The COVID-19 Pandemic, Small-Scale Fisheries and Coastal Fishing Communities

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.

The Thriving Coastal Communities Initiative

Rural and resource-based coastal communities in British Columbia (BC) are facing a number of pressing challenges that are affecting the holistic health and well-being of local people. The challenges facing coastal communities include being disconnected from decision-making process, a changing climate, rapidly evolving ecosystems, increasing pollution, declining investment, loss of community infrastructure, increasing competition over […]

New Report – The Thriving Coastal Communities Initiative

A new report titled “The Thriving Coastal Communities Initiative: Towards an action research agenda focused on well-being in coastal communities in British Columbia” has been produced in a group effort between T.Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation and OceanCanada‘s Dr. Nathan Bennett, as well as a large team of collaborators. Support for convening the initial meeting at […]

Dr. Nathan Bennett named Chair of the People and the Ocean Specialist Group

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has announced that Dr. Nathan Bennett will be the Chair of the People and the Ocean Specialist Group.Dr. Nathan Bennett is a Research Associate in the OceanCanada Partnership at the University of British Columbia (Canada)’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and with the FishMPABlue2 Project at the Université Côte d’Azur (France). In addition, Dr. Bennett is affiliated with the Center for Ocean Solutions (Stanford), the Community Conservation Research Network, and the Too Big To Ignore Project, and has consulted for various organizations such as the Canadian Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy (Mexico), and the UN FAO.

Maintaining coastal and Indigenous community access to marine resources and the ocean in Canada.

Access to marine resources and the ocean is important for the well-being of coastal populations.
In Canada, the ability of many coastal and Indigenous communities to access and benefit from the ocean is a growing issue. Access for coastal and Indigenous communities should be a priority  consideration in all policies and decision-making processes related to fisheries and the ocean in Canada. Taking action now could reverse the current trend and ensure that coastal and Indigenous communities thrive in the future.

Coastal and Indigenous community access to marine resources and the ocean: a policy imperative for Canada.

Access, defined as the ability to use and benefit from available marine resources or areas of the ocean or coast, is important for the well-being and sustainability of coastal communities. In Canada, access to marine resources and ocean spaces is a significant issue for many coastal and Indigenous communities due to intensifying activity and competition in the marine environment.

Adaptive capacity: from assessment to action in coastal social-ecological systems.

Concerns about the social consequences of conservation have spurred increased attention the monitoring and evaluation of the social impacts of conservation projects. This has resulted in a growing body of research that demonstrates how conservation can produce both positive and negative social, economic, cultural, health, and governance consequences for local communities. Yet, the results of social monitoring efforts are seldom applied to adaptively manage conservation projects.

The big role of coastal communities and small-scale fishers in ocean conservation.

Around the world, many coastal communities and small-scale fishers have proven effective as stewards of their local marine environments and resources. Given these considerable successes, this chapter assesses opportunities to increase the focus in ocean conservation practice and policy on initiatives at the local level of coastal communities and small-scale fishers. The chapter reviews the historical evolution of ocean conservation, with a focus on fundamental shifts to more holistic approaches of ecosystem-based and integrated management, and to a greater focus on participatory governance. These major shifts reinforce the role in ocean conservation of local-level coastal communities and small-scale fishers.

Catching sea cucumber fever in coastal communities: conceptualizing the impacts of shocks versus trends for social-ecological systems.

Research on vulnerability and adaptation in social-ecological systems (SES) has largely centered on climate change and associated biophysical stressors. Key implications of this are twofold. First, there has been limited engagement with the impacts of social drivers of change on communities and linked SES. Second, the focus on climate effects often assumes slower drivers of change and fails to differentiate the implications of change occurring at different timescales.

Adaptive capacity: from assessment to action in coastal social-ecological systems.

Because of the complexity and speed of environmental, climatic, and socio-political change in coastal marine social-ecological systems, there is significant academic and applied interest in assessing and fostering the adaptive capacity of coastal communities. Adaptive capacity refers to the latent ability of a system to respond proactively and positively to stressors or opportunities. A variety of qualitative, quantitative, and participatory approaches have been developed and applied to understand and assess adaptive capacity, each with different benefits, drawbacks, insights, and implications. Drawing on case studies of coastal communities from around the globe, we describe and compare 11 approaches that are often used to study adaptive capacity of social and ecological systems in the face of social, environmental, and climatic change.

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