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Watersheds offer opportunities for place-based interventions to transform systems health via preventative versus reactive approaches to management that achieve multiple co-benefits for public and environmental health. The Watershed Interventions for Systems Health in Fiji (WISH Fiji) project embraced participatory knowledge co-production and action-oriented research to identify risks to public and ecosystem health, prioritize interventions to address risks, and monitor responses of the system to interventions. We used screening filters and local knowledge to collaboratively identify five watersheds for action with high prior incidence of water-related diseases (Fiji’s “three plagues” of leptospirosis, typhoid and dengue) and high risk to downstream environmental health. We reviewed literature to identify disease risk factors, evaluated overlaps with risks for downstream environmental impact, and designed 13 instruments to collect information about baseline risk. Following consultations to obtain free, prior and informed consent, we enrolled 311 households across 29 communities. We synthesized data to identify key risks at the household, community, and landscape level, which were communicated to community water and resource management committees and government leaders as part of developing water and sanitation safety plans for each community. Local committees identified 339 priority risk reduction actions across nine main categories: animal management; drainage; health systems surveillance; hygiene; integrated planning; land use management; sanitation systems; waste management; and water systems. As of October 2022, 154 interventions were implemented in the five watersheds across different risk categories and scales. While we can track changes to factors that reduce risk of water-related disease and improve environmental health, direct evaluation of impacts to public health is limited due to poor geolocation of case records. The WISH Fiji project is a model of cross-sectoral coordination that efficiently progresses multiple Sustainable Development Goals, but scaling requires sustained investment in interventions to realize full benefits, particularly for nature-based solutions that exhibit lagged responses.

