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Ensuring inclusivity, especially the meaningful participation of diverse actors, is a key component of good governance. However, existing ocean governance frameworks have not yet achieved an equitable and fair playing field and are indeed often characterized by inequitable practices. In this perspective piece, we argue that one of the reasons for this lack of inclusion are the existing power frameworks and ways in which power is exercised within fora nominally intended to foster inclusion and cooperation. By focusing on four case studies of basic ocean governance processes, we explore how influential and interactive power is exercised in intergovernmental meetings, international conferences, and regional negotiations. These case studies demonstrate how specific exercises of power that undermine procedural inclusivity influence decision-making and the setting of agendas, and exclude important voices from ocean governance fora. This perspective piece contributes to the existing literature on power by highlighting how power is exercised within fundamental aspects of ocean governance. This paper merely scratches the surface, and more actions and research are needed to uncover and, more importantly, reverse deeply-rooted and self-perpetuating power structures in ocean governance.

Understanding mechanisms that promote social-ecological resilience can inform future adaptation strategies. Among seafood dependent communities, these can be illuminated by assessing change among fisheries portfolios. Here, in collaboration with a Coast Salish Nation in British Columbia, Canada, we used expert Indigenous knowledge and network analyses to chronicle differences in fisheries portfolios pre and post a social-ecological regime shift. We then evaluated key drivers of change using semi-structured interviews. We found that while portfolios decreased in diversity of seafood types harvested and consumed among individuals overtime, portfolios increased in their diversification at the community level because more similar seafoods within less diverse individual portfolios were more commonly harvested and consumed by the Nation as a whole. Thus, diversity can operate simultaneously in opposing directions at different scales of organization. Experts identified four key mechanisms driving these changes, including commercial activities controlled by a centralized governance regime, intergenerational knowledge loss, adaptive learning to new ecological and economic opportunities, and the trading of seafood with other Indigenous communities. Unexpectedly, increased predation by marine mammals was also flagged as a key driver of change. Adaptation strategies that support access to and governance of diverse fisheries, exchange of seafoods among communities, and knowledge transfer among generations would promote social-ecological resilience, food security, and community well-being.

Sustainable development is often represented as contributing to desirable outcomes across economic, environmental, and social goals, yet policies and interventions attempting to deliver sustainable development often disagree on the order in which these categories of goals should be addressed. In this Essay, we identify and review 5 approaches (called logic models) for sustainable development in ocean systems based on existing policies and interventions and consider the evidence for their contributions to equity—the ultimate goal of sustainable development according to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Two of the 5 logic models prioritize economic growth and lead to social and environmental benefits, 2 prioritize environmental health as a prerequisite for sustainable economic and social benefits, and the final logic model is community driven and prioritizes social dimensions. Looking towards the 2030 maturation of the SDGs, we will need to understand what models are best suited to deliver on equity gains and prevent future inequities in development and how best to operationalize them.

Promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must contend with the often siloed nature of governance institutions, making the identification of cooperative institutional networks that promote SDG targets a priority. We develop and apply a method that combines SDG interaction analysis, which helps determine prerequisites for SDG attainment, with the transition management framework, which helps align policy goals with institutional designs. Using Aruba as a case study, we show that prioritizing increased economic benefits from sustainable marine development, including those of tourism, provides the greatest amount of direct co-benefits to other SDGs. When considering indirect co-benefits, reducing marine pollution emerged as a key supporting target to achieve SDGs. The results also show that, as in many other small island states, sustainable ocean development in Aruba depends on international partnerships to address global issues—including climate change mitigation—over which it has little control. Using SDG relationships as a guide for institutional cooperation, we find that the institutions with the most potential to coordinate action for sustainable ocean development are those that address economic, social and international policy, rather than institutions specifically focused on environmental policy. Our results provide key methodologies and insights for sustainable marine development that require coordinated actions across institutions. Cooperative institutional networks are essential to achieve SDG targets. Combining SDG interaction analysis with a transition management framework, this study finds that in Aruba prioritizing benefits from sustainable marine development leads to the greatest amount of direct co-benefits to other SDGs.

The future of the global ocean economy is currently envisioned as advancing towards a ‘blue economy’—socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically viable ocean industries1,2. However, tensions exist within sustainable development approaches, arising from differing perspectives framed around natural capital or social equity. Here we show that there are stark differences in outlook on the capacity for establishing a blue economy, and on its potential outcomes, when social conditions and governance capacity—not just resource availability—are considered, and we highlight limits to establishing multiple overlapping industries. This is reflected by an analysis using a fuzzy logic model to integrate indicators from multiple disciplines and to evaluate their current capacity to contribute to establishing equitable, sustainable and viable ocean sectors consistent with a blue economy approach. We find that the key differences in the capacity of regions to achieve a blue economy are not due to available natural resources, but include factors such as national stability, corruption and infrastructure, which can be improved through targeted investments and cross-scale cooperation. Knowledge gaps can be addressed by integrating historical natural and social science information on the drivers and outcomes of resource use and management, thus identifying equitable pathways to establishing or transforming ocean sectors1,3,4. Our results suggest that policymakers must engage researchers and stakeholders to promote evidence-based, collaborative planning that ensures that sectors are chosen carefully, that local benefits are prioritized, and that the blue economy delivers on its social, environmental and economic goals. The capacity to create an equitable and sustainable ‘blue economy’ from ocean resources will be determined by addressing social conditions, governance and infrastructure, not just resource availability, as shown by a fuzzy logic model incorporating multidisciplinary criteria.

