Social shocks in social-ecological systems : the impacts of sea cucumber booms for coastal communities in Mexico

In a world of growing interconnectivity, global scale social processes drive local-level change at ever-faster rates, shaping the challenges and opportunities faced by communities. Yet, literature on vulnerability and adaptation within social-ecological systems (SES) scholarship has largely centred on climate change and associated biophysical stressors. Key theoretical shortcomings are twofold. First, in SES scholarship, there has been limited engagement with non-climate anthropogenic drivers of change and characterization of how other social drivers impact communities and the larger social-ecological system in which communities are nested. Second, there has been less consideration of the differing timescales of change, resulting in a scholarship that is under-theorized in terms of how communities experience and respond to shocks (e.g., hurricanes, volatility in international markets, military coups) versus trends (e.g., rising ocean temperatures, urbanization). This thesis seeks to address these shortcomings by exploring the impacts of socially driven shocks in a coastal community, including implications for vulnerability and adaptation. Specifically, through a qualitative case study of a fishing community on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, I investigate how a rapidly developed sea cucumber fishery, triggered by rising demand from international seafood markets, drives dramatic change in the social structure, functioning and feedbacks within the community. I demonstrate how the emergence of sea cucumber fishing has driven novel and rapid change in the community, introducing new stressors such as poaching and violent conflict, while exacerbating pressures from ongoing trends of population increase and overfishing of other commercially valuable species. Results suggest that this spike in pressure on the social system has impacted vulnerability and challenged the capacity of local institutions to respond adaptively. This includes a decreased capacity to manage local resources and increased risks to livelihoods for fishers. By attending to social drivers of rapid change in coastal SES, this research contributes to scholarship on multiple stressors and their contributions to local vulnerability. Finally, by focusing on the impacts of change on the structure, functions and feedbacks of social systems, I provide a framework that aligns with existing SES thinking and language while creating space for a more robust engagement with the social dimensions of these linked systems.Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forGraduat

IRES working paper series, no. 2015-08

Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forUnreviewedGraduat

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. We synthesize lessons from a series of case studies to present important considerations to frame research and to choose an assessment approach, key challenges to analyze adaptive capacity in linked social-ecological systems, and good practices to link results to action to foster adaptive capacity. We suggest that more attention be given to integrated social-ecological assessments and that greater effort be placed on evaluation and monitoring of adaptive capacity over time and across scales. Overall, although sustainability science holds a promise of providing solutions to real world problems, we found that too few assessments seem to lead to tangible outcomes or actions to foster adaptive capacity in social-ecological systems

An appeal for a code of conduct for marine conservation

Marine conservation actions are promoted to conserve natural values and support human wellbeing. Yet the quality of governance processes and the social consequences of some marine conservation initiatives have been the subject of critique and even human rights complaints. These types of governance and social issues may jeopardize the legitimacy of, support for and long-term effectiveness of marine conservation. Thus, we argue that a clearly articulated and comprehensive set of social standards - a code of conduct - is needed to guide marine conservation. In this paper, we draw on the results of an expert meeting and scoping review to present key principles that might be taken into account in a code of conduct, to propose a draft set of foundational elements for inclusion in a code of conduct, to discuss the benefits and challenges of such a document, and to propose next steps to develop and facilitate the uptake of a broadly applicable code of conduct within the marine conservation community. The objectives of developing such a code of conduct are to promote fair conservation governance and decision-making, socially just conservation actions and outcomes, and accountable conservation practitioners and organizations. The uptake and implementation of a code of conduct would enable marine conservation to be both socially acceptable and ecologically effective, thereby contributing to a truly sustainable ocean