Small-scale fisheries account for 90% of global fishers and 40% of the global catch. Effectively managing small-scale fisheries is, therefore, crucial to progressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Co-management and community-based fisheries management are widely considered the most appropriate forms of governance for many small-scale fisheries. We outlined relationships between small-scale fisheries co-management and attainment of the SDGs, including evidence for impacts and gaps in dominant logic. We identified 11 targets across five SDGs to which small-scale fisheries co-management (including community-based fisheries management) can contribute; the theory of change by which these contributions could be achieved; and the strength of evidence for progress toward SDG targets related to various co-management strategies. Our theory of change links the 11 SDG targets by qualifying that progress toward some targets is contingent on others being achieved first. We then reviewed 58 case studies of co-management impacts from the Pacific Islands--a region rich in local marine governance--to evaluate evidence of where, to what degree, and with how much certainty different co-management strategies conferred positive impacts to each SDG target. These strategies included access restrictions, permanent area closures, periodic closures, and gear and species restrictions. Although many studies provide evidence linking multiple co-management strategies to improvements in resource status (SDG 14.4), there was limited evidence of follow-on effects, such as improvements in catch (SDG 2.3, 2.4), livelihoods (SDG 1.2), consumption (SDG 2.1), and nutrition (SDG 2.2). Our findings suggest that leaps of logic and assumptions are prevalent in co-management planning and evaluation. Hence, when evaluating co-management impacts against the SDGs, consideration of ultimate goals is required, otherwise, there is a risk of shortfalls between aspirations and impact.Las pequeñas pesquerías representan el 90% de los pescadores y el 40% de la pesca a nivel mundial. Por lo tanto, su manejo efectivo es crucial para el avance de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sustentable de las Naciones Unidas (ODS). Generalmente se considera a la coadministración y la administración comunitaria de las pesquerías como las maneras más apropiadas para gestionar las pequeñas pesquerías. Perfilamos las relaciones entre la coadministración de estas pesquerías y la obtención de los ODS, incluida la evidencia de impactos y vacíos en la lógica dominante. Identificamos once metas en cinco ODS a las cuales puede contribuir la coadministración de las pequeñas pesquerías (incluyendo la administración comunitaria de las pesquerías); la teoría de cambio mediante la cual pueden lograrse estas contribuciones; y la solidez de la evidencia relacionada con varias estrategias de coadministración para el progreso hacia las metas de los ODS. Nuestra teoría de cambio conecta a las once metas de los ODS al calificar que el progreso hacia algunas metas está supeditado a que primero se logren otras metas. Después revisamos 58 estudios de caso del impacto de la coadministración en las islas del Pacífico - una región rica en gestión marina local - para evaluar la evidencia de dónde, a cuál grado y con cuánta certeza las diferentes estrategias de coadministración otorgaron impactos positivos a cada meta de los ODS. Estas estrategias incluyen restricciones de acceso, cierres permanentes del área, cierres periódicos y restricciones de equipamiento y especies. Mientras que muchos estudios proporcionaron evidencia que conecta a varias estrategias de coadministración con mejoras en el estado de los recursos (ODS 14.4), hubo pruebas limitadas de los efectos de seguimiento, como mejoras en la captura (ODS 2.3, 2.4), la subsistencia (ODS 1.2), el consumo (ODS 2.1) y la nutrición (ODS 2.2). Nuestros descubrimientos sugieren que los saltos de lógica y de suposición prevalecen en la planeación y evaluación de la coadministración.小型渔业在全球渔民中占比90%, 而在全球渔获量中占比40%。因此, 有效管理小型渔业对实现联合国可持续发展目标 (SDG) 至关重要。共同管理和基于社区的渔业管理被广泛认为是最适合小型渔业的管理方式。本研究概述了小型渔业共同管理和实现SDG之间的关系, 包括影响的证据和主导逻辑中的空缺。我们提出小型渔业共同管理 (包括基于社区的渔业管理) 可以为5个SDG目标和11个具体目标做出贡献, 确定了实现这些贡献的变革理论, 并确定了在实现与各种共同管理策略有关的SDG目标中取得进展的证据水平。我们的变革理论通过分析目标进展是否取决于其他目标的实现, 从而将11个SDG具体目标建立了联系。接下来, 我们回顾了拥有丰富的地方海洋管理经验的太平洋岛屿的58个共同管理影响的案例研究, 以评估不同的共同管理策略对每个SDG目标产生积极影响的地点、程度和确定性的证据。这些策略包括准入限制、永久禁渔、定期禁渔以及渔具和物种限制。虽然许多研究提供了将多种共同管理策略与资源状态的改善 (SDG 14.4) 联系起来的证据, 但后续效应的证据有限, 如渔获量的增加 (SDG 2.3、2.4)、生计 (SDG 1.2) 、消费 (SDG 2.1) 和营养 (SDG 2.2) 的改善。我们的研究结果表明, 在共同管理的规划和评估中普遍存在着逻辑和假设的跳跃。因此, 在根据SDG目标评估共同管理的影响时, 需要考虑最终目标, 否则就有可能在预期和实际影响之间出现差距。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】.

In 2018, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a decision on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). It contains the definition of an OECM and related scientific and technical advice that has broadened the scope of governance authorities and areas that can be engaged and recognised in global conservation efforts. The voluntary guidance on OECMs and protected areas, also included in the decision, promotes the use of diverse, effective and equitable governance models, the integration of protected areas and OECMs into wider landscapes and seascapes, and mainstreaming of biodiversity conservation across sectors. Taken as a whole, the advice and voluntary guidance provides further clarity about the CBD Parties’ understanding of what constitutes equitable and effective area-based conservation measures within and beyond protected areas and provides standardised criteria with which to measure and report areas’ attributes and performance. This policy perspective suggests that this CBD decision represents further evidence of the evolution from the ‘new paradigm for protected areas’ to a broader ‘conserved areas paradigm’ that embodies good governance, equity and effective conservation outcomes and is inclusive of a diversity of contributions to conservation within and beyond protected areas.

As part of a community-based project on water-related disease in Fiji, we conducted a qualitative study to assess the decision-making structures, roles and actions of village-level water committees...

