This project is a response to the initial DFID-ESRC 'Resource scarcity, growth, and poverty reduction' call and it is titled "Tangled in their (own) safety-nets?' Resilience, adaptability, and transformability of fishing communities in the face of the World fisheries crisis". The overall aim of the project is to use the most recent progress in resilience thinking and wellbeing research to provide a policy-relevant analysis of the world fisheries crisis and its human consequences.

The project is built around 4 country case studies: Sri Lanka and Vietnam in South Asia; Ghana in sub-Saharan Africa; and the Fiji in the Pacific region. These have been selected as countries where small-scale fisheries play a critical role in the livelihoods of people (in terms of income and food security) and where the risk of coastal resource over-exploitation is very high.

The project will generate evidence guiding policy-makers towards more appropriate means and actions needed to address the fisheries crisis and to reconcile inclusive growth with resource conservation. The immediate beneficiaries of the research activities will be the group of partners involved in the four case studies while the ultimate beneficiaries will be the millions of people in developing countries whose livelihood is jeopardized by this global fisheries crisis.