Keeping Humans in the Ecosystem

Abstract

The World Ocean presents many opportunities, with the blue economy projected to at least double in the next two decades. However, capitalizing on these opportunities presents significant challenges and a multi-sectoral, integrated approach to managing marine socio-ecological systems will be required to achieve the full benefits projected for the blue economy. Integrated ecosystem assessments have been identified as the best means of delivering the information upon which marine resource management decisions can be made. By their nature, these assessments are inter-disciplinary, but to date have mostly focused on the natural sciences. Inclusion of human dimensions into integrated ecosystem assessments has been lagging, but is fundamental. Here we report on a Symposium, and the articles emmanating from it that are included in this Theme Set, that address how to more effectively include human dimensions into integrated ecosystem assessments. We provide an introduction to each of the main symposium topics (governance, scenarios, indicators, participatory processes, and case studies), highlight the works that emerged from the symposium, and identify key areas in which more work is required. There is still a long way to go before we see end-to-end integrated ecosystem assessments inclusive of all the major current and potential ocean use sectors that also encompass multiple aspects of human dimensions. Nonetheless, it is also clear that progress is being made and we are developing tools and approaches, including the human dimension, that can inform management and position us to take advantage of the multi-sectoral opportunities of sustainable blue growth.

Back to the future: A retrospective assessment of model‐based scenarios for the management of the shrimp fishery in French Guiana facing global change

“…Finally, considering the nature of the surprises that needed to be addressed in French Guiana (i.e., a strike and the associated political lobbying to maintain subsidies), we contend that we can increase the quality of our scenario predictions by integrating the expertise of social and political scientists in developing models of bio‐economic systems. This concurs with the general support for more comprehensive approaches and multidisciplinary teams to better understand socio‐ecological systems (Link et al, ; Österblom et al, ).…”

Evaluating and implementing social–ecological systems: A comprehensive approach to sustainable fisheries

“…Paul and Stephenson () documented a gradient in availability and analysis of information from ecological (abundant information and thorough evaluations) through economic and social to institutional aspects (almost no documentation) in Canadian fisheries. Further, the social–cultural and institutional aspects tend, when considered, to be in separate processes (Link et al., ). Insufficient attention to the human dimensions including distribution of access and benefits, community sustainability and well‐being has resulted in unintended or untracked consequences, an inability of nations to achieve the aspirations of modern “oceans” legislation and public dissatisfaction with management processes (Begg et al., ; Haward, Jabour, & McDonald, ; Ommer & Neis, ).…”

“…Fisheries assessment and management remain heavily dominated by the ecological aspect and, to a lesser extent, narrow economic aspects. However, it has generally been unable to adequately embrace wider economic, social and institutional aspects required for a socialecological system approach (e.g., Bond & Morrison-Saunders, 2011;Link et al, 2017;Stephenson et al, 2017).…”

Characterizing and comparing marine fisheries ecosystems in the United States: determinants of success in moving toward ecosystem-based fisheries management

“…However, there are clearly complexities in both the natural, biotic systems and the human systems associated with fisheries that are interrelated and warrant larger-scale investigation (Loomis and Paterson 2014;Charles 2014;Zador et al 2017a). The emerging discipline of coupled socio-ecological systems (SES) has begun to examine both the natural and human systems simultaneously (Ostrom 2009;Fischer et al 2015;Folke et al 2016), but such instances remain relatively limited in a marine context (c.f., Fogarty and McCarthy 2014;Leslie et al 2015;Long et al 2015;Cormier et al 2017;Harvey et al 2017;Link et al 2017;Zador et al 2017a;Nielsen et al 2018). More so, few studies are truly comprehensive enough to include all of the bio-geo-chemical facets and socio-economic governance features of such SES' (Corlett 2015;Cinner et al 2016).…”

“…Fewer still are systematic in their treatment of standard criteria against which to examine fisheries systems, akin to Smith's fishery autopsies (Smith 1998;Smith and Link 2005). Even fewer still are those instances that systematically examine the complete national complexities, regional nuances, and broader ocean-use context within which fisheries management operates (Long et al 2015;Dunn et al 2016;Link et al 2017). Here we make such an attempt.…”