Sixteen years of social and ecological dynamics reveal challenges and opportunities for adaptive management in sustaining the commons

Framing future trajectories of human activities in the German North Sea to inform cumulative effects assessments and marine spatial planning

The global industrialization of seascapes and climate change leads to an increased risk of severe impacts on marine ecosystem functioning. While broad scale spatio-temporal assessments of human pressures on marine ecosystems become more available, future trajectories of human activities at regional and local scales remain often speculative. Here we introduce a stepwise process to integrate bottom-up and expert-driven approaches for scenario development to inform cumulative effects assessments and related marine spatial planning (MSP). Following this guidance, we developed optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic scenarios for major human pressures in the German North Sea such as bottom trawling, offshore wind, nutrient discharge, and aggregate extraction. The forecasts comprise quantitative estimates in relation to spatial footprint, intensity, and technological advancements of those pressures for the years 2030 and 2060. Using network analyses, we assessed interactions of the current and future trajectories of pressures thereby accounting for climate change and the growing need for marine conservation. Our results show that future scenarios of spatial distributions could be developed for activities that are spatially refined and included in the current MSP process. Further our detailed analyses of interdependencies of development components revealed that forecasts regarding specific targets and intensities of human activities depend also strongly on future technological advances. For fisheries and nutrient discharge estimates were less certain due to critical socio-ecological interactions in the marine and terrestrial realm. Overall, our approach unraveled such trade-offs and sources of uncertainties. Yet, our quantitative predictive scenarios were built under a sustainability narrative on a profound knowledge of interactions with other sectors and components in and outside the management boundaries. We advocate that they enable a better preparedness for future changes of cumulative pressure on marine ecosystems.

Scope and applicability of social-ecological resilience to antimicrobial resistance

Social-ecological systems conceptualise how social human systems and ecological natural systems are intertwined. In this Personal View, we define the scope and applicability of social-ecological resilience to antimicrobial resistance. Resilience to antimicrobial resistance corresponds to the capacity to maintain the societal benefits of antimicrobial use and One Health systems' performance in the face of the evolutionary behaviour of microorganisms in response to antimicrobial use. Social-ecological resilience provides an appropriate framework to make sense of the disruptive impacts resulting from the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance; capture the diversity of strategies needed to tackle antimicrobial resistance and to live with it; understand the conditions that underpin the success or failure of interventions; and appreciate the need for adaptive and coevolutionary governance. Overall, resilience thinking is essential to improve understanding of how human societies dynamically can cope with, adapt, and transform to the growing global challenge of antimicrobial resistance.

Reimagining conservation practice: Indigenous self-determination and collaboration in Papua New Guinea

Here we describe a 14-year collaboration in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, between an Indigenous NGO, Indigenous scientists and international researchers. New Ireland is a marine province in the Western Pacific region where most residents depend on fishing, marine gleaning and small-scale gardening for their livelihoods. Ailan Awareness is a locally founded and managed NGO that focuses on the strengthening of Indigenous sovereignty regarding biological, cultural and spiritual diversity as well as fostering Indigenous epistemology practices and strengthening biocultural diversity. In partnership with anthropological researchers, Ailan Awareness has designed an approach to marine conservation informed by the growing field of decolonial research practices. By working to empower coastal communities to make decisions about their marine and cultural resources using a mix of Indigenous, anthropological and scientific methods and giving primacy to strengthening Indigenous modes of knowledge production and the role of community Elders, Ailan Awareness addresses a major gap in the efforts of the national government and international NGOs: giving the people most directly affected by declining biodiversity and loss of tradition the support and tools required to design and carry out the strengthening of both biological diversity and traditional social practices. In this paper we describe the methodology used by Ailan Awareness and the history of collaboration that resulted in these methods.

Potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and fisheries production in 72 tropical coastal communities

Climate change is expected to profoundly affect key food production sectors, including fisheries and agriculture. However, the potential impacts of climate change on these sectors are rarely considered jointly, especially below national scales, which can mask substantial variability in how communities will be affected. Here, we combine socioeconomic surveys of 3,008 households and intersectoral multi-model simulation outputs to conduct a sub-national analysis of the potential impacts of climate change on fisheries and agriculture in 72 coastal communities across five Indo-Pacific countries (Indonesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and Tanzania). Our study reveals three key findings: First, overall potential losses to fisheries are higher than potential losses to agriculture. Second, while most locations (> 2/3) will experience potential losses to both fisheries and agriculture simultaneously, climate change mitigation could reduce the proportion of places facing that double burden. Third, potential impacts are more likely in communities with lower socioeconomic status.