International audience; Decades of theory and scholarship on the concept of human well-being have informed a proliferation of approaches to assess well-being and support public policy aimed at sustainability and improving quality of life.Human well-being is multidimensional, and well-being emerges when the dimensions and interrelationships interact as a system. In this paper, we illuminate two crucial components of well-being that are often excluded from policy because of their relative difficulty to measure and manage: equity and interrelationships between humans and the environment.We use a mixed-methods approach to review and summarize progress to date in developing well-being constructs (including frameworks and methods) that address these two components.Well-being frameworks that do not consider the environment, or interrelationships between people and their environment, are not truly measuring well-being in all its dimensions.Use of equity lenses to assess well-being frameworks aligns with increasing efforts to more holistically characterize well-being and to guide sustainability management in ethical and equitable ways.Based on the findings of our review, we identify several pathways forward for the development and implementation of well-being frameworks that can inform efforts to leverage well-being for public policy.; Décadas de teoría y estudios sobre el concepto de bienestar humano han informado una proliferación de enfoques para evaluar el bienestar y apoyar la política pública orientada a la sustentabilidad y mejora de la calidad de vida. El bienestar humano es multidimensional y el bienestar surge cuando las dimensiones e interrelaciones interactúan como un sistema. En este trabajo, iluminamos dos componentes fundamentales del bienestar que frecuentemente son excluidos de políticas debido a su relativa dificultad para medir y gestionar: la equidad y las interrelaciones entre las personas y el medio ambiente. Usamos métodos mixtos para revisar y resumir el progreso hasta la fecha en el desarrollo de construcciones de bienestar (incluyendo marcos y métodos) que abordan estos dos componentes. Estructuras de bienestar que no consideran el medio ambiente, o interrelaciones entre las personas y su entorno, no están midiendo el bienestar en todas sus dimensiones. El uso de enfoques de equidad para evaluar los marcos de bienestar es consistente con el aumento en esfuerzos para caracterizar más holísticamente el bienestar y para orientar la gestión de la sustentabilidad de forma ética y equitativa. Basándonos en los hallazgos de nuestra revisión, identificamos varias vías para el desarrollo e implementación de marcos de bienestar que pueden informar iniciativas que aprovechan el bienestar para políticas públicas.; Des décennies de théorie et de recherche sur le concept de bien-être humain ont généré une prolifération d'approches pour évaluer le bien-être et encourager les décideurs à intégrer la durabilité et l'amélioration de la qualité de vie dans leurs politiques publiques. Le bien-être humain est multidimensionnel; il est favorisé par l’interaction entre ses multiples dimensions qui constituent un système. Dans cet article, nous soulignons deux composantes cruciales du bien-être qui sont souvent exclues des politiques publiques en raison de leur relative difficulté à mesurer et à gérer: l'équité et les relations entre les humains et l’environnement. Nous utilisons des méthodes mixtes pour inventorier et résumer les progrès réalisés à ce jour dans le développement et l’application des cadres conceptuels du bien-être (y compris des cadres d’analyse et des méthodes) qui traitent de ces deux composantes. Les cadres d’analyse sur le bien-être qui ne tiennent pas compte de l'environnement ou des relations entre les humains et l’environnement, ne mesurent pas le bien-être dans toutes ses dimensions. L’adoption de l’équité dans les méthodes d’évaluation du bien-être, permet de caractériser plus holistiquement la notion de bien-être et ainsi de développer une approche de la durabilité plus éthique et équitable. Sur la base des résultats de notre recherche bibliographique, nous identifions plusieurs voies pour développer et opérationnaliser des cadres de travail favorisant l’intégration du bien-être dans les politiques publiques.

Protection of coastal ecosystems from deforestation may be the best way to protect coral reefs from sediment runoff. However, given the importance of generating economic activities for coastal livelihoods, the prohibition of development is often not feasible. In light of this, logging codes of practice have been developed to mitigate the impacts of logging on downstream ecosystems. However, no studies have assessed whether managed land‐clearing can occur in tandem with coral reef conservation goals. This study quantifies the impacts of current land use and the risk of potential logging activities on downstream coral reef condition and fisheries using a novel suite of linked land‐sea models, using Kolombangara Island in the Solomon Islands as a case study. Further, we examine the ability of erosion reduction strategies stipulated in logging codes of practice to reduce these impacts as clearing extent increases. We found that with present‐day land use, reductions in live and branching coral cover and increases in turf algae were associated with exposure to sediment runoff from catchments and log ponds. Critically, reductions in fish grazer abundance and biomass were associated with increasing sediment runoff, a functional group that accounts for ~25% of subsistence fishing. At low clearing extents, although best management practices minimize the exposure of coral reefs to increased runoff, it would still result in 32% of the reef experiencing an increase in sediment exposure. If clearing extent increased, best management practices would have no impact, with a staggering 89% of coral reef area at risk compared to logging with no management. Synthesis and applications. Assessing trade‐offs between coastal development and protection of marine resources is a challenge for decision makers globally. Although development activities requiring clearing can be important for livelihoods, our results demonstrate that new logging in intact forest risks downstream resources important for both food and livelihood security. Importantly, our approach allows for spatially explicit recommendations for where terrestrial management might best complement marine management. Finally, given the critical degradation feedback loops that increased sediment runoff can reinforce on coral reefs, minimizing sediment runoff could play an important role in helping coral reefs recover from climate‐related disturbances.

