How constrained? Entry into the French Atlantic fishery through second-hand vessel purchase

International audienceOver the past decades fisheries policies have been mainly aimed at encouraging capacity reduction in over-exploited fisheries. Correspondingly, research has focused on developing incentives to exit fisheries rather than investigating entry behaviour. However, with ageing and also fewer fishery participants, concern regarding sectoral renewal is increasing. The second-hand market is an important entry point for first-time owners because it potentially reduces capital constraints by supplying cheaper vessels than newly built ones. The aim of this study is to test whether new fishers entering the industry face greater capital constraints than fishers already in the industry, taking the second-hand market as our population of interest. We model new entry into the fishing sector using 18 years of French Atlantic fleet data with a logit model. We incorporate trade network variables and family connections indicative of the relationship and connections between market traders potentially reducing capital constraints. As expected, we find that first entry is more likely by younger owners for older and cheaper vessels. This suggests that first-time owners are more capital constrained than fishers already trading on the second-hand market. Capital constraints are reduced by geographical proximity and increased integration into a trading network

A Decade of Incorporating Social Sciences in the Integrated Marine Biosphere Research Project (IMBeR): Much Done, Much to Do?

Successful management and mitigation of marine challenges depends on cooperation and knowledge sharing which often occurs across culturally diverse geographic regions. Global ocean science collaboration is therefore essential for developing global solutions. Building effective global research networks that can enable collaboration also need to ensure inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches to tackle complex marine socio-ecological challenges. To understand the contribution of interdisciplinary global research networks to solving these complex challenges, we use the Integrated Marine Biosphere Research (IMBeR) project as a case study. We investigated the diversity and characteristics of 1,827 scientists from 11 global regions who were attendees at different IMBeR global science engagement opportunities since 2009. We also determined the role of social science engagement in natural science based regional programmes (using key informants) and identified the potential for enhanced collaboration in the future. Event attendees were predominantly from western Europe, North America, and East Asia. But overall, in the global network, there was growing participation by females, students and early career researchers, and social scientists, thus assisting in moving toward interdisciplinarity in IMBeR research. The mainly natural science oriented regional programmes showed mixed success in engaging and collaborating with social scientists. This was mostly attributed to the largely natural science (i.e., biological, physical) goals and agendas of the programmes, and the lack of institutional support and push to initiate connections with social science. Recognising that social science research may not be relevant to all the aims and activities of all regional programmes, all researchers however, recognised the (potential) benefits of interdisciplinarity, which included broadening scientists’ understanding and perspectives, developing connections and interlinkages, and making science more useful. Pathways to achieve progress in regional programmes fell into four groups: specific funding, events to come together, within-programme-reflections, and social science champions. Future research programmes should have a strategic plan to be truly interdisciplinary, engaging natural and social sciences, as well as aiding early career professionals to actively engage in such programmes

An Economic Analysis of Structural Changes in the Tasmanian Rock Lobster industry After Itq introduction

Concerns about declining stock and profitability in the Tasmanian rock lobster industry led to the introduction of individual transferable quota (ITQ) management in 1998. In this study, fisher groups were categorised by effort and quota ownership traits to examine response to revised management, and how profit drivers moderated this change. The number of investors who are not active fishers has steadily grown with a commensurate expansion of the lease quota market. The number of lease dependent fishers has remained steady through time while quota owner fishers have declined. In contrast to many other ITQ fisheries, the investor group has not consolidated into a small number of entities and there is little processor involvement. This was a result of fisheries rules explicitly designed to retain benefits of diverse ownership though a cap on the maximum allowed number of quota units per legal entity. Three categories of active fishers participate in the lease trade. Quota-transferring fishers lease quota both in and out, usually to secure access to quota at the start of the season with surplus quota being leased off later. Large-scale, lease quota dependent fishers have increased through time and are characterised by high fishing effort and high annual turnover but low profit per unit of fish. Small-scale lease quota dependent fishers utilise capital less fully and have less capacity to survive in the long run. These small scale lease fishers face barriers to entry into the large scale category through high upfront capital investment costs, which could hamper industry renewal. Potential issues for management that arise from lease-reliant fishers are (i) that their higher financial stress increases compliance risk and (ii) their lack of investment in quota assets reduces incentive for stewardship of the resource

