Rights and representation support justice across aquatic food systems

Injustices are prevalent in food systems, where the accumulation of vast wealth is possible for a few, yet one in ten people remain hungry. Here, for 194 countries we combine aquatic food production, distribution and consumption data with corresponding national policy documents and, drawing on theories of social justice, explore whether barriers to participation explain unequal distributions of benefits. Using Bayesian models, we find economic and political barriers are associated with lower wealth-based benefits; countries produce and consume less when wealth, formal education and voice and accountability are lacking. In contrast, social barriers are associated with lower welfare-based benefits; aquatic foods are less affordable where gender inequality is greater. Our analyses of policy documents reveal a frequent failure to address political and gender-based barriers. However, policies linked to more just food system outcomes centre principles of human rights, specify inclusive decision-making processes and identify and challenge drivers of injustice

Aquatic Foods to Nourish Nations

Despite contributing to healthy diets for billions of people, aquatic foods are often undervalued as a nutritional solution because their diversity is often reduced to the protein and energy value of a single food type (‘seafood’ or ‘fish’)1,2,3,4. Here we create a cohesive model that unites terrestrial foods with nearly 3,000 taxa of aquatic foods to understand the future impact of aquatic foods on human nutrition. We project two plausible futures to 2030: a baseline scenario with moderate growth in aquatic animal-source food (AASF) production, and a high-production scenario with a 15-million-tonne increased supply of AASFs over the business-as-usual scenario in 2030, driven largely by investment and innovation in aquaculture production. By comparing changes in AASF consumption between the scenarios, we elucidate geographic and demographic vulnerabilities and estimate health impacts from diet-related causes. Globally, we find that a high-production scenario will decrease AASF prices by 26% and increase their consumption, thereby reducing the consumption of red and processed meats that can lead to diet-related non-communicable diseases5,6 while also preventing approximately 166 million cases of inadequate micronutrient intake. This finding provides a broad evidentiary basis for policy makers and development stakeholders to capitalize on the potential of aquatic foods to reduce food and nutrition insecurity and tackle malnutrition in all its forms.Additional co-authors: Pierre Charlebois, Manuel Barange, Stefania Vannuccini, Ling Cao, Kristin M. Kleisner, Eric B. Rimm, Goodarz Danaei, Camille DeSisto, Heather Kelahan, Kathryn J. Fiorella, Edward H. Allison, Jessica Fanzo & Shakuntala H. Thilste

Blue Food Demand Across Geographic and Temporal Scales

Numerous studies have focused on the need to expand production of ‘blue foods’, defined as aquatic foods captured or cultivated in marine and freshwater systems, to meet rising population- and income-driven demand. Here we analyze the roles of economic, demographic, and geographic factors and preferences in shaping blue food demand, using secondary data from FAO and The World Bank, parameters from published models, and case studies at national to sub-national scales. Our results show a weak cross-sectional relationship between per capita income and consumption globally when using an aggregate fish metric. Disaggregation by fish species group reveals distinct geographic patterns; for example, high consumption of freshwater fish in China and pelagic fish in Ghana and Peru where these fish are widely available, affordable, and traditionally eaten. We project a near doubling of global fish demand by mid-century assuming continued growth in aquaculture production and constant real prices for fish. Our study concludes that nutritional and environmental consequences of rising demand will depend on substitution among fish groups and other animal source foods in national diets

Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations

Blue foods, sourced in aquatic environments, are important for the economies, livelihoods, nutritional security and cultures of people in many nations. They are often nutrient rich, generate lower emissions and impacts on land and water than many terrestrial meats, and contribute to the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of many rural communities4. The Blue Food Assessment recently evaluated nutritional, environmental, economic and justice dimensions of blue foods globally. Here we integrate these findings and translate them into four policy objectives to help realize the contributions that blue foods can make to national food systems around the world: ensuring supplies of critical nutrients, providing healthy alternatives to terrestrial meat, reducing dietary environmental footprints and safeguarding blue food contributions to nutrition, just economies and livelihoods under a changing climate. To account for how context-specific environmental, socio-economic and cultural aspects affect this contribution, we assess the relevance of each policy objective for individual countries, and examine associated co-benefits and trade-offs at national and international scales. We find that in many African and South American nations, facilitating consumption of culturally relevant blue food, especially among nutritionally vulnerable population segments, could address vitamin B12 and omega-3 deficiencies. Meanwhile, in many global North nations, cardiovascular disease rates and large greenhouse gas footprints from ruminant meat intake could be lowered through moderate consumption of seafood with low environmental impact. The analytical framework we provide also identifies countries with high future risk, for whom climate adaptation of blue food systems will be particularly important. Overall the framework helps decision makers to assess the blue food policy objectives most relevant to their geographies, and to compare and contrast the benefits and trade-offs associated with pursuing these objectives