Este artículo contiene 17 páginas, 8 figuras, 5 tablas., Complex histories of chronic and acute sea surface temperature (SST) stresses are expected to trigger taxon- and location-specific responses that will ultimately lead to novel coral communities. The 2016 El Niño-Southern Oscillation provided an opportunity to examine largescale and recent environmental histories on emerging patterns in 226 coral communities distributed across 12 countries from East Africa to Fiji. Six main coral communities were identified that largely varied across a gradient of Acropora to massive Porites dominance. Bleaching intensity was taxon-specific and was associated with complex interactions among the 20 environmental variables that we examined. Coral community structure was better aligned with the historical temperature patterns between 1985 and 2015 than the 2016 extreme temperature event. Additionally, bleaching responses observed during 2016 differed from historical reports during past warm years. Consequently, coral communities present in 2016 are likely to have been reorganized by both long-term community change and acclimation mechanisms. For example, less disturbed sites with cooler baseline temperatures, higher mean historical SST background variability, and infrequent extreme warm temperature stresses were associated with Acropora-dominated communities, while more disturbed sites with lower historical SST background variability and frequent acute warm stress were dominated by stress-resistant massive Porites corals. Overall, the combination of taxon-specific responses, community-level reorganization over time, geographic variation, and multiple environmental stressors suggest complex responses and a diversity of future coral communities that can help contextualize management priorities and activities., T.R.M. and N.A.M. received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Sustainable Poverty Alleviation from Coastal Ecosystem Services (SPACES) project, number NE-K010484-1. E.S.D. was supported by an NSERC Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Data collection in the Solomon Islands was supported by the Wallace Research Foundation, and the Waitt Foundation supported data collection in Fiji. Maldives data collection was supported by IUCN and USAID. M.M.M.G. received support from the French National Research Agency under the STORISK project (no. ANR-15-CE03- 0003). Data collection in Zanzibar was partly supported by the NORHED project coordinated by the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA). The Tiffany & Co. Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supported data collection at sites in the western Indian Ocean. V.J.P. received support from the DST-INSPIRE Faculty Programme, and Z. Tyabji and S. Chandrasekhar assisted V.J.P. with data collection in the Andaman Islands. R.A. received funding support from the Pew Marine Fellowship and an Intramural Project from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-201330E062). S.A.K. was funded by the VILLUM Foundation (grant no. 10114). A.T.H. received funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Indonesia data collection was supported by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. The following people assisted with data collection: A. Baird, A. Halford, S. Keith, C. Miternique, E. Montocchio, C. Muhando, J. Ndagala, and N. Summers.

Social networks have been and remain important in Oceania for building and maintaining social-ecological resilience. However, there is little quantitative information on the role of fish and fishin...