Recent studies suggest that the pervasive impacts on global fishery resources caused by stressors such as overfishing and climate change could dramatically increase the likelihood of fishery conflict. However, existing projections do not consider wider economic, social, or political trends when assessing the likelihood of, and influences on, future conflict trajectories. In this paper, we build four future fishery conflict scenarios by considering multiple fishery conflict drivers derived from an expert workshop, a longitudinal database of international fishery conflict, secondary data on conflict driver trends, and regional expert reviews. The scenarios take place between the years 2030 and 2060 in the North-East Atlantic (“scramble for the Atlantic”), the East China Sea (“the remodeled empire”), the coast of West Africa (“oceanic decolonization”), and the Arctic (“polar renaissance”). The scenarios explore the implications of ongoing trends in conflict-prone regions of the world and function as accessible, science-based communication tools that can help foster anticipatory governance capacity in the pursuit of future ocean security.

In Brave New World, Aldus Huxley presented a dystopic vision of the world where global despotic power was maintained, in part, through isolating academics in Iceland. Current academic accountability is based on notions of excellence that reflect prestige. In governing itself based on excellence, I argue academia has metaphorically sent itself to Iceland, which has consequences for the relevance of academia toward sustainable development. Internally-driven academies are facing their own sustainability issues, as more students are trained for too-few professor positions, and must find work in other fields with inadequate training. Academic measures of excellence attempt to reflect merit but perpetuate pre-conceived notions of prestige, which is discriminatory, contributes to intellectual gate-keeping, and distracts from research rigor and policy relevance. Measures of excellence fail to translate to real-world impact in three important ways: academic reviews that accounts for prestige lead to poor and biased predictions of outcomes of research projects; prestigious individuals are not more reliable experts than less prestigious individuals (and may be more overconfident); prestigious institutions are not more likely to contribute to sustainable development outcomes than less prestigious institutions. It is time to drop academic notions of excellence and turn toward external partnerships, where academic institutions can focus more on real-world impact, train students for diverse careers, and allow academic research to focus on quality over quantity. For academia to be relevant to society, and to serve people graduating academic institutions, academia must proactively leave Iceland and rejoin the rest of the world.

Governments around the world rely on environmental impact assessment (EIA) to understand the environmental risks of proposed developments. To examine the basis for these appraisals, we examine the output of EIA processes in jurisdictions within seven countries, focusing on scope (spatial and temporal), mitigation actions and whether impacts were identified as ‘significant’. We find that the number of impacts characterized as significant is generally low. While this finding may indicate that EIA is successful at promoting environmentally sustainable development, it may also indicate that the methods used to assess impact are biased against findings of significance. To explore the methods used, we investigate the EIA process leading to significance determination. We find that EIA reports could be more transparent with regard to the spatial scale they use to assess impacts to wildlife. We also find that few reports on mining projects consider temporal scales that are precautionary with regard to the effects of mines on water resources. Across our sample of reports, we find that few EIAs meaningfully consider the different ways that cumulative impacts can interact. Across countries, we find that proposed mitigation measures are often characterized as effective without transparent justification, and sometimes are described in ways that render the mitigation measure proposal ambiguous. Across the reports in our sample, professional judgement is overwhelmingly the determinant of impact significance, with little transparency around the reasoning process involved or input by stakeholders. We argue that the credibility and accuracy of the EIA process could be improved by adopting more rigorous assessment methodologies and empowering regulators to enforce their use. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a major accomplishment of international diplomacy and vision. Beyond this, the SDGs represent a globally agreed on definition of sustainable development that has eluded researchers of sustainability, containing an expansive set of specific targets across social, economic, and environmental dimensions. However, the SDGs can be considered a “destination without a path”, because the SDGs are a set of integrated goals without a plan. Much research being conducted on the SDGs is focused on evaluating our status relative to the SDGs or determining how the SDGs are interrelated, however this research is rarely conducted within a larger theory of change and consequently may provide limited guidance on policy and decisions. Simultaneously there exist strategic frameworks to plan for sustainability transitions, namely the strategic sustainable development framework and the transition management framework, that can be thought of as “planning a path without a destination” because they have not been used for globally-agreed on definitions of sustainable development. I propose that researchers and policymakers “determine a path to a destination” by studying the SDGs in the context of these strategic frameworks. Doing so will allow for researchers to address complex social–ecological questions on how humans and the natural world interact and will also allow policymakers to establish strategic and evidence-based ways forward. I discuss two examples of this kind of research: one where understanding SDG achievement in the context of global change allows for the identification of strategic policy directions (using the strategic sustainable development framework), and another one where understanding policy priorities and SDG interlinkages can help determine how to structure institutions to manage and regulate activities to achieve the SDGs (transition management). Achieving the SDGs must be done while uncertainty is high and decisions urgent, requiring us to determine a path towards our desired destination.

Ocean conditions can affect human health in a variety of ways that are often overlooked and unappreciated. Oceans adjacent to Canada are affected by many anthropogenic stressors, with implications for human health and well-being. Climate change further escalates these pressures and can expose coastal populations to unique health hazards and distressing conditions. However, current research efforts, education or training curriculums, and policies in Canada critically lack explicit consideration of these ocean–public health linkages. The objective of this paper is to present multiple disciplinary perspectives from academics and health practitioners to inform the development of future directions for research, capacity development, and policy and practice at the interface of oceans and human health in Canada. We synthesize major ocean and human health linkages in Canada, and identify climate-sensitive drivers of change, drawing attention to unique considerations in Canada. To support effective, sustained, and equitable collaborations at the nexus of oceans and human health, we recommend the need for progress in three critical areas: ( i) holistic worldviews and perspectives, ( ii) capacity development, and ( iii) structural supports. Canada can play a key role in supporting the global community in addressing the health challenges of climate and ocean changes.