Responses of agriculture and fisheries to climate change are interlinked, yet rarely studied together. Here, the authors analyse more than 3000 households from 5 tropical countries and forecast mid-century climate change impacts, finding that communities with higher fishery dependence and lower socioeconomic status communities face greater losses.

Implementing Adaptive Management within a Fisheries Management Context: A Systematic Literature Review Revealing Gaps, Challenges, and Ways Forward

Adaptive management acknowledges uncertainty and complexity in socio–ecological systems, providing a structured approach for learning and for making the needed management adjustments. Despite its utility, there are few examples of how adaptive management has been applied. To identify the extent to which implementation aligns with theory, we conducted a systematic literature review of adaptive management in a fisheries management context to compare how adaptive management was defined, applied and what was deemed important for implementation. Following the PRISMA approach for meta-synthesis, 20 papers were identified and reviewed against the eight key components of adaptive management. Across the case studies, we found ambiguity in the definitions of adaptive management, a varying emphasis on the different components of adaptive management and barriers to adaptive management that stemmed from both outside the process and as part of the iterative cycle. Our analysis suggests that for adaptive management to be implemented in other natural resource management situations, consideration should be given to the active and ongoing participation of those outside management, integrating socio–economic values into decision-making, and ensuring a monitoring plan is implemented. Additionally, attention should be paid to having the time and ability to detect the effects of management actions against a broader background of change. This analysis offers insights into how management support can lead to more effective objective-based decisions, thereby improving management over time.

Linking key human-environment theories to inform the sustainability of coral reefs

Effective solutions to the ongoing "coral reef crisis" will remain limited until the underlying drivers of coral reef degradation are better understood. Here, we conduct a global-scale study of how four key metrics of ecosystem states and processes on coral reefs (top predator presence, reef fish biomass, trait diversity, and parrotfish scraping potential) are explained by 11 indicators based on key human-environment theories from the social sciences. Our global analysis of >1,500 reefs reveals three key findings. First, the proximity of the nearest market has the strongest and most consistent relationships with these ecosystem metrics. This finding is in keeping with a body of terrestrial research on how market accessibility shapes agricultural practices, but the integration of these concepts in marine systems is nascent. Second, our global study shows that resource conditions tend to display a n-shaped relationship with socioeconomic development. Specifically, the probabilities of encountering a top predator, fish biomass, and fish trait diversity were highest where human development was moderate but lower where development was either high or low. This finding contrasts with previous regional-scale research demonstrating an environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis (which predicts a U-shaped relationship between socioeconomic development and resource conditions). Third, together, our ecosystem metrics are best explained by the integration of different human-environment theories. Our best model includes the interactions between indicators from different theoretical perspectives, revealing how marine reserves can have different outcomes depending on how far they are from markets and human settlements, as well as the size of the surrounding human population.

Geographical patterns of social cohesion drive disparities in early COVID infection hazard

The uneven spread of COVID-19 has resulted in disparate experiences for marginalized populations in urban centers. Using computational models, we examine the effects of local cohesion on COVID-19 spread in social contact networks for the city of San Francisco, finding that more early COVID-19 infections occur in areas with strong local cohesion. This spatially correlated process tends to affect Black and Hispanic communities more than their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Local social cohesion thus acts as a potential source of hidden risk for COVID-19 infection.

Contingency planning for coral reefs in the Anthropocene; The potential of reef safe havens

Reducing the global reliance on fossil fuels is essential to ensure the long-term survival of coral reefs, but until this happens, alternative tools are required to safeguard their future. One emerging tool is to locate areas where corals are surviving well despite the changing climate. Such locations include refuges, refugia, hotspots of resilience, bright spots, contemporary near-pristine reefs, and hope spots that are collectively named reef 'safe havens' in this mini-review. Safe havens have intrinsic value for reefs through services such as environmental buffering, maintaining near-pristine reef conditions, or housing corals naturally adapted to future environmental conditions. Spatial and temporal variance in physicochemical conditions and exposure to stress however preclude certainty over the ubiquitous long-term capacity of reef safe havens to maintain protective service provision. To effectively integrate reef safe havens into proactive reef management and contingency planning for climate change scenarios, thus requires an understanding of their differences, potential values, and predispositions to stress. To this purpose, I provide a high-level review on the defining characteristics of different coral reef safe havens, how they are being utilised in proactive reef management and what risk and susceptibilities they inherently have. The mini-review concludes with an outline of the potential for reef safe haven habitats to support contingency planning of coral reefs under an uncertain future from intensifying climate change.