Coastal hazards pose a serious and increasing threat to the wellbeing of coastal communities. Adaptation responses to these hazards ideally need to be embedded in the local adaptation context. However, there is little understanding of factors that shape local adaptation choices, especially in rural and remote island settings. In this paper, we compile data on adaptation responses to coastal hazards and key factors that shape adaptation across 43 towns and villages in four Pacific island nations. Local communities cite erosion as a critical coastal hazard, even more often than coastal flooding and sea level rise. We find that communities prefer protective adaptation responses that use local knowledge and resources eand protect coastal ecosystems. Our findings reveal differences in preferred versus implemented adaptation responses.Ecosystem-based adaptation is the most commonly implemented response to coastal hazards. Seawalls and other hard structures are widely preferred and perceived as effective adaptation responses but are often not implemented due to a lack of social, institutional and technical capacity. Retreat is a highly unpopular adaptation response, and difficult to implement, as coastal communities in this study indicate a strong place attachment and are deeply embedded in their social and natural environment. Our results suggest that the selection of adaptation responses might involve important trade-offs between multiple, potentially conflicting, local priorities, such as the preference for seawalls and the need to protect coastal ecosystems. Findings emphasize the importance of considering the local context when making adaptation choices and show that even when responding to the same hazard, adaptation responses can vary significantly depending on local priorities and capacities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly spread around the world with extensive social and economic effects. This editorial focuses specifically on the implications of the pandemic for small-scale fishers, including marketing and processing aspects of the sector, and coastal fishing communities, drawing from news and reports from around the world. Negative consequences to date have included complete shut-downs of some fisheries, knock-on economic effects from market disruptions, increased health risks for fishers, processors and communities, additional implications for marginalized groups, exacerbated vulnerabilities to other social and environmental stressors, and increased Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing. Though much of the news is dire, there have been some positive outcomes such as food sharing, the revival of local food networks, increases in local sales through direct marketing and deliveries, collective actions to safeguard rights, collaborations between communities and governments, and reduced fishing pressure in some places. While the crisis is still unfolding, there is an urgent need to coordinate, plan and implement effective short- and long-term responses. Thus, we urge governments, development organizations, NGOs, donors, the private sector, and researchers to rapidly mobilize in support of small-scale fishers, coastal fishing communities, and associated civil society organizations, and suggest actions that can be taken by each to help these groups respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The human microbiome, described as an accessory organ because of the crucial functions it provides, is composed of species that are uniquely found in humans1,2. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the impact of routine interpersonal contacts in shaping microbiome composition. In a relatively 'closed' cohort of 287 people from the Fiji Islands, where common barriers to bacterial transmission are absent, we examine putative bacterial transmission in individuals' gut and oral microbiomes using strain-level data from both core single-nucleotide polymorphisms and flexible genomic regions. We find a weak signal of transmission, defined by the inferred sharing of genotypes, across many organisms that, in aggregate, reveals strong transmission patterns, most notably within households and between spouses. We were unable to determine the directionality of transmission nor whether it was direct. We further find that women harbour strains more closely related to those harboured by their familial and social contacts than men, and that transmission patterns of oral-associated and gut-associated microbiota need not be the same. Using strain-level data alone, we are able to confidently predict a subset of spouses, highlighting the role of shared susceptibilities, behaviours or social interactions that distinguish specific links in the social network.

Pollution from land-based run-off threatens coastal ecosystems and the services they provide, detrimentally affecting the livelihoods of millions people on the world's coasts. Planning for linkages among terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems can help managers mitigate the impacts of land-use change on water quality and coastal ecosystem services. We examine the approaches used for land-sea planning, with particular focus on the models currently used to estimate the impacts of land-use change on water quality and fisheries. Our findings could also be applied to other ecosystem services. This Review encompasses modelling of: large scale drivers of land-use change; local activities that cause such change; run-off, dispersal and transformation of pollutants in the coastal ocean; ecological responses to pollutants; socio-economic responses to ecological change; and finally, the design of a planning response. We find that there is a disconnect between the dynamical models that can be used to link land to sea processes and the simple tools that are typically used to inform planning. This disconnect may weaken the robustness of plans to manage dynamic processes. Land-sea planning is highly interdisciplinary, making the development of effective plans a challenge for small teams of managers and decision makers. Synthesis and applications. We propose some guiding principles for where and how dynamic land-sea connections can most effectively be built into planning tools. Tools that can capture pertinent processes are needed, but they must be simple enough to be implemented in regions with limited resources for collecting data, developing models and developing integrated land-sea plans.

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km2 of forest (40.5%) has high landscape-level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally designated protected areas. Of the forest inside protected areas, only 56% has high landscape-level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally., Mapping and quantifying degree of forest modification is critical to conserve and manage forests. Here the authors propose a new quantitative metric for landscape integrity and apply it to a global forest map, showing that less than half of the world’s forest cover has high integrity, most of which is outside nationally designed protected areas.