Calls to address social equity in ocean governance are expanding. Yet ‘equity’ is seldom clearly defined. Here we present a framework to support contextually-informed assessment of equity in ocean governance. Guiding questions include: (1) Where and (2) Why is equity being examined? (3) Equity for or amongst Whom? (4) What is being distributed? (5) When is equity considered? And (6) How do governance structures impact equity? The framework supports consistent operationalization of equity, challenges oversimplification, and allows evaluation of progress. It is a step toward securing the equitable ocean governance already reflected in national and international commitments.

Determining where environmental management is best applied, either through regulating single sectors of human activities or across sectors, is complicated by interactions between human impacts and the environment. In this article, we show how an explicit representation of human-environment interactions can help, via “impact networks” including activities (e.g. shipping), stressors (e.g. ship strikes), species (e.g. humpback whales) or ecosystem services (e.g. marine recreation). Impact networks can enable the identification of “leverage nodes”, which, if present, can direct managers to the activities and stressors crucial for reducing risk to important ecosystem components. Exploring an impact network for a coastal ecosystem in British Columbia, Canada, we seek to identify these leverage nodes using a new approach employing Bayesian Belief Networks of risks to ecosystems. In so doing, we address three key questions: (1) Do leverage nodes exist? (2) Do management plans for species correctly identify leverage nodes? (3) Does the management of leverage nodes for certain species realize benefits for other species and ecosystem services? We show that there are several leverage nodes across all species investigated, and show that preconceptions about the regulation of risk to species can misidentify leverage nodes, potentially leading to ineffective management. Notably, we show that managing fisheries does not reduce overall risk to herring whereas managing diverse cumulative impacts including nutrient runoff, oil spills, and marine debris can reduce risk to herring, additional species, and related ecosystem services. Thus, by targeting leverage nodes, managers can efficiently mitigate risks for whole communities, ecosystems, and ecosystem services.

Increasingly, conservation organizations are conducting conservation activities with local communities. Many conservation organizations now position their work as contributing to sustainable development initiatives, and local involvement in conservation is understood to increase conservation and sustainability success. Aside from communities, however, conservation organizations are accountable to funders and partners, and values and priorities vary across actor type. Mismatched goals combine with power imbalances between conservation actors, and create decision-making conflict throughout conservation processes, from objective setting through implementation and evaluation. As a result, communities may lose local decision-making power or face new negative consequences, trust in organizational/community partnerships may be undermined, and conservation organizations’ reputations (and the reputation of the sector as whole) may suffer. In this commentary we point out processes and conditions that can lead conservation organizations to privilege accountability to funders and others over accountability to communities, thereby undermining community-level success. We follow with suggestions for how funders, conservation organizations and others may improve community engagement and community-level outcomes, and improve their reputations in general and in their work with communities, by actively leveraging accountability to the community and involving local community members in decision-making.

Coastal regions are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) given their importance for human habitation, resource provisioning, employment, and cultural practice. They are also regions where different ecological, disciplinary, and jurisdictional boundaries both overlap and are obscured. We thus propose the land-sea interface as areas where governance systems are most in need of frameworks for systems analysis to meet the SDGs—which are inherently interconnected— and integrate complex interdependencies between human livelihoods, energy, transport, food production, and nutrient flows (among others). We propose a strategic land-sea governance framework built on the sustainable transitions literature to plan for governance to achieve sustainable development across the land-sea interface. To illustrate our proposal, we compare governance planning processes across four case-based scenarios: an industrialized coastal country, a least developed coastal country, a developing coastal country with local dependencies on ocean resources, and a small island developing state primarily dependent on tourism. Through the lens of aligning governance actors and actions vertically (subnational to national), horizontally (across sectors), and programmatically (from goals to implementation), we propose scales at which governance systems may be misaligned, such as where different agencies that affect marine systems have conflicting visions and goals, leading to stalled progress or counterproductive actions. Where possible, we also highlight strategies to align across scales of high level strategic policy, tactical scale institutional mandates and cooperation, and on the ground activities and operations, such as aligning actors based on an analysis of interdependencies of goals.

Our paper, "The Insignificance of Thresholds in Environmental Impact Assessment: An Illustrative Case Study in Canada" received a critique that challenged us on a number of grounds. Namely, that we defame EIA practitioners, that we advocate EIAs to become a scientific enterprise, that we do not recognize the complexity inherent in EIA, and that EIA undergo an independent assessment by regulators. We respond to all of these points, and argue that conflict of interest is an institutional issue (not one of corrupt practitioners), and that we critique the science that forms the basis of evidence in EIA. Further, we show that the complexity and uncertainty in the critique cannot explain the findings from our paper that all cases of impact threshold exceedance were determined to be not significant in EIA. Finally, we compare the significance determinations in proponent reports to final regulator decisions and determine that they are overwhelmingly identical (93-95%). Regulators are financially independent of proponents, but their decisions on significant are heavily dependent on the information and analysis provided by the proponent reports. As regulators rely on these reports, environmental impact assessments must be based on rigorous and transparent analysis.