What Happens After a Shark Incident? Behavioral Changes Among Australian Beachgoers

Sharks (Selachimorpha) have an important ecological function and are both valued and feared by people around the world. Shark bite incidents present a high consequence risk in terms of human health and safety. In Australia, shark interactions with humans are most frequently recorded for the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), and tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier). Human anxiety of encountering sharks may be elevated relative to the actual level of risk due to intensive media coverage, which typically emphasizes a narrative of highly abundant animals actively targeting human water users. This narrative is not supported by scientific evidence. Public perceptions of shark incidents can strongly influence shark management efforts. To help management, we set out to understand how people change their behavior in response to shark incidents and why some behaviors do or do not change. In October 2019, we used 4 participatory workshops, attended by 60 people, and a visual communication approach to study the socioecological context of beachgoer behavior to sharks in a high shark incident region around Ballina and Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia. Of all recorded comments captured at the workshops (174), 91% mentioned changes in behavior following the reported incidents, and 9% indicated no behavior change. The behavior changes generally did not result in less beach use but in different types of use. When beachgoers visited the beach and used the ocean, they implicitly asked themselves the following questions in selecting activities and behaviors: (1) how much risk do I think is present, (2) how much risk am I willing to accept, and (3) how much do I trust the information and advice available to me to mitigate these risks? We found that families, teenagers, and experienced beachgoers (such as surfers) used different socioecological information on which to base their risk assessments and that these groups had different risk profiles. Despite these variations, a common finding across beachgoers was a strong desire to improve the quality of publicly available and locally relevant information on risk factors. Using the graphic visualization of our findings for communication purposes can help beachgoers contextualize their own risk perception and learn from how others have changed their reported behavior. Sharing of behavior change information and risk reduction strategies can help target public investment in mitigation measures and may encourage further risk reduction strategies and policies to be implemented

Development and expansion in the marine social sciences: Insights from the global community

The importance of understanding the complexities of societal relationships with our global ocean, and how these influence sustainable management and effective, equitable governance, is crucial to addressing ocean challenges. Using established horizon scanning method, this paper explores current trends in marine social sciences through a survey of the global marine social science research and practitioner community (n = 106). We find that marine social sciences research is broad, covering themes relating to governance and decision-making, stakeholder participation and engagement, the socio-cultural dimensions of marine systems, ocean literacy, community-based and area-specific management, and the blue economy, and identify future research priorities highlighted by the community. Our results, however, suggest several barriers persist, including the relationship between marine social sciences and other disciplines, and the visibility and recognition of marine social sciences both internal and external to academia. Finally, the paper generates prospective thinking and highlights recommendations for future research and practice

“Sustainability is not a vegan coffee shop.” Eliciting citizen attitudes and perspectives to localize the UN sustainable development goals

Integrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into national legislation includes a need for their localization. The authors posit that this concept of localizing the SDGs is achieved if the goals are appended to an existing policy process with local implications, termed a “policy vehicle.” For this study, Q-methodology was used to gather local perspectives on the legislative process for coastal planning in Norway (the “policy vehicle”), the “proxy” legislation through which the SDGs are localized for the case study municipality of Andøya, Norway. The overall aim of the study was to understand potential pathways for enabling approaches to societal transformations where focus is placed on fostering human agency and capacities. The authors demonstrate how Q-methodology can be applied for enhanced stakeholder engagement in local decision-making processes as a starting point to enable social transformations for sustainability in a social-ecological system.publishedVersio

Plant-soil interactions during the native and exotic range expansion of an annual plant