Achieving sustainable development globally requires multilevel and interdisciplinary efforts and perspectives. Global goals shape priorities and actions at multiple scales, creating cascading impacts realized at the local level through the direction of financial resources and implementation of programs intended to achieve progress towards these metrics. We explore ways to localize global goals to best support human well-being and environmental health by systematically comparing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with regionally-derived well-being dimensions that encompass components of social–ecological resilience across the Pacific Islands. Our research shows that, in the context of the Pacific, there are overlaps but also significant gaps between regional conceptions of well-being and the globally-derived SDGs. Some dimensions, related to human health and access to infrastructure and finances, are well represented in the SDGs. Other dimensions of high importance when localizing perspectives of well-being, such as those regarding connections between and across people and place and Indigenous and local knowledge, are not. Furthermore, internationally generated indicators may result in trade-offs and measurement challenges in local contexts. Creating space for place-based values in global sustainability planning aligns with international calls for transformational changes needed to achieve global goals. We identify challenges in applying SDG indicators at the local level and provide lessons learned to foster equitable and holistic approaches and outcomes for sustainability.

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remains poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate the first globally-consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km2 of forest (40.5%) have high landscape level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally-designated protected areas. Of the forest in protected areas, only 56% has high landscape level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally.

An Amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Fishing has had a profound impact on global reef shark populations, and the absence or presence of sharks is strongly correlated with national socio-economic conditions and reef governance. Decades of overexploitation have devastated shark populations, leaving considerable doubt as to their ecological status(1,2). Yet much of what is known about sharks has been inferred from catch records in industrial fisheries, whereas far less information is available about sharks that live in coastal habitats(3). Here we address this knowledge gap using data from more than 15,000 standardized baited remote underwater video stations that were deployed on 371 reefs in 58 nations to estimate the conservation status of reef sharks globally. Our results reveal the profound impact that fishing has had on reef shark populations: we observed no sharks on almost 20% of the surveyed reefs. Reef sharks were almost completely absent from reefs in several nations, and shark depletion was strongly related to socio-economic conditions such as the size and proximity of the nearest market, poor governance and the density of the human population. However, opportunities for the conservation of reef sharks remain: shark sanctuaries, closed areas, catch limits and an absence of gillnets and longlines were associated with a substantially higher relative abundance of reef sharks. These results reveal several policy pathways for the restoration and management of reef shark populations, from direct top-down management of fishing to indirect improvement of governance conditions. Reef shark populations will only have a high chance of recovery by engaging key socio-economic aspects of tropical fisheries.

We use a multi-tracer approach to identify catchment sources of nitrogen (N) in the skeletons of nearshore Porites corals within the Great Barrier Reef. We measured δ15N, δ13C and C:N ratios of particulate organic matter (POM) sampled from the Pioneer River catchment and identified five distinct end-members: (1) marine planktonic and algal-dominated matter with higher δ15N values from the river mouth and coastal waters; (2) estuarine planktonic and algal matter with lower δ15N values associated with estuarine mixing; (3) lower river freshwater phytoplankton and algal-dominated matter in stratified reservoirs adjacent to catchment weirs, with the 15N-enriched source likely caused by microbial remineralization and denitrification; (4) upper river low δ15N terrigenous soil matter eroded from cane fields bordering waterways; and (5) terrestrial plant detrital matter in forest streams, representing a low δ15N fixed atmospheric nitrogen source. The δ15N values of adjacent, nearshore Porites coral skeletons is reflective of POM composition in coastal waters, with 15N-enriched values reflective of transformed N during flood pulses from the Pioneer River.