GGS was supported by NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship and a Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions doctoral grant, as well as by funding from the Nereus Program; AEP gratefully acknowledges generous support from the Canada Research Chairs program; VFF is partially supported by CNPq grants; EA is supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (grant ECF1090229); and KMAC is supported by an SSHRC Insight Grant (#435-2017-1071). Maintaining the continued flow of benefits from science, as well as societal support for science, requires sustained engagement between the research community and the general public. On the basis of data from an international survey of 1092 participants (634 established researchers and 458 students) in 55 countries and 315 research institutions, we found that institutional recognition of engagement activities is perceived to be undervalued relative to the societal benefit of those activities. Many researchers report that their institutions do not reward engagement activities despite institutions’ mission statements promoting such engagement. Furthermore, institutions that actually measure engagement activities do so only to a limited extent. Most researchers are strongly motivated to engage with the public for selfless reasons, which suggests that incentives focused on monetary benefits or career progress may not align with researchers’ values. If institutions encourage researchers’ engagement activities in a more appropriate way – by moving beyond incentives – they might better achieve their institutional missions and bolster the crucial contributions of researchers to society. Publisher PDF

McDonald et al. (1) argue that labor conditions in fisheries can be discerned from the movement and characteristics of fishing vessels. We recognize the authors’ effort, yet have strong reservations regarding their 1) limited dataset, 2) assumptions, and 3) model validation. Forced labor is a serious human rights violation, and any scientific claims potentially informing policy must be considered with particular care to best promote efforts toward ending human terror and supporting survivors. We, therefore, urge that the authors consider how their efforts may misinform policy. The authors create profiles from vessels reported to have committed labor abuses, search for similar profiles in a database of 16,000 vessels … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: wilf.swartz{at}dal.ca. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030, henceforth the Ocean Decade) aims to galvanize the international community to acquire and apply scientific knowledge of the ocean. The Ocean Decade is specifically intended to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including its promise to “leave no one behind,” which includes coastal Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, and will undoubtedly influence research agendas and financing well beyond 2030. This focus is captured in the phrase “the science we need for the ocean we want” (1). This first-of-its-kind UN Decade will require ambition and commitment, especially during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. Researchers hoping to help deliver the “ocean we want” as a society-first principle need to understand how science can benefit ocean-dependent people. This requires a science model that co-designs and co-delivers solutions in collaboration with people whose livelihood depends on the ocean, such as the Madagascar fishers pictured here. Image credit: ©artush/123RF.com. The current draft of the Ocean Decade Implementation Plan establishes a framework of outcomes, actions, and objectives, acknowledging the need for interdisciplinary approaches to design and deliver solution-oriented research alongside ocean-dependent people (1). Recent proposals from the academic literature for the Ocean Decade emphasize increasing our global biophysical understanding through exploration and observation of, and experimentation on, the ocean (2⇓⇓–5). But will understanding the ocean lead to “the ocean we want”? We argue that proposals for the UN Decade should consider a crucial point: To achieve the ocean we want, we must better understand the needs and priorities of ocean-dependent peoples and evaluate potential solutions for them. Advancements in marine scientific knowledge and technological innovation have brought myriad benefits to people and the planet. They include: understanding global environmental change; assessing effects of anthropogenic … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: geralds{at}mun.ca. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Sustainably managed wild fisheries support food and nutritional security, livelihoods, and cultures (1). Harmful fisheries subsidies—government payments that incentivize overcapacity and lead to overfishing—undermine these benefits yet are increasing globally (2). World Trade Organization (WTO) members have a unique opportunity at their ministerial meeting in November to reach an agreement that eliminates harmful subsidies (3). We—a group of scientists spanning 46 countries and 6 continents—urge the WTO to make this commitment...

International audience; Effective networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) are explicitly recognized and called for in international biodiversity conservation strategies such as Aichi Target 11. While various indicators have been proposed to assess effectiveness of individual MPAs, no comprehensive set of indicators exists for MPA networks, particularly for qualitative targets. The qualitative elements recognize the value of social, economic, governance, and ecological factors in achieving effective biodiversity conservation. Here, we used a systematic literature review to identify indicators of MPA network effectiveness. We reviewed 64 publications and identified 48 indicators that could be aligned with the qualitative elements of Aichi Target 11. Results showed that assessments of MPA network effectiveness predominantly focused on effective management while neglecting equitable management, and integration into the wider land and seascape. Indicators tended to focus on ecological characteristics, overlooking the social, cultural and governance dimensions. Key challenges in addressing these gaps include identifying conflicting priorities and objectives in adjacent marine and land areas that interfere with cooperation and knowledge sharing, and ensuring representation from diverse areas with distinct social and ecological contexts. This study provides the first review of indicators for assessing MPA networks and should help assessing whether current and future targets are met.

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and quarantines have led to significant industrial slowdowns among the world’s major emitters of air pollutants, with resulting decreases to air pollution and greenh...

Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goals. As a component of the IPBES Global Assessment, we conducted an iterative expert deliberation process with an extensive review of scenarios and pathways to sustainability, including the broader literature on indirect drivers, social change and sustainability transformation. We asked, what are the most important elements of pathways to sustainability? Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation. The eight leverage points are: (1) Visions of a good life, (2) Total consumption and waste, (3) Latent values of responsibility, (4) Inequalities, (5) Justice and inclusion in conservation, (6) Externalities from trade and other telecouplings, (7) Responsible technology, innovation and investment, and (8) Education and knowledge generation and sharing. The five intertwined levers can be applied across the eight leverage points and more broadly. These include: (A) Incentives and capacity building, (B) Coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, (C) Pre-emptive action, (D) Adaptive decision-making and (E) Environmental law and implementation. The levers and leverage points are all non-substitutable, and each enables others, likely leading to synergistic benefits. Transformative change towards sustainable pathways requires more than a simple scaling-up of sustainability initiatives—it entails addressing these levers and leverage points to change the fabric of legal, political, economic and other social systems. These levers and leverage points build upon those approved within the Global Assessment's Summary for Policymakers, with the aim of enabling leaders in government, business, civil society and academia to spark transformative changes towards a more just and sustainable world. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. Fil: Chan, Kai M. A.. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Boyd, David R.. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Gould, Rachelle. University of Vermont; Estados Unidos Fil: Jetzkowitz, Jens. Staatliches Museum fur Naturkunde Stuttgart; Alemania Fil: Liu, Jianguo. Michigan State University; Estados Unidos Fil: Muraca, Bárbara. University of Oregon; Estados Unidos Fil: Naidoo, Robin. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Beck, Paige. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Satterfield, Terre. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Selomane, Odirilwe. Stellenbosch University; Sudáfrica Fil: Singh, Gerald G.. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Sumaila, Rashid. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Ngo, Hien T.. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; Alemania Fil: Boedhihartono, Agni Klintuni. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Agard, John. The University Of The West Indies; Trinidad y Tobago Fil: de Aguiar, Ana Paula D.. Stockholms Universitet; Suecia Fil: Armenteras, Dolors. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; Colombia Fil: Balint, Lenke. BirdLife International; Reino Unido Fil: Barrington-Leigh, Christopher. Mcgill University; Canadá Fil: Cheung, William W. L.. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Díaz, Sandra Myrna. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina Fil: Driscoll, John. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Esler, Karen. Stellenbosch University; Sudáfrica Fil: Eyster, Harold. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Gregr, Edward J.. University of British Columbia; Canadá Fil: Hashimoto, Shizuka. The University Of Tokyo; Japón Fil: Hernández Pedraza, Gladys Cecilia. The World Economy Research Center; Cuba Fil: Hickler, Thomas. Goethe Universitat Frankfurt; Alemania Fil: Kok, Marcel. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency; Países Bajos Fil: Lazarova, Tanya. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency; Países Bajos Fil: Mohamed, Assem A. A.. Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate; Egipto Fil: Murray-Hudson, Mike. University Of Botswana; Botsuana Fil: O'Farrell, Patrick. University of Cape Town; Sudáfrica Fil: Palomo, Ignacio. Basque Centre for Climate Change; España Fil: Saysel, Ali Kerem. Boğaziçi University; Turquía Fil: Seppelt, Ralf. Martin-universität Halle-wittenberg; Alemania Fil: Settele, Josef. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research-iDiv; Alemania Fil: Strassburg, Bernardo. International Institute for Sustainability, Estrada Dona Castorina; Brasil Fil: Xue, Dayuan. Minzu University Of China; China Fil: Brondízio, Eduardo S.. Indiana University; Estados Unidos

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require coordinated policymaking for achievement. Aruba is a Small Island State (SIDS) with 90% of its jobs and GDP dependent on the oceans has prioritized SDG 14 – life below water, or the SDG Ocean goal – for achievement. We have developed a planning process, building off of the the literature on SDG interactions and stratetic policy planning literatures, to guide SDG policy development and implemented it in Aruba. We used a structured expert elicitation process to carry out the analysis for this process. The process involves first identifying priority areas based on determining which SDG Ocean target provides the most co-benefit across other SDGs. Next we determine the SDG areas that most contribute to key SDG Ocean targets. Using this information we determine the key policy areas important for promoting sustainable oceans. Finally, we determine the Aruban ministries and institutions responsible for the various SDG areas and based on which SDG areas are most important for SDG Ocean achievement we visualize a new institutional network to support the achievement of SDG Oceans. First, we determined that while increasing economic benfits for SIDS (SDG 14.7) was the most important SDG Ocean target when considering direct impacts, reducing marine pollution (SDG 14.1), restoring marine habitats (SDG 14.2), and marine protection (SDG 14.5) were the most important SDG Ocean targets when considering indirect impacts. SDG areas with the most beneficial consequences for the SDG Ocean targets were mitigating climate impacts (SDG 13), international partnerships (SDG 17), jobs and economy (SDG 8), conserving terrestrial area (SDG 15), strengthening institutions (SDG 16), and promoting sustainable consumption and production practices (SDG 12). When links between SDGs are not considered, the institutional network supporting sustainable oceans is relatively simple, with the Department of Nature and the Environment most central: it coordinates across the largest number of relevant institutions supporting the SDG Oceans goal. However, when SDG relationships are considered, the institutional network is relatively complex, and the Social and Economic Council is determined to be the most central and important in coordinating activities across the largest number of Aruban instutions that support the SDG Ocean goal. Transitioning to a sustainable future requires policymaking that works across social-ecological dimensions, and need to design coherent and integrative institutional structures with which to do this.

The future of the global ocean economy is currently envisioned as advancing towards a 'blue economy'-socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically viable ocean industries

Achieving the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) results in many ecological, social, and economic consequences that are inter-related. Understanding relationships between sustainability goals and determining their interactions can help prioritize effective and efficient policy options. This paper presents a framework that integrates existing knowledge from literature and expert opinions to rapidly assess the relationships between one SDG goal and another. Specifically, given the important role of the oceans in the world's social-ecological systems, this study focuses on how SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and the targets within that goal, contributes to other SDG goals. This framework differentiates relationships based on compatibility (co-benefit, trade-off, neutral), the optional nature of achieving one goal in attaining another, and whether these relationships are context dependent. The results from applying this framework indicate that oceans SDG targets are related to all other SDG goals, with two ocean targets (of seven in total) most related across all other SDG goals. Firstly, the ocean SDG target to increase economic benefits to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and least developed countries for sustainable marine uses has positive relationships across all SDGs. Secondly, the ocean SDG target to eliminate overfishing, illegal and destructive fishing practices is a necessary pre-condition for achieving the largest number of other SDG targets. This study highlights the importance of the oceans in achieving sustainable development. The rapid assessment framework can be applied to other SDGs to comprehensively map out the subset of targets that are also pivotal in achieving sustainable development.

