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The term “blue justice” was coined in 2018 during the 3rd World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress. Since then, academic engagement with the concept has grown rapidly. This article reviews 5 years of blue justice scholarship and synthesizes some of the key perspectives, developments, and gaps. We then connect this literature to wider relevant debates by reviewing two key areas of research – first on blue injustices and second on grassroots resistance to these injustices. Much of the early scholarship on blue justice focused on injustices experienced by small-scale fishers in the context of the blue economy. In contrast, more recent writing and the empirical cases reviewed here suggest that intersecting forms of oppression render certain coastal individuals and groups vulnerable to blue injustices. These developments signal an expansion of the blue justice literature to a broader set of affected groups and underlying causes of injustice. Our review also suggests that while grassroots resistance efforts led by coastal communities have successfully stopped unfair exposure to environmental harms, preserved their livelihoods and ways of life, defended their culture and customary rights, renegotiated power distributions, and proposed alternative futures, these efforts have been underemphasized in the blue justice scholarship, and from marine and coastal literature more broadly. We conclude with some suggestions for understanding and supporting blue justice now and into the future.

Mauritius is reported to have the highest marine species endemism in the Western Indian Ocean faunal Province but the status of these species has not been evaluated. To address this knowledge gap, 119 reef sites were sampled to evaluate populations of 16 species of rare and endemic reef fish and corals using scuba‐based surveys conducted by citizen scientists and marine science professionals. Additionally, we interviewed ~1,000 households in 27 coastal villages to determine their perceptions of the environmental concerns and rare and endemic marine species. In general, population numbers of both studied corals and fish were low and distributions were patchy, with little indication that the fisheries management zones were protecting these species. The Mauritian gregory and Mauritian anemonefish were the most abundant species. The Mauritian and Creole damselfishes, which are range‐restricted Mascarene endemics, were not observed and potentially extinct. Endemic fish and coral population numbers were higher on the leeward than windward side of the island. The leeward side has higher tourism use and conservation activities that could promote endemic conservation. Environmental concerns of interviewees were high but varied by district and their socioeconomic contexts. Respondents showed an overall concern for the environment and agreed that endemic and rare species had a right to survive. Nevertheless, these rare and endemic coral reef species are threatened by isolation and habitat loss combined with rapid climate and human resource use change. National and district‐specific plans of actions could help to secure their futures.

As the impacts of climate change on human society accelerate, coastal communities are vulnerable to changing environmental conditions. The capacity of communities and households to respond to these changes (i.e., their adaptive capacity) will determine the impacts of climate and co-occurring stressors. To date, empirical evidence linking theoretical measures of adaptive capacity to community and household responses remains limited. Here, we conduct a global meta-analysis examining how metrics of adaptive capacity translate to human responses to change (Adapt, React, Cope response) in 22 small-scale fishing case studies from 20 countries (n = 191 responses). Using both thematic and qualitative comparative analysis, we evaluate how responses to climate, environmental, and social change were influenced by domains of adaptive capacity. Our findings show that adaptive responses at the community level only occurred in situations where the community had Access to Assets, in combination with other domains including Diversity and Flexibility, Learning and Knowledge, and Natural Capital. In contrast, Access to Assets was nonessential for adaptive responses at the household level. Adaptive households demonstrated Diversity and Flexibility when supported by strong Governance or Institutions and were often able to substitute Learning and Knowledge and Natural Capital with one another. Standardized metrics of adaptive capacity are essential to designing effective policies promoting resilience in natural resource-dependent communities and understanding how social and ecological aspects of communities interact to influence responses. Our framework describes how small-scale fishing communities and households respond to environmental changes and can inform policies that support vulnerable populations.

Small-scale fishing (SSF) communities face numerous current and future climate-related stressors. While many studies address the perceived resilience or latent adaptive capacity of these communities to such stressors, little existing work analyzes the observable responses of coastal communities to documented or ongoing climate-related stressors. Here we provide an analytical framework for exploring community responses to distinct stressors, as well as the attributes of communities that mediate different response types. We provide an example application of this framework to display the utility of this approach in categorizing observed community responses documented in existing literature. Application of this framework to the broader and growing body of literature describing responses of SSF communities to environmental perturbations will allow for greater insight into the characteristics of both communities and stressors that drive adaptive, reactive, or coping responses.