The future of ocean governance

Ocean governance is complex and influenced by multiple drivers and actors with different worldviews and goals. While governance encompasses many elements, in this paper we focus on the processes that operate within and between states, civil society and local communities, and the market, including industry. Specifically, in this paper, we address the question of how to move towards more sustainable ocean governance aligning with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the UN Ocean Decade. We address three major risks to oceans that arise from governance-related issues: (1) the impacts of the overexploitation of marine resources; (2) inequitable distribution of access to and benefits from marine ecosystem services, and (3) inadequate or inappropriate adaptation to changing ocean conditions. The SDGs have been used as an underlying framework to develop these risks. We identify five drivers that may determine how ocean governance evolves, namely formal rules and institutions, evidence and knowledge-based decision-making, legitimacy of decision-making institutions, stakeholder engagement and participation, and empowering communities. These drivers were used to define two alternative futures by 2030: (a) 'Business as Usual'-a continuation of current trajectories and (b) 'More Sustainable Future'-optimistic, transformational, but technically achievable. We then identify what actions, as structured processes, can reduce the three major governance-related risks and lead to the More Sustainable Future. These actions relate to the process of co-creation and implementation of improved, comprehensive, and integrated management plans, enhancement of decision-making processes, and better anticipation and consideration of ambiguity and uncertainty.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version of this article (10.1007/s11160-020-09631-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The future of ocean governance

Ocean governance is complex and influenced by multiple drivers and actors with different worldviews and goals. While governance encompasses many elements, in this paper we focus on the processes that operate within and between states, civil society and local communities, and the market, including industry. Specifically, in this paper, we address the question of how to move towards more sustainable ocean governance aligning with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the UN Ocean Decade. We address three major risks to oceans that arise from governance-related issues: (1) the impacts of the overexploitation of marine resources; (2) inequitable distribution of access to and benefits from marine ecosystem services, and (3) inadequate or inappropriate adaptation to changing ocean conditions. The SDGs have been used as an underlying framework to develop these risks. We identify five drivers that may determine how ocean governance evolves, namely formal rules and institutions, evidence and knowledge-based decision-making, legitimacy of decision-making institutions, stakeholder engagement and participation, and empowering communities. These drivers were used to define two alternative futures by 2030: (a) 'Business as Usual'-a continuation of current trajectories and (b) 'More Sustainable Future'-optimistic, transformational, but technically achievable. We then identify what actions, as structured processes, can reduce the three major governance-related risks and lead to the More Sustainable Future. These actions relate to the process of co-creation and implementation of improved, comprehensive, and integrated management plans, enhancement of decision-making processes, and better anticipation and consideration of ambiguity and uncertainty.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version of this article (10.1007/s11160-020-09631-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Conceptualizing ecosystem services using social-ecological networks

Social-ecological networks (SENs) represent the complex relationships between ecological and social systems and are a useful tool for analyzing and managing ecosystem services. However, mainstreaming the application of SENs in ecosystem service research has been hindered by a lack of clarity about how to match research questions to ecosystem service conceptualizations in SEN (i.e., as nodes, links, attributes, or emergent properties). Building from different disciplines, we propose a typology to represent ecosystem service in SENs and identify opportunities and challenges of using SENs in ecosystem service research. Our typology provides guidance for this growing field to improve research design and increase the breadth of questions that can be addressed with SEN to understand human-nature interdependencies in a changing world.

Contrasted patterns in climate change risk for Mediterranean fisheries

Climate change is rapidly becoming one of the biggest threats to marine life, and its impacts have the potential to strongly affect fisheries upon which millions of people rely. This is particularly crucial for the Mediterranean Sea, which is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, one of the world's most overfished regions, and where temperatures are rising 25% faster than in the rest of the ocean on average. In this study, we calculated a vulnerability index for 100 species that compose 95% of the Mediterranean catches, through a trait-based approach. The Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) methodology was subsequently used to assess the risks due to climate change of Mediterranean fisheries. We found that the northern Mediterranean fisheries target more vulnerable species than their southern counterparts. However, when combining this catch-based vulnerability with a suite of socio-economic parameters, north African countries stand out as the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Indeed, considering countries' exposure of the fisheries sector and their vulnerability to climate change, a sharp contrast between northern and southern Mediterranean appears, with Egypt and Tunisia scoring the highest risk. By integrating a trait-based approach on targeted marine species with socio-economic features, our analysis helps to better understand the ramifications of climate change consequences on Mediterranean fisheries and highlights the regions that could potentially be particularly affected.