Conventional common property thinking assumes that a central goal of management is to maintain social-ecological systems in a healthy and resilient state, including maintaining the ability of communities to harvest across time and generations. Little research has been done, however, on how common property systems are affected by demographic shifts, the social status of emerging livelihoods, and the employment aspirations of users for their offspring. An empirical case study from Chile (well known for its common property fisheries) suggests that major socio-cultural shifts are now occurring, with a lack of entry by new fishers and an aging population of existing ones. These types of social and cultural changes are increasingly common through globalization and worldwide economic development, and pose significant policy challenges across broad classes of common property systems. The Chilean case reveals that community adaptive capacity can come at the expense of social-ecological common property systems, and highlights the need to consider the broader context of ‘slow’ social variables.

Climate change poses challenges to achieving sustainable ocean development, with particularly acute risk posed to coastal states and marginalized coastal users. International efforts to address these challenges include the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the UN 2030 Agenda. Further, some countries are refocusing their ocean programs to align with blue economy strategies globally. We look to Canada, an ocean nation developing a blue economy strategy, to examine the climate-responsiveness of their oceans policies. First, we identify climate change impacts on ecosystem services affecting each of Canada’s coasts through a document scan. Then, through a structured policy analysis, we examine whether Canadian fisheries and oceans policy are responsive to these impacts. Finally, we discuss how current policies do or do not address climate impacts on oceans and coasts in Canada, and how this focus, or lack thereof, will have an outsized impact on certain ocean sectors (e.g., inshore fisheries). Our findings show a policy landscape largely dependent on climate change action promoted in a few broad federal initiatives, with oceans-related climate action operating through area-based conservation measures and research and monitoring initiatives. We conclude with recommendations for Canada and similar ocean states to integrate climate and ocean policies across federal departments and ocean sectors by centering vulnerable coastal users in policy formulation. Given Canada’s rapid development of a blue economy strategy as a new governing framework for oceans policy, we recommend the strategy be guided by long-term sustainability goals that prioritize environmental and social sustainability over short-term economic growth.

Ecosystem services are impacted through restricting service supply, through limiting people from accessing services, and by affecting the quality of services. We map cumulative impacts to 8 different ecosystem services in coastal British Columbia using InVEST models, spatial data, and expert elicitation to quantify risk to each service from anthropogenic activities. We find that impact to service access and quality as well as impact to service supply results in greater severity of impact and a greater diversity of causal processes of impact than only considering impact to service supply. This suggests that limiting access to services and impacts to service quality may be important and understanding these kinds of impacts may complement our knowledge of impacts to biophysical systems that produce services. Some ecosystem services are at greater risk from climate stressors while others face greater risk from local activities. Prominent causal pathways of impact include limiting access and affecting quality. Mapping cumulative impacts to ecosystem services can yield rich insights, including highlighting areas of high impact and understanding causes of impact, and should be an essential management tool to help maintain the flow of services we benefit from.

Transformations towards sustainability are needed to address many of the earth’s profound environmental and social challenges. Yet, actions taken to deliberately shift social–ecological systems towards more sustainable trajectories can have substantial social impacts and exclude people from decision-making processes. The concept of just transformations makes explicit a need to consider social justice in the process of shifting towards sustainability. In this paper, we draw on the transformations, just transitions, and social justice literature to advance a pragmatic framing of just transformations that includes recognitional, procedural and distributional considerations. Decision-making processes to guide just transformations need to consider these three factors before, during and after the transformation period. We offer practical and methodological guidance to help navigate just transformations in environmental management and sustainability policies and practice. The framing of just transformations put forward here might be used to inform decision making in numerous marine and terrestrial ecosystems, in rural and urban environments, and at various scales from local to global. We argue that sustainability transformations cannot be considered a success unless social justice is a central concern.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are aspirational goals set to achieve a future we want, with a dedicated goal for the oceans. Aspirations are helpful in guiding us but can ultimately be counterproductive. Overenthusiastic timelines, absolute targets, and unrealistic understanding of social–ecological dynamics can prevent progress toward sustainable development despite ambitions. In particular, following policy based on the naturalistic fallacy (whereby understanding how things are dictates how things should be) or the moralistic fallacy (whereby envisioning a desired future leads to assumptions about the way things are) can lead to ineffective policy. In contrast, coupling aspirations with strategic planning can promote progress on policy toward sustainable development and sustainable oceans.

Climate change is impacting marine ecosystems and their goods and services in diverse ways, which can directly hinder our ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set out under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Through expert elicitation and a literature review, we find that most climate change effects have a wide variety of negative consequences across marine ecosystem services, though most studies have highlighted impacts from warming and consequences of marine species. Climate change is expected to negatively influence marine ecosystem services through global stressors—such as ocean warming and acidification—but also by amplifying local and regional stressors such as freshwater runoff and pollution load. Experts indicated that all SDGs would be overwhelmingly negatively affected by these climate impacts on marine ecosystem services, with eliminating hunger being among the most directly negatively affected SDG. Despite these challenges, the SDGs aiming to transform our consumption and production practices and develop clean energy systems are found to be least affected by marine climate impacts. These findings represent a strategic point of entry for countries to achieve sustainable development, given that these two goals are relatively robust to climate impacts and that they are important pre‐requisite for other SDGs. Our results suggest that climate change impacts on marine ecosystems are set to make the SDGs a moving target travelling away from us. Effective and urgent action towards sustainable development, including mitigating and adapting to climate impacts on marine systems are important to achieve the SDGs, but the longer this action stalls the more distant these goals will become.

