[July 2026] Project Approved - CRISP：Climate-Ready High-Seas Marine Protected Areas under Climate Change and Fishing Pressure
Published:
I am delighted to share that our CRISP project has been selected for funding through the 2026 PSL Global Seed Fund! 🌊
Our proposal was one of 17 projects selected from 33 submissions and has been awarded €8,000 to launch this new international collaboration with our Swedish partner, Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University).
CRISP: Climate-Ready High-Seas Marine Protected Areas under Climate Change and Fishing Pressure **will ask a simple but urgent question:**
Where should new Marine Protected Areas be established on the high seas so that they remain effective in a rapidly changing ocean?
With the BBNJ Agreement now in force (Jan 2026), the international community has a new legal framework for establishing Marine Protected Areas beyond national jurisdiction. However, effective protection requires more than drawing static boundaries on a map. It requires understanding how climate change and fishing pressure interact across space and over time.
CRISP will combine global observations of compound ocean climate change, fishing-activity data, and future climate projections to:
🔹 identify regions exposed to both intense climate and fishing pressures; 🔹 locate potential climate refuges under the climate-ready MPAs framework; 🔹 distinguish “high-gain but hard-to-win” conservation opportunities from more feasible “easy-win” areas 🔹 translate this evidence into actionable guidance on where high-seas protected areas should be created, what they should protect, and how they should be managed.
I will serve as the project PI on the PSL side, working closely with Robert Blasiak at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, together with Joachim Claudet at EPHE–PSL/CNRS and Sabrina Speich and Laurent Bopp at ENS–PSL/LMD.
By bringing together ocean observation, climate science, marine ecology, conservation, fisheries, and ocean governance, we hope to build a genuinely interdisciplinary bridge from scientific evidence to international decision-making.
The project will support research exchanges between France and Sweden.
The CRISP execution period: October 2026 - September 2027, with a total budget of 8,000 euros.
Many thanks to the entire team and to Université PSL for supporting this collaboration. I am very much looking forward to getting CRISP underway!
