Jamie Watts

Naturalist

Jamie Watts has spent his life observing, absorbing and studying life in the oceans and global-scale ecology. In particular, Jamie looks at ultra-high productivity ecosystems. He spent two years as a marine and fisheries biologist for the British Antarctic Survey and South Georgia government on this remote subantarctic island, allowing total immersion in what may be earth’s most mind-blowing marine ecosystem. Jamie has been a naturalist, lecturer, assistant expedition leader and guide in the Arctic and the Antarctic for several full seasons, specializing in food webs, marine mammals and birds, ecology, but also covering climate change, ecological footprint and glaciology. Between seasons Jamie does short contracts as a fisheries consultant, working on the management and logistics of observer programmes, and the analysis of data from large scale offshore fisheries including tuna, krill and Patagonian toothfish (Chilean Seabass). Jamie was involved in the setup of the global network of scientists and policy makers on IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing. Jamie has logged over 840 sea days and 57,000 sea miles, the majority of them offshore in the high seas. Jamie is also a PADI master scuba diver trainer, with over 1200 dives logged from the tropics to polar seas.