Biography

S. Hoyt Peckham is the founding director of SmartFish, a non-profit social enterprise based in La Paz, México that incentivizes more sustainable artisanal fishing. Previously, Peckham directed Proyecto Caguama, partnering with fishers, managers, and scientists from Mexico, Cuba, Japan, and the Indo Pacific to reduce bycatch of ocean wildlife while maintaining fishing livelihoods. Combining participatory research with social marketing, Peckham and colleagues empowered fishermen and other stakeholders to spare thousands of endangered sea turtles per year in Mexico and Japan, among other outcomes.

His experience as a captain, diver, fisherman, and underwater cameraman has contributed to his effectiveness in developing sustainability  solutions with marine resource users of Latin America, the Northwest Atlantic, Caribbean, Polynesia, and Japan. Peckham is a 2014 Pew Marine Fellow, a visiting fellow with the Center for Ocean Solutions, a member of the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group, serves as a technical expert for the United Nations Environment Program, and consults internationally on augmenting the sustainability of artisanal fisheries. A native New Englander, Peckham majored in biology and English literature at Bowdoin College and earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary ecology from the University of California at Santa Cruz.