Comprehensive marine management approaches, such as ecosystem based management and marine spatial planning, would benefit from quantitative, spatially explicit estimates of the cumulative impact of human activities on marine ecosystems. In this study, a method to map and quantify cumulative impact was applied to estimate the combined impact of multiple stressors on Tauranga Harbour, a large estuary in New Zealand. The impact of eight stressors on seven ecosystems was assessed at a 100 m resolution, using New Zealand-specific expert judgement on the vulnerability of different ecosystems to each stressor. Estimated cumulative impact tended to be highest in the southern basin and inner estuaries, corresponding with sensitive ecosystems and multiple stressors and reflecting what is known about the distribution of pressures in Tauranga Harbour. Using benthic community data as an independent estimate of ecological condition, we had the novel opportunity to validate cumulative impact predicted from the model. Only a weak relationship was found between the estimated cumulative impact and measured ecological condition and several reasons for this are considered. Substitution of a more realistic sediment layer improved model outputs, highlighting the importance of accurate input data, particularly for stressors or ecosystems with high impact weights. Different standardisation methods did not greatly affect the spatial distribution of cumulative impact patterns in the harbour. The study highlights some fundamental issues for consideration when using this cumulative impact mapping approach, such as the importance of involving the expert panel throughout the course of the study and the availability and quality of the data used to construct the model.

Ecosystem approaches to fisheries management (EAF) are increasingly relevant for intergovernmental fisheries policies, national management plans, and seafood certification guidelines. To aid in integration of EAF in tropical artisanal fisheries, this study evaluates the potential ecosystem impacts of four distinct fisheries (kelp forest, sandy shore, pelagic, and reef ecosystems) in Mexico, using quantitative trophic models and a comparable network developed using fishers’ traditional knowledge. Notably, the fishers’ model was actually more complex than science-based models and could be a highly useful baseline for subsequent collaborative efforts for ecosystembased management. At current fishing levels, these fisheries are not expected to have significant ecosystem impacts, though we identify species that could be potentially impacted if fishing effort were to considerably increase and that should be monitored. Explicitly considering ecological interactions—whether or not this can be fully integrated into reference points—in co-managed fisheries can help prioritize monitoring and management measures, supporting ecologically sustainable fisheries and the social and economic objectives of artisanal fishers.

Developing accurate methods for estimating animal body size from fragmentary remains is a key focus of zooarchaeological research. Here, we respond to Greg Campbell's critique regarding methods we recently developed to predict Mytilus californianus shell size from archaeological contexts using linear regression. We show that Campbell's assertion that our regressions are “inaccurate” is incorrect and mischaracterizes the premise and results of our study. We appreciate that Campbell draws attention to the importance of allometry but do not agree that archaeologists must first describe ontogenetic size relationships before developing a practical method for size prediction in zooarchaeology. We further argue that pooling data from broad geographic scales incorporates diverse growing conditions into a predictive model to account for the uncertainties across archaeological time scales. We conclude by highlighting the difference between zoological and zooarchaeological research goals and emphasize that the precision required for a particular analysis can create a mismatch between analytical expectations and archaeologically applicable research questions.

California mussel (Mytilus californianus) are ubiquitous shellfish species in coastal archaeological sites throughout western North America but are often highly fragmentary when recovered in small-volume ‘column’ or ‘bulk’ samples typically used to quantify shellfish assemblages. Archaeological research has predominantly focused on evaluating the dietary contribution of Mytilus but most studies assume an average meat weight or use categorical size classifications to determine subsistence strategies and harvest profiles. In this paper, we develop and evaluate a regression-based method for estimating shell length and meat weight for fragmentary Mytilus remains. Our regressions are based on live-collected M. californianus specimens from multiple locations in California and British Columbia and provide considerable statistical confidence for predicting length and meat weight. We also apply the same regressions to a collection of Mytilus trossulus and show similar predictive equations, indicating this method can be used in cases where it is not possible to distinguish morphologically between M. californianus and M. trossulus. We demonstrate how these results improve upon previous size-classification methods and discuss the potential for applying these measurements to enhance the relevance of these zooarchaeological data for modern marine conservation and management efforts.

There is increasing recognition in academic circles of the importance of adaptive governance for the sustainability of social-ecological systems, but little examination of specific implications for the 34% of land-use where human activities are pervasive but potentially commensurate with functioning ecosystems: agricultural production systems. In this paper, we argue for the need to view food systems and agro-ecosystems as multi-scalar complex adaptive systems and identify five key challenging characteristics of such systems: multi-causality; cumulative impacts; regime shifts; teleconnections and mismatch of scales. These characteristics are necessary features of multi-scalar adaptive systems, and apply equally to social and natural subsystems. We discuss the implications of these characteristics for agricultural production systems and consider how governance can rise to these challenges. We present five case studies that highlight these issues: pollinator declines; payments for ecosystem services; pest control and pesticide resistance; downstream aquatic systems in Tasman Bay, New Zealand; and riparian buffers in Puget Sound, USA. From these case studies we derive recommendations for managing agricultural systems, both specific and general. Ultimately, adaptive governance of agro-ecosystems will likely hinge upon three paradigm shifts: viewing farmers and ranchers not only as food producers but also as land and water managers; seeking not yield maximization but rather resilient management of food ecosystems; and critically, as it transcends the production-system literature, engaging broad audiences not only as consumers but also citizens.

