aim of the Humboldt-Tipping-Project is to investigate shifts in the productivity of the marine ecosystem in the northern Humboldt Upwelling System (HUS) and the resulting social and economic impacts. One focus of the project is the pelagic, off-shore system supplying the industrial Peruvian anchoveta fishery and its regional and global repercussions through export to international markets. The second focus are coastal (Piura and Pisco) and insular (Galapagos) systems, where artisanal fisheries, aquaculture and ecotourism are key maritime activities for provision of livelihoods. The project aims to improve the understanding of feedbacks between ecological, social and economic dynamics in the HUS with input from a broad variety of stakeholders.