Coastal fish populations are typically threatened by multiple human activities, including fishing pressure and run-off of terrestrial pollution. Linking multiple threats to their impacts on fish populations is challenging because the threats may influence a species directly, or indirectly, via its habitats and its interactions with other species. Here we examine spatial variation in abundance of coral reef fish across gradients of fishing pressure and turbidity in Fiji. We explicitly account for multiple pathways of influence to test the alternative hypotheses that (1) habitat moderates predation by providing shelter, so habitat loss only affects prey fish populations if there are abundant predators, (2) habitat change co-drives biomass of both prey and predator functional groups. We examined responses of 7 fish functional groups and found that habitat change co-drives both predator and prey responses to turbidity. Abundances of all functional groups were associated with changes in habitat cover; however, the responses of their habitats to turbidity were mixed. Planktivore and piscivore abundance were lower in areas of high turbidity, because cover of their preferred habitats was lower. Invertivore, browser and grazer abundance did not change strongly over the turbidity gradient, because different components of their habitats exhibited both increases and decreases with turbidity. The effects of turbidity on fish populations were minor in areas where fish populations were already depleted by fishing. These findings suggest that terrestrial run-off modifies the composition of reef fish communities indirectly by affecting the benthic habitats that reef fish use.

1. Anthropogenic disturbances particularly affect biodiversity in sensitive freshwater ecosystems by causing species loss. Thus, measuring the response of species to multiple disturbances is a key issue for conservation and environmental management. 2. As it is not practical to assess the response of every species in a community, we compared the performance of trait and taxonomic-based groupings of species for their abilities to predict species loss in a threatened freshwater fish assemblage. Specifically, we examined responses of a Fijian freshwater fish assemblage to deforestation, placement of anthropogenic barriers (overhanging culverts) and the presence of introduced cichlids. 3. Species grouped by traits showed more consistent responses to disturbances than taxonomic groups. In particular, species belonging to trait groups that were estuary associated favoured medium-to-hard substrate, while feeding specialists were highly likely to be absent in catchments with high deforestation and overhanging culverts. The presence of introduced cichlids (Oreochromis mossambicus and O. niloticus) had a smaller effect than deforestation and barriers, but was negatively associated with species richness of diadromous species with climbing ability and positively associated with presences of some piscivores. The trait groups also revealed that detritivores, species favouring soft substrate, and those with a broad dietary range were less sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances. 4. Our study indicates that using traits to predict species loss from disturbed environments can aid in detecting the responses of rare species to disturbance. In addition, we provided a method to estimate the consistency of species’ responses to disturbance. This study may ultimately help managers identify the most effective actions for conserving sensitive species that are seldom recorded in surveys.

Locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) are often recommended as a strategy to achieve conservation and fisheries management, though few studies have evaluated their performance against these objectives. We assessed the effectiveness of eight periodically harvested closures (PHCs), the most common form of management within Fijian LMMAs, focusing on two outcomes: protection of resource units and biodiversity conservation. Of the eight PHCs, only one provided biodiversity benefits, whereas three were moderately successful in protecting resource units (targeted fish biomass). Protection of resource units was more likely when PHCs were harvested less frequently, less recently, and when total fish biomass in open areas was lower. Our findings further suggest that monitoring, enforcement, and clearly defined boundaries are critical, less frequent harvesting regimes are advised, and culturally appropriate management incentives are needed. Although PHCs have some potential to protect resource units, they are not recommended as a single strategy for broad-scale biodiversity conservation.

SUMMARYDespite a growing body of literature on integrated land–sea management (ILSM), very little critical assessment has been conducted in order to evaluate ILSM in practice on island systems. Here we develop indicators for assessing 10 integrated island management principles and evaluate the performance of planning and implementation in four island ILSM projects from the tropical Pacific across different governance structures. We find that where customary governance is still strongly respected and enabled through national legislation, ILSM in practice can be very effective at restricting access and use according to fluctuations in resource availability. However, decision-making under customary governance systems may be vulnerable to mismanagement. Government-led ILSM processes have the potential to design management actions that address the spatial scale of ecosystem processes and threats within the context of national policy and legislation, but may not fully capture broad stakeholder interests, and implementation may be poorly coordinated across highly dispersed island archipelagos. Private sector partnerships offer unique opportunities for resourcing island ILSM, although these are highly likely to be geared towards private sector interests that may change in the future and no longer align with community and/or national objectives. We identify consistent challenges that arise during island ILSM planning and implementation and offer recommendations for improvement.