We thank the greenhouse and technical staff at UC Santa Cruz and NIOO-KNAW for facilities and plant care, especially Jim Velzy and Sylvie Childress, and Renske Jongen and Freddy C. ten Hooven. We are grateful to Colby Cole, Asa Conover, Kelsey Songer, and Andrew Lopez for planting, harvesting, and root washing. Many thanks to Matthew Hartfield, Josie Borden, and Dante Park for their fieldwork assistance. We appreciate the permitting agencies that allowed us to collect seed and soil for this study: US Forest Service, Santa Clara County Parks, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Seeds were collected following the Nagoya Protocol (French certificate of compliance TREL2302365S/653) and imported into the United States using APHIS permit P37-18-01389. This research was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Grant 2020-67013-31856 to I.M.P). N.L. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (Early.Postdoc mobility fellowship P2EZP3_178481), Natural Environment Research Council (Standard Grant NE/W006553/1), and the UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee Research Scheme (Marie-Sklodowska-Curie European Fellowship EP/X023362/1). T.M.R.C. was funded by ENS de LyonPeer reviewe

Stakeholder influence and relationships informengagement strategies in marine conservation

Many current marine conservation approaches do not adequately consider the diverse social elements and human aspects necessary to achieve conservation outcomes. The results of conservation research are therefore not always useful for conservation managers to apply in practice. To address this gap, this study combines qualitative methods and quantitative social network analysis to help conservation managers gain in-depth insight into social elements of marine conservation and opportunities that can help achieve conservation outcomes. Specifically, using the North West Shelf Flatback Turtle Conservation Program as a case study, our analysis shows that 1) a stakeholder’s position in the turtle conservation network is not the sole or best indicator of their leadership potential to achieve conservation outcomes, 2) peripheral stakeholders are also important for trust, decision-making, and future success, 3) mixed-methods can identify additional opportunities to maintain and further build trust and influence between diverse stakeholders 4) building relationships to support conservation outcomes is accomplished by leveraging stakeholders’ roles in the conservation program. By identifying who has influence and who needs to be involved in marine conservation to achieve success, this study demonstrates the value of mixed-methods research approaches. Specifically, our findings show how social network approaches can help conservation managers and stakeholders strategically build communication and engagement strategies that can be used to achieve conservation outcomes.This work was supported by the North West Shelf Flatback Turtle Conservation program; GTP was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship; and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals for Marine and Coastal Management in Norway: A Venture Overdue

Meeting global challenges requires regional and local alignment of institutional and business practices. The purpose of our work is to understand, using qualitative systems analysis, how the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved through local, cross-sectoral solutions. In this chapter, we start by reviewing the status quo of marine and coastal management in Norway and contrast with the United Nations’ expectations for localization of the Sustainable Development Goals. One key finding is that despite vast knowledge on ocean and coastal use and management, Norway has very few examples of actual localization of the Sustainable Development Goals. We present a case study from Andøy Municipality where we use Social-Ecological Systems mapping to spawn awareness and spur local businesses to harness relevant sustainability targets at the local level.publishedVersio

Climate change adaptation strategies to support Australia's estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems

Scientists from James Cook University, CSIRO and Griffith University collaborated to develop a process for planning Climate Change Adaptation actions to support the resilience and productivity of Australia's estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems into the future. This 3 year project involved extensive review of Climate Change Adaptation strategies from across the world and evaluated their usefulness under Australian conditions through reviewing case studies, through interviews with workers from all levels of science and management from across Australia, and by reviewing modelling tools and using advanced qualitative modelling. The project was developed in response to the threats to the fisheries values, biodiversity and ecosystem functions posed by Climate Change on Australia’s estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems that are already heavily impacted by changes in land and water use. This was undertaken in the recognition that large-scale strategy thinking was necessary for a country with a great diversity of estuary and coastal marine ecosystems, plant and animal assemblages, climates, and region-specific threats and matters of contention. The project developed a set of general principles to help direct estuarine and coastal adaptation strategies whatever the particular situation – to help guide, but not constrain, the development of informed adaptation policies, plans and actions