Keynote Speaker

Omar Defeo is a Professor in the Marine Science Lab at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay. He works on the management and conservation of sandy beach ecosystems and how they are threatened by several external drivers acting simultaneously. His long-term research evaluates the effects of human activities on invertebrate populations and communities in these systems at risk. Defeo has also worked on assessing and managing small-scale fisheries for over 35 years, particularly in Latin American countries. He specializes in developing co-management practices to improve the ecological knowledge and management of harvested species, emphasizing the role of markets, climate change, and governance as critical drivers affecting fisheries sustainability and biodiversity conservation. He has published more than 200 papers in primary journals, a book on Ecology of Sandy Shores, and four FAO Fisheries Technical Papers. He has supervised more than 100 graduate and postgraduate students from Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, and Italy. He has received the Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation (2010), the National Morosoli Award in Science and Technology, and two SCOPUS excellence awards (2010, 2018) in Uruguay. [Secondary email: odefeo@dinara.gub.uy ]

« Go Back