The role of seafood in sustainable diets

Recent discussions of healthy and sustainable diets encourage increased consumption of plants and decreased consumption of animal-source foods (ASFs) for both human and environmental health. Seafood is often peripheral in these discussions. This paper examines the relative environmental costs of sourcing key nutrients from different kinds of seafood, other ASFs, and a range of plant-based foods. We linked a nutrient richness index for different foods to life cycle assessments of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the production of these foods to evaluate nutritional benefits relative to this key indicator of environmental impacts. The lowest GHG emissions to meet average nutrient requirement values were found in grains, tubers, roots, seeds, wild-caught small pelagic fish, farmed carp and bivalve shellfish. The highest GHG emissions per nutrient supply are in beef, lamb, wild-caught prawns, farmed crustaceans, and pork. Among ASFs, some fish and shellfish have GHG emissions at least as low as plants and merit inclusion in food systems policymaking for their potential to support a healthy, sustainable diet. However, other aquatic species and production methods deliver nutrition to diets at environmental costs at least as high as land-based meat production. It is important to disaggregate seafood by species and production method in ‘planetary health diet’ advice

Factors Affecting Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Using the Community Capitals Framework

Disaster research often focuses on how and why communities are affected by a discrete extreme event. We used the community capitals framework to understand how community characteristics influence their preparedness, response to, and recovery from successive or multiple disasters using the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake and the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill as case studies. This study assesses community response to these disasters by reviewing published literature on impacts to create profiles for six communities and by identifying community capitals before and during these disasters, and throughout the long-term recovery. While the presence of rich natural capitals commonly contributed resources to pre-disaster planning and long-term recovery, restriction of resource access immediately following the disasters was detrimental to many communities. Communities with strong political, social, and financial capitals tended to fare better immediately following disasters, enabling longer-term processes of transformation or recovery. However, in some communities the oil spill undermined these capitals more than the earthquake and resulting tsunami. In understanding how use and reliance on community capitals can lead to varied recovery success from different kinds of disasters, these findings can help coastal managers and planners prepare for future disasters. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor and Francis Group

Linking ecosystem processes to communities of practice through commercially fished species in the Gulf of Alaska

Marine ecosystems are complex, and there is increasing recognition that environmental, ecological, and human systems are linked inextricably in coastal regions. The purpose of this article was to integrate environmental, ecological and human dimensions information important for fisheries management into a common analytical framework. We then used the framework to examine the linkages between these traditionally separate subject areas. We focused on synthesis of linkages between the Gulf of Alaska marine ecosystem and human communities of practice, defined as different fisheries sectors. Our specific objective was to document the individual directional linkages among environmental, ecological, and human dimensions variables in conceptual models, then build qualitative network models to perform simulation analyses to test how bottom-up and top-down perturbations might propagate through these linkages. We found that it is both possible and beneficial to integrate environmental, ecological, and human dimensions information important for fisheries into a common framework. First, the conceptual models allowed us to synthesize information across a broad array of data types, representing disciplines such as ecology and economics that are more commonly investigated separately, often with distinct methods. Second, the qualitative network analysis demonstrated how ecological signals can propagate to human communities, and how fishery management measures may influence the system. Third, we found that incorporating multi-species interactions changed outcomes because the merged model reversed some of the ecological and human outcomes compared with single species analyses. Overall, we demonstrated the value of linking information from the natural and social sciences to better understand complex social-ecological systems, and the value of incorporating ecosystem-level processes into a traditionally single species management framework. We advocate for conceptual and qualitative network modelling as efficient foundational steps to inform ecosystem-based fisheries management

Climate-related community knowledge networks as a tool to increase learning in the context of environmental change

Statements made at the recent UN Climate Conference 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) clearly indicated that Pacific islands, countries, and territories (PICTs) are particularly susceptible to sociocultural, economic and environmental impacts of climate change. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) are one such group of islands where internal and external climate forcing has observable detrimental impacts on local public health, water quality, agriculture and resource management. Here, we present the outcomes of a collaboration between graduate students and a PICTs-focused non-profit organization to facilitate a climate-related knowledge network that addresses adaptation to climate-related vulnerabilities in Pohnpei, FSM. Through a series of workshops targeting K-8 science teachers, this network strengthens lines of communication between educators, resource managers, stakeholders and environmental leaders and provides a forum for ongoing information exchange to encourage adaptation to climate change in island communities. Additionally, teacher participation in the workshops resulted in a marked increase in community engagement in other local and regional educational venues. We propose that the knowledge network piloted here serves as an interdisciplinary model of a sustainable educational partnership that can be adapted for use in a multitude of PICT communities to improve preparedness and reduce susceptibility to climate-associated stressors, thereby providing an example of means to achieve key goals of the COP23. Keywords: Knowledge network, Climate change, Climate variability, Adaptive capacity, Learning exchange, Pacific island

A practical approach for putting people in ecosystem-based ocean planning

Marine and coastal ecosystems provide important benefits and services to coastal communities across the globe, but assessing the diversity of social relationships with oceans can prove difficult for conservation scientists and practitioners. This presents barriers to incorporating social dimensions of marine ecosystems into ecosystem-based planning processes, which can in turn affect the success of planning and management initiatives. Following a global assessment of social research and related planning practices in ocean environments, we present a step-by-step approach for natural resource planning practitioners to more systematically incorporate social data into ecosystem-based ocean planning. Our approach includes three sequential steps: (1) develop a typology of ocean-specific human uses that occur within the planning region of interest; (2) characterize the complexity of these uses, including the spatiotemporal variability, intensity, and diversity thereof, as well as associated conflicts and compatibility; and (3) integrate social and ecological information to assess trade-offs necessary for successful implementation of ecosystem-based ocean planning. We conclude by showing how systematic engagement of social data - together with ecological information - can create advantages for practitioners to improve planning and management outcomes