Adaptive management as a foundational framework for developing collaborative estuary management programs

Collaborative nonregulatory programs can benefit the long-term sustainability of environmental resources. Such programs benefit from extensive planning and assessment relative to ecological systems as well as public participation. While many programs use adaptive management as a guiding programmatic framework, few programs successfully integrate social and human context into their adaptive management frameworks. While this adaptive governance framework can be successful, many potential challenges arise when incorporating public stakeholders into the adaptive management framework. To reduce those challenges, programs need participation from diverse stakeholder groups that represent multiple communities of interest, place, and identity. The participatory process benefits from a diverse group of stakeholders and can result in successful management of environmental resources. We highlight the participatory co-management process of three newly developing nonregulatory programs that are modeled after the United States EPA's National Estuary Program in the Perdido and Pensacola Bay systems, Choctawhatchee Bay, and the St. Andrew and St. Joseph Bay systems (Florida USA). This case study illustrates how collaborative nonregulatory programs can be implemented not only in the United States, but also in other regions of the world.

Equity – the Bottleneck and the Opportunity

There is a widespread tendency for diverse uses of Nature, on scales from small and local to very large, to become unsustainable. Once unsustainable, bringing a use back to sustainability and keeping it sustainable then takes substantial effort and tools appropriate to the context of the use. This Perspective first asks why is the tendency for unsustainability so pervasive, when it is an outcome that no user group has adopted as an objective, and ways to keep uses sustainable are known. I argue and present evidence that the common factor underlying the pervasiveness of unsustainable uses of Nature is inequity in the distribution of the benefits created from those uses, with both the wealthy “winners” of the distributional inequities and those disadvantaged and in poverty driving uses toward increasing unsustainability in ways that depend on the nature of the inequities. Unless the inequity of distribution of benefits from uses of Nature is addressed as an issue in its own right, there are few or no pathways to medium or long-term sustainable use. However, if inequity is addressed broadly and effectively, many pathways are available and societies can select the pathways appropriate to their cultural and ecological contexts.

Ocean Acidification and Human Health

The ocean provides resources key to human health and well-being, including food, oxygen, livelihoods, blue spaces, and medicines. The global threat to these resources posed by accelerating ocean acidification is becoming increasingly evident as the world's oceans absorb carbon dioxide emissions. While ocean acidification was initially perceived as a threat only to the marine realm, here we argue that it is also an emerging human health issue. Specifically, we explore how ocean acidification affects the quantity and quality of resources key to human health and well-being in the context of: (1) malnutrition and poisoning, (2) respiratory issues, (3) mental health impacts, and (4) development of medical resources. We explore mitigation and adaptation management strategies that can be implemented to strengthen the capacity of acidifying oceans to continue providing human health benefits. Importantly, we emphasize that the cost of such actions will be dependent upon the socioeconomic context; specifically, costs will likely be greater for socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, exacerbating the current inequitable distribution of environmental and human health challenges. Given the scale of ocean acidification impacts on human health and well-being, recognizing and researching these complexities may allow the adaptation of management such that not only are the harms to human health reduced but the benefits enhanced.

Sixteen years of social and ecological dynamics reveal challenges and opportunities for adaptive management in sustaining the commons

Coral reefs provide ecosystem goods and services for millions of people, but reef health is declining worldwide and current approaches have failed to prevent losses. Adaptive approaches that reflect local social, economic, and cultural conditions are required. We conducted social and ecological research across 5 time intervals over 16 y to study the key traits of a long-enduring customary adaptive reef management system in Papua New Guinea. Resource users identified high levels of compliance, strong leadership and social cohesion, and participatory decision making among community members as key traits of a rotational fisheries closure system, which increases fish biomass and makes fish less wary (hence more catchable), relative to openly fished areas.

Efforts to confront the challenges of environmental change and uncertainty include attempts to adaptively manage social–ecological systems. However, critical questions remain about whether adaptive management can lead to sustainable outcomes for both ecosystems and society. Here, we make a contribution to these efforts by presenting a 16-y analysis of ecological outcomes and perceived livelihood impacts from adaptive coral reef management in Papua New Guinea. The adaptive management system we studied was a customary rotational fisheries closure system (akin to fallow agriculture), which helped to increase the biomass of reef fish and make fish less wary (more catchable) relative to openly fished areas. However, over time the amount of fish in openly fished reefs slowly declined. We found that, overall, resource users tended to have positive perceptions about this system, but there were negative perceptions when fishing was being prohibited. We also highlight some of the key traits of this adaptive management system, including 1) strong social cohesion, whereby leaders played a critical role in knowledge exchange; 2) high levels of compliance, which was facilitated via a “carrot-and-stick” approach that publicly rewarded good behavior and punished deviant behavior; and 3) high levels of participation by community actors.