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For millennia humans have extracted biological and physical resources from the planet to sustain societies and enable the development of technology and infrastructure. Growth in the human population and changing consumption patterns have increased the human footprint on ecosystems and their biodiversity, including in fresh waters. Freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity face many threats and it is now widely accepted that we are in a biodiversity crisis. One means of protecting and restoring freshwater biodiversity is to better manage the exploitation of freshwater biota and aggregate resources (e.g., sand, gravel, boulders). Here we outline the threats arising from such exploitation and identify response options to ensure that methods and levels of extraction are sustainable and allow recovery of over-exploited freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems. The guidance we provide will enable practitioners, policy makers, and resource stewards to embrace effective, sustainable, and evidence-based approaches to resource extraction. Response options for managing species exploitation include strengthening assessment and reporting, using science-based approaches to reduce overexploitation and support recovery, embracing community engagement, and building or tightening legislation. Response options for managing exploitation of freshwater aggregate resources include reducing demand for harvest, strengthening governance, reporting, and monitoring of environmental impacts, and promoting the restoration of degraded ecosystems or compensating for losses. Diverse case studies highlight examples of where various management actions have been implemented in an effort to consider how they can be scaled up and adapted to other contexts. Managing exploitation will be a key aspect of broader initiatives needed to protect and restore freshwater biodiversity around the globe.

For millennia humans have extracted biological and physical resources from the planet to sustain societies and enable the development of technology and infrastructure. Growth in the human population and changing consumption patterns have increased the human footprint on ecosystems and their biodiversity, including in fresh waters. Freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity face many threats and it is now widely accepted that we are in a biodiversity crisis. One means of protecting and restoring freshwater biodiversity is to better manage the exploitation of freshwater biota and aggregate resources (e.g., sand, gravel, and boulders). Here we outline the threats arising from such exploitation and identify response options to ensure that methods and levels of extraction are sustainable and allow recovery of over-exploited freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems. The guidance we provide will enable practitioners, policy-makers, and resource stewards to embrace effective, sustainable, and evidence-based approaches to resource extraction. Response options for managing species exploitation include strengthening assessment and reporting, using science-based approaches to reduce overexploitation and support recovery, embracing community engagement, and building or tightening legislation. Response options for managing exploitation of freshwater aggregate resources include reducing demand for harvest, strengthening governance, reporting, and monitoring of environmental impacts, and promoting the restoration of degraded ecosystems or compensating for losses. Diverse case studies highlight examples of where various management actions have been implemented in an effort to consider how they can be scaled up and adapted to other contexts. Managing exploitation will be a key aspect of broader initiatives needed to protect and restore freshwater biodiversity around the globe.

Research-engaged decision making and policy reform processes are critical to advancing resilience, adaptation, and transformation in social-ecological systems under stress. Here we propose a new conceptual framework to assess opportunities for research engagement in the policy process, building upon existing understandings of power dynamics and the political economy of policy reform. We retrospectively examine three cases of research engagement in small-scale fisheries policy and decision making, at national level (Myanmar) and at regional level (Pacific Islands region and sub-Saharan Africa), to illustrate application of the framework and highlight different modes of research engagement. We conclude with four principles for designing research to constructively and iteratively engage in policy and institutional reform: (a) nurture multi-stakeholder coalitions for change at different points in the policy cycle, (b) engage a range of forms and spaces of power, (c) embed research communications to support and respond to dialogue, and (d) employ evaluation in a cycle of action, learning, and adaptation. The framework and principles can be used to identify entry points for research engagement and to reflect critically upon the choices that researchers make as actors within complex processes of change.

Increasing the production of food from the ocean is seen as a pathway toward more sustainable and healthier human diets. Yet this potential is being overshadowed by competing uses of ocean resources in an accelerating blue economy.'' The current emphasis on production growth, rather than equitable distribution of benefits, has created three unexamined or flawed assumptions that growth in the blue economy will lead to growth in blue food'' production, increased production will inevitably lead to improved food and nutrition security, and mariculture production will replace marine capture fisheries. In this perspective, we argue that if research and policies are pursued without addressing these blind spots,'' blue food contributions to reducing hunger and malnutrition, and to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, will be limited. Taking a broader food-system approach beyond production to also considering food access, affordability, and consumption will refocus the blue food agenda on making production and consumption more equitable and sustainable while increasing access for those who need it most.

Concern over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has led to a number of policy, trade and surveillance measures. While much attention has been given to the impact of IUU regulation on industrial fleets, recognition of the distinct impacts on small-scale fisheries is conspicuously lacking from the policy and research debate. In this paper, we outline three ways in which the application of IUU discourse and regulation undermines small-scale fisheries. First, the mainstream construction of “illegal,” “unreported” and “unregulated” fishing, and also the categorical use of “IUU” in an all-inclusive sense, disregards the diversity, legitimacy and sustainability of small-scale fisheries practices and their governing systems. Second, we explore how the recent trade-related measures to counter IUU fishing mask and reinforce existing inequalities between different sectors and countries, creating an unfair burden on small-scale fisheries and countries who depend on them. Third, as IUU fishing is increasingly approached as “organized crime,” there is a risk of inappropriately targeting small-scale fisheries, at times violently. Reflecting on these three trends, we propose three strategies by which a more sensitive and ultimately more equitable incorporation of small-scale fisheries can be supported in the global fight against IUU fishing.