For the first time in its 15-year history, a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation has been given to an anthropologist. UCSB’s Shankar Aswani, associate professor of anthropology, holds that honor, in addition to being the only American selected this year.

Aswani, an ecological anthropologist, will use his $150,000 grant to continue working with fishing communities in the western Pacific’s Solomon Islands. By “studying human- environmental interactions at various spatial and temporal scales,” which is how he defines ecological anthropology, Aswani is laying the research foundation for what he describes as “the largest network of Marine Protected Areas in the western Pacific.”

Through education and collaboration, Aswani aims over the next three years to expand a net of 18 MPAs to the more than 25 marine reserves. These are designed to preserve vital resources and vulnerable species, such as coconut crabs, sea turtles, and dugongs (sea cows) in the Solomon Islands, east of Papua New Guinea. He also plans a parallel network of local institutions to continue educating people to support the MPAs.

Another element in what is already a 12-year series of projects will be a culturally appropriate “how-to” book for starting new, community-based MPAs. Aswani holds recently granted awards of $400,000 from Conservation International and $340,000 from the Packard Foundation for complementary MPA-building initiatives.

The Pew initiative also links to his National Science Foundation CAREER project, which trains students of Pacific Island descent in marine resource management.

His “work will no doubt make an important contribution to environmental health and food security in the region,” says Pew Fellow Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School.

One of five Pew awardees this year, the Spanish-born Aswani joined UCSB’s Anthropology Department in 2000. Prior to that he was a senior researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He speaks six languages, including two languages native to the Solomon Islands.