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Fisheries sustainability is recognized to have four pillars: ecological, economic, social (including cultural) and institutional (or governance). Although international agreements, and legislation in many jurisdictions, call for implementation of all four pillars of sustainability, the social, economic and institutional aspects (i.e., the “human dimensions”) have not been comprehensively and collectively addressed to date. This study describes a framework for comprehensive fisheries evaluation developed by the Canadian Fisheries Research Network (CFRN) that articulates the full spectrum of ecological, economic, social and institutional objectives required under international agreements, together with candidate performance indicators for sustainable fisheries. The CFRN framework is aimed at practical fisheries evaluation and management and has a relatively balanced distribution of elements across the four pillars of sustainability relative to 10 alternative management decision support tools and indicator scorecards, which are heavily focused on ecological and economic aspects. The CFRN framework has five immediate uses: (a) It can serve as a logic frame for defining management objectives; (b) it can be used to define alternate management options to achieve given objectives; (c) it can serve as a tool for comparing management scenarios/options in decision support frameworks; (d) it can be employed to create a report card for comprehensive fisheries management evaluation; and (e) it is a tool for practical implementation of an integrated social–ecological system approach.

An interdisciplinary team of academics and representatives of fishing fleets and government collaborated to study the emerging requirements for sustainability in Canada’s fisheries. Fisheries assessment and management has focused on biological productivity with insufficient consideration of social (including cultural), economic, and institutional (governance) aspects. Further, there has been little discussion or formal evaluation of the effectiveness of fisheries management. The team of over 50 people (i) identified a comprehensive set of management objectives for a sustainable fishery system based on Canadian policy statements, (ii) combined objectives into an operational framework with relevant performance indicators for use in management planning, and (iii) undertook case studies that investigated some social, economic, and governance aspects in greater detail. The resulting framework extends the suite of widely accepted ecological aspects (productivity and trophic structure, biodiversity, and habitat–ecosystem integrity) to include comparable economic (viability and prosperity, sustainable livelihoods, distribution of access and benefits, regional–community benefits), social (health and well-being, sustainable communities, ethical fisheries), and institutional (legal obligations, good governance structure, effective decision-making) aspects of sustainability. This work provides a practical framework for implementation of a comprehensive approach to sustainability in Canadian fisheries. The project also demonstrates the value of co-construction of collaborative research and co-production of knowledge that combines and builds on the strengths of academics, industry, and government.

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Climate change is causing wide-ranging effects on ecosystem services critical to coastal communities and livelihoods, creating an urgent need to adapt. Most studies of climate change adaptation consist of narrative descriptions of individual cases or global synthesis, making it difficult to formulate and test locally rooted but generalizable hypotheses about adaptation processes. In contrast, researchers in this study analyzed key points in climate change adaptation derived from coordinated fieldwork in seven coastal communities around the world, including Arctic, temperate, and tropical areas on four continents. Study communities faced multiple challenges from sea level rise and warmer ocean temperatures, including coastal erosion, increasing salinity, and ecological changes. We analyzed how the communities adapted to climate effects and other co-occurring forces for change, focusing on most important changes to local livelihoods and societies, and barriers to and enablers of adaptation. Although many factors contributed to adaptation, communities with strong self-organized local institutions appeared better able to adapt without substantial loss of well-being than communities where these institutions were weak or absent. Key features of these institutions included setting and enforcing rules locally and communication across scales. Self-governing local institutions have been associated with sustainable management of natural resources. In our study communities, analogous institutions played a similar role to moderate adverse effects from climate-driven environmental change. The findings suggest that policies to strengthen, recognize, and accommodate local institutions could improve adaptation outcomes.

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