Conservation planners must reconcile trade-offs associated with using biodiversity data of differing qualities to make decisions. Coarse habitat classifications are commonly used as surrogates to design marine reserve networks when fine-scale biodiversity data are incomplete or unavailable. Although finely-classified habitat maps provide more detail, they may have more misclassification errors, a common problem when remotely-sensed imagery is used. Despite these issues, planners rarely consider the effects of errors when choosing data for spatially explicit conservation prioritizations. Here we evaluate trade-offs between accuracy and resolution of hierarchical coral reef habitat data (geomorphology and benthic substrate) derived from remote sensing, in spatial planning for Kubulau District, Fiji. For both, we use accuracy information describing the probability that a mapped habitat classification is correct to design marine reserve networks that achieve habitat conservation targets, and demonstrate inadequacies of using habitat maps without accuracy data. We show that using more detailed habitat information ensures better representation of biogenic habitats (i.e. coral and seagrass), but leads to larger and more costly reserves, because these data have more misclassification errors, and are also more expensive to obtain. Reduced impacts on fishers are possible using coarsely-classified data, which are also more cost-effective for planning reserves if we account for data collection costs, but using these data may under-represent reef habitats that are important for fisheries and biodiversity, due to the maps low thematic resolution. Finally, we show that explicitly accounting for accuracy information in decisions maximizes the chance of successful conservation outcomes by reducing the risk of missing conservation representation targets, particularly when using finely classified data.

Clearing forests for oil palm plantations is a major threat to tropical terrestrial biodiversity, and may potentially have large impacts on downstream marine ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs). However, little is known about the impacts of runoff from oil palm plantations, so it is not clear how oil palm development should be modified to minimize the risk of degrading marine ecosystems, or how marine conservation plans should be modified to account for the impacts of oil palm development. We coupled terrestrial and marine biophysical models to simulate changes in sediment/nutrient composition on reefs as a result of oil palm development in Papua New Guinea, and predicted the response of coral and seagrass ecosystems to different land-use scenarios. The condition of almost 60% of coastal ecosystems were predicted to be substantially degraded (more than a 50% decline from their initial state) after 5 years if all suitable land was converted to oil palm, with only 4% of coastal ecosystems improving in condition as trees matured. We evaluated marine ecosystem condition if the oil palm developments were consistent with global sustainability guidelines and found that there were only slight improvements in ecosystems condition compared to the scenario with complete conversion of forest to oil palm. Substantially reducing the impact of oil palm development on marine ecosystems required limiting new plantings to hill slopes below 15°, a more stringent restriction than currently allowed for in the sustainability guidelines. We evaluated priority marine conservation areas given current land-use and found reef ecosystems in these areas will likely be heavily degraded in the future from runoff. We find that marine conservation plans should be modified to prioritize turbid areas where coral communities may be more tolerant of increased suspended sediment in the water. The approach developed here provides guidelines for modifying marine conservation priorities in areas with oil palm development. Importantly, oil palm development guidelines cannot be truly ecologically sustainable unless they are modified to account for the impacts of oil palm on coastal marine ecosystems.

Este artículo contiene 10 páginas, 5 figuras., Without drastic efforts to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate globalized stressors, tropical coral reefs are in jeopardy. Strategic conservation and management requires identification of the environmental and socioeconomic factors driving the persistence of scleractinian coral assemblages—the foundation species of coral reef ecosystems. Here, we compiled coral abundance data from 2,584 Indo-Pacific reefs to evaluate the influence of 21 climate, social and environmental drivers on the ecology of reef coral assemblages. Higher abundances of framework-building corals were typically associated with: weaker thermal disturbances and longer intervals for potential recovery; slower human population growth; reduced access by human settlements and markets; and less nearby agriculture. We therefore propose a framework of three management strategies (protect, recover or transform) by considering: (1) if reefs were above or below a proposed threshold of >10% cover of the coral taxa important for structural complexity and carbonate production; and (2) reef exposure to severe thermal stress during the 2014–2017 global coral bleaching event. Our findings can guide urgent management efforts for coral reefs, by identifying key threats across multiple scales and strategic policy priorities that might sustain a network of functioning reefs in the Indo-Pacific to avoid ecosystem collapse.