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Drawing on recent outcries about the recently decommissioned (October 2015) Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministry (from Portuguese, MPA) in Brazil, we interviewed Mauro Ruffino regarding his opinion. Ruffino is an oceanographer with a lot of experience in Amazonian fisheries, former consultant to the World Bank, and a former Director of the Department of Monitoring and Control of the now extinct Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministry. He also has an extensive list of scientific publications on fisheries. 1. In a recent letter published by Science, Brazilian researchers warned about the risk of ignoring the new proposed list of endangered fish species because of political pressures. Following the government’s decision to not enforce the updated list, a follow up let ter also published by Science, researchers this time warned about the ongoing deconstruction of the aquatic/fisheries policy. This has happened for example, through initiatives considered disastrous, such as th

Sarah Harper, PhD Candidate, Fisheries Economic Research Unit, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia, Canada.  Supervisor: Dr. Rashid Sumaila. e-mail: s.harper@oceans.ubc.ca Women in fisheries: overlooked and undervalued. In many parts of the world, including Brazil, fishing is considered a male domain. The generally accepted division of labour has men going out to catch fish while women stay onshore to process and sell the fish, and to do various other fishing-related activities. However, looking a little deeper, we can see that this division is neither clear nor stable.  There is a growing body of literature which highlights that women also fish, but major gaps exist in our understanding of the varied and dynamic nature of the roles and contributions by women in fisheries. In some regions of the world, because of a focus on the role of small-scale fisheries in food security and poverty alleviation, the contributions of women have been made more v