Environmental assessment is the process that decision-makers rely on to predict, evaluate, and prevent biophysical, social, and economic impacts of potential project developments. The determination of significance in environmental assessment is central to environmental management in many nations. We reviewed ten recent environmental impact assessments from British Columbia, Canada and systematically reviewed and scored significance determination and the approaches used by assessors, the use of thresholds in significance determination, threshold exceedances, and the outcomes. Findings of significant impacts were exceedingly rare and practitioners used a combination of significance determination approaches, most commonly relying upon reasoned argumentation. Quantitative thresholds were rarely employed, with less than 10% of the valued components evaluated using thresholds. Even where quantitative thresholds for significance were exceeded, in every case practitioners used a variety of rationales to demote negative impacts to non-significance. These reasons include combinations of scale (temporal and spatial) of impacts, an already exceeded baseline, model uncertainty and/or substituting less stringent thresholds. Governments and agencies can better protect resources by requiring clear and defensible significance determinations, by making government-defined thresholds legally enforceable and accountable, and by requiring or encouraging significance determination through inclusive and collaborative approaches.

Coastal environments are some of the most populated on Earth, with greater pressures projected in the future. Managing coastal systems requires the consideration of multiple uses, which both benefit from and threaten multiple ecosystem services. Thus understanding the cumulative impacts of human activities on coastal ecosystem services would seem fundamental to management, yet there is no widely accepted approach for assessing these. This study trials an approach for understanding the cumulative impacts of anthropogenic change, focusing on Tasman and Golden Bays, New Zealand. Using an expert elicitation procedure, we collected information on three aspects of cumulative impacts: the importance and magnitude of impacts by various activities and stressors on ecosystem services, and the causal processes of impact on ecosystem services. We assessed impacts to four ecosystem service benefits — fisheries, shellfish aquaculture, marine recreation and existence value of biodiversity—addressing three main research questions: (1) how severe are cumulative impacts on ecosystem services (correspondingly, what potential is there for restoration)?; (2) are threats evenly distributed across activities and stressors, or do a few threats dominate?; (3) do prominent activities mainly operate through direct stressors, or do they often exacerbate other impacts? We found (1) that despite high uncertainty in the threat posed by individual stressors and impacts, total cumulative impact is consistently severe for all four ecosystem services. (2) A subset of drivers and stressors pose important threats across the ecosystem services explored, including climate change, commercial fishing, sedimentation and pollution. (3) Climate change and commercial fishing contribute to prominent indirect impacts across ecosystem services by exacerbating regional impacts, namely sedimentation and pollution. The prevalence and magnitude of these indirect, networked impacts highlights the need for approaches like this to understand mechanisms of impact, in order to develop strategies to manage them.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182233.].

The elicitation of expert judgment is an important tool for assessment of risks and impacts in environmental management contexts, and especially important as decision-makers face novel challenges where prior empirical research is lacking or insufficient. Evidence-driven elicitation approaches typically involve techniques to derive more accurate probability distributions under fairly specific contexts. Experts are, however, prone to overconfidence in their judgements. Group elicitations with diverse experts can reduce expert overconfidence by allowing cross-examination and reassessment of prior judgements, but groups are also prone to uncritical "groupthink" errors. When the problem context is underspecified the probability that experts commit groupthink errors may increase. This study addresses how structured workshops affect expert variability among and certainty within responses in a New Zealand case study. We find that experts' risk estimates before and after a workshop differ, and that group elicitations provided greater consistency of estimates, yet also greater uncertainty among experts, when addressing prominent impacts to four different ecosystem services in coastal New Zealand. After group workshops, experts provided more consistent ranking of risks and more consistent best estimates of impact through increased clarity in terminology and dampening of extreme positions, yet probability distributions for impacts widened. The results from this case study suggest that group elicitations have favorable consequences for the quality and uncertainty of risk judgments within and across experts, making group elicitation techniques invaluable tools in contexts of limited data.

The term ‘Blue Economy’ is increasingly used in various marine sectors and development frameworks. For it to be a truly useful approach, however, we argue that social benefits and equity must be explicitly prioritized alongside environmental and economic concerns. This integration of social dimensions within the Blue Economy is required to ensure that marine economic sectors contribute to achieving sustainable development goals. We review what an equity-focused ‘Blue Economy’ might mean for some established and emergent marine sectors and note existing guidelines that may be used for incorporating these aspects into planning. Moving towards a Blue Economy does not only imply developing emerging sectors in undeveloped areas; larger challenges will be found in transforming industries that already have significant economic and livelihood contributions despite concurrent social and environmental concerns. A ‘marine industrial revolution’—as the Blue Economy has sometimes been understood—cannot achieve sustainable development and well-being if it does not avoid the widespread negative social and ecological impacts of historical development pathways. A concerted effort is therefore necessary to design and implement inclusive and equitable policies as an integral part of a Blue Economy that is transformative and not only expansive.

The global rush to develop the ‘blue economy’ risks harming both the marine environment and human wellbeing. Bold policies and actions are urgently needed. We identify five priorities to chart a course towards an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable blue economy.

International fisheries conflict can cause crises by threatening maritime security, ecosystems and livelihoods. In a highly connected world, the possibility for localized fisheries conflict to escalate into ‘systemic risks’, where risk in one domain such as food supply can increase risk in another domain such as maritime security and international relations, is growing. However, countries often choose hard-line actions rather than strategies initiating or repairing fisheries cooperation. To design, prioritize and implement more effective responses, a deeper understanding of the temporal and regional patterns of fisheries conflict is needed. Here, we present novel findings from the first global and longitudinal database of international fisheries conflict between 1974–2016. We explore the characteristics of conflict over time and develop a typology of eight distinct types of conflict. Fisheries conflict increased between 1974 and 2016, with substantial variation in both the type of conflict and the countries involved. Before 2000, fisheries conflict involved mostly North American and European countries fighting over specific species. Since then, conflict primarily involved Asian countries clashing over multiple and nonspecified species linked to illegal fishing practices. We use this empirical data to consider potential response strategies that can foster maritime security and thereby contribute to broader societal stability.