The Covid-19 pandemic is a global shock that is significantly affecting coastal social-ecological systems (SES) in different parts of the world. Its widespread impacts have unravelled vulnerabilities in many aspects of society, including food systems. Our study investigated the impacts of a lockdown associated with the pandemic in the province of Bulacan, in the region of Central Luzon, Philippines, where aquaculture and capture fisheries are important and interconnected sectors. In particular, we focused on impacts related to production and market. We considered people’s coping strategies and the factors that enabled such strategies. Our investigation adopted a case study approach and drew on qualitative data analysed through thematic analysis. The findings revealed differentiated mechanisms through which aquaculture and capture fisheries production were impacted. Both were strongly affected by market disruptions but through slightly different ways. In effect, the lockdown provided the impetus for the uptake and spreading of practices that were previously peripheral, particularly in relation to market exchanges. The study also identified a variety of coping strategies, as well as the importance of social support in the form of food aid, financial assistance, and institutional livelihood assistance. Finally, it discusses the importance of diversity in food sources, the role of local food systems, and governance implications for foregrounding social-ecological resilience in short-term response and long-term recovery.

Households combine capital assets in a process involving human agency and resourcefulness to construct livelihood strategies and generate well-being outcomes. Here, we (1) characterized types of livelihood strategies; (2) determined how different capital assets are associated with different livelihood strategies; and (3) determined how livelihood strategies differed in food security outcomes. We conducted a survey in southwestern Ethiopia and used principal component and cluster analyses. Five types of livelihood strategies, which differed mainly in food and cash crops comprising the strategy, were identified. These were, in order of decreasing food security: ‘three food crops, coffee and khat’, n = 68; ‘three food crops and khat’, n = 59; ‘two food crops, coffee and khat’, n = 78; ‘two food crops and khat’, n = 88; and ‘one food crop, coffee and khat’, n = 44. The livelihood strategy ‘three food crops, coffee and khat’ was associated with a wide range of capital assets, particularly having larger aggregate farm field size and learning from other farmers. A generalized linear model showed that livelihood strategies were significantly associated with food security outcomes. Particularly, a high number of food crops in a strategy was linked with relatively high food security. In this context, diversified livelihood strategies primarily through having a mix of food crops for subsistence, in combination with cash crops for income, are important for food security. This suggests a need to rethink dominant policy narratives, which have a narrow focus on increasing productivity and commercialization as the primary pathway to food security.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s12571-018-00883-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

How transformative processes could be facilitated to improve gender equality and consequently, human well-being, is a key question for moving towards a just and sustainable future. Focusing on southwestern Ethiopia where significant changes in formal institutions related to gender have occurred, we applied the concept of systemic leverage points. We show that changes in formal structures facilitated changes in perceived visible gender gaps, such as increased participation of women in public activities. These, in turn, played an enabling role for changes in community norms, and (to a lesser degree) triggered reconsideration of perceptions about women's capacities. Both women and men perceived more equal gender relations as being associated with better well-being at the household level. Our results highlight the important role of interactions between leverage points for gender equality, suggesting important insights can be gained by studying interactions, compared to when shallow (e.g., visible gaps) or deeper leverage points (e.g., social norms) are analyzed in isolation. Our study also demonstrated the general suitability of a leverage-points perspective in gender research, including as an analytical frame to complement gender transformative approaches.

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Knowledge of the shared resources—or commons—that aquaculture systems rely on, and the appropriate rule and norm systems to govern them—or institutions—is far behind other natural resource use sectors. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework for identifying the social and environmental commons creating collective action problems for aquaculture governance. Collective action problems, or social dilemmas, create problems for governing shared resources because the typical strategies for individual use (maximisation; free riding) are often divergent from broader group interests (e.g. fair contributions; sustainable use). This framework helps identify two types of collective action problems in aquaculture: first‐order (direct use and provision of commons) and second‐order (provision, maintenance and adaptation of institutions to govern commons). First‐order aquaculture commons with governance challenges include water quality, water quantity, physical space, inputs, genetic diversity, mitigating infectious disease, earth and climate stability, infrastructure, knowledge and money. Second‐order institutions govern the use of first‐order commons. These include rule and norm systems that structure property rights and markets, aiming to better align individual behaviour and collective interests (e.g. sustainability goals) through governance. However, which combination of institutions will fit best is likely to be unique to context, where aquaculture has important differences from capture fisheries and agriculture. We provide four case examples applying our conceptual framework to identify existing aquaculture commons, institutions and governance challenges in Peru (mariculture), the Philippines (earthen ponds), Nepal (raceways) and Denmark (recirculation).