Colette Wabnitz honored for highlighting women’s unique contributions to fisheries
Colette Wabnitz, lead scientist at the Center for Ocean Solutions, has been awarded a 2025 Women’s Impact Award by the Falling Walls Foundation with support from the Volkswagen Foundation and the Elsevier Foundation. Wabnitz joins two other women researchers being honored for advancing gender equity and creating meaningful societal impact for women and girls. The Falling Walls Foundation, named for the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, supports breakthrough ideas and discoveries in science, business, and society.
Wabnitz is internationally recognized for studying fisheries across diverse geographies. In addition to fisheries ecology, she researches opportunities for improving equity and just governance, particularly for women in the Global South. In 2020, Wabnitz co-led a report focused on ocean equity for the High Level Panel for the Ocean, an ongoing collaboration of 18 world leaders to sustainably manage their ocean territories.
“Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed the injustices that many people face in fisheries," said Wabnitz, who is also affiliated with The University of British Columbia. "Despite their significant contributions to fisheries, women are often overlooked or excluded from decisions shaping their lives and futures.”
Colette Wabnitz is being honored by the Falling Walls Foundation for a project highlighting women's contributions to fisheries and pathways to support their empowerment.
In 2021, Wabnitz and Albert Norström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre launched a project aimed at supporting governments, funders, and NGOs to inform more equitable and gender-responsive policies and initiatives in fisheries. The project consists of three components. First, the project compiles collective insights from a global network of colleagues, resulting in the co-production of 28 country fact sheets.
The fact sheets highlight women’s contributions to fisheries, barriers to their empowerment, and opportunities to support their leadership and well-being. The project also includes a systematic analysis of how gender is considered in fisheries governance documents, identifying examples of how countries have structured policies to promote gender equality.
Additionally, the initiative provided opportunities for government representatives, academics, and civil society actors from across the Pacific Island region and Latin America and the Caribbean to share experiences, discuss systemic barriers, and shape practical policy recommendations for strengthening gender equity in fisheries.
“I hope this work brings renewed attention to women’s unique contributions to delivering fisheries benefits and highlights opportunities to strengthen gender equity and women’s empowerment in the sector and beyond,” said Wabnitz. “Results support a growing call for women to no longer be viewed merely as beneficiaries, but recognized and supported as essential actors, knowledge holders, and leaders.”
All honorees will be formally recognized during the Falling Walls Science Summit held this November in Berlin, Germany. View the complete list of 2025 awardees.
The Pacific Community (SPC) is a core partner on the project and co-hosted the Pacific regional workshop with financial support provided by the European Union and the Government of Sweden. The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism co-hosted the Caribbean workshop. The gender and fisheries project is supported by the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance and funded by the United Kingdom through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Government of Canada through the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change, the United States Department of State, and the Global Resilience Partnership.
Wabnitz is also a research affiliate with the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.
This story was adapted from a press release originally published by the Falling Walls Foundation.
