Over the summer of 2016, three CELS faculty traveled to Indonesia to initiate long-term research on the relationship between tourism and fisheries in that island nation. The trip was sponsored by URI’s Carnegie Global Faculty Travel Fund. The participants on this trip were Professor Robert Thompson (MAF), Assistant Professor Amelia Moore (MAF), and Assistant Professor Austin Humphries (FAVS). The travel funds enabled the professors to meet with government officials, university faculty, tourism providers, fishers, aquaculture operators, leaders of community-led conservation groups, and others on the islands of Java, Lombok, and Bali.

The largest portion of the trip was spent on Lombok where the URI team had productive meetings with faculty and administration from the University of Mataram (UNRAM). The participants agreed to seek joint funding with UNRAM to work on research together and discussed jointly hosting an international conference in Lombok on sustainable and integrated management of fisheries and tourism. UNRAM faculty members and UNRAM students joined the URI team in seeking out case studies for research on the range of fisheries and tourism relationships on Lombok and nearby small islands. UNRAM’s assistance during this exploratory research was indispensable. As a result of the trip, the team gained knowledge to support a strong proposal on the shifting relationships between people and the coastal marine environment regarding use of space and resources, identifying a gradient in tourism development and dependency on fisheries, with management at various stages.