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Are coastal communities relevant in fisheries management? Starting from what Svein Jentoft has had to say about the topic, we explore the idea that viable fishing communities require viable fish stocks, and viable fish stocks require viable fishing communities. To elaborate and expand on Jentoft’s arguments, first, we discuss values as a key attribute of communities that confer the ability to manage coastal resources. Turning to power, next we explore why fishing communities need to be empowered by having the opportunity to self-manage or co-manage resources. Third, regarding community viability, we make the argument that (1) rebuilding or maintaining viable fishing communities and fish stocks cannot succeed without first dealing with vulnerabilities, and that (2) the dimensions of vulnerability involve increase/decrease in well-being, better/poorer access to capitals, and building/losing resilience. The idea that healthy fishing communities and healthy fish stocks require one another implies a viable system that contains both, a social-ecological system view. The values embedded in communities enable them to manage resources. Thus, managers and policy makers need to imagine healthy fishing communities who take care of resources, and this positive image of communities is more likely than present policies to lead to viable fishing communities as well as viable fish stocks.

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) are complex social-ecological systems that are affected not only by biological responses to oceanographic changes but also by socio-economic conditions and market demand expressed from local to global scales. Ex-vessel prices are generally elastic and volatile from year to year or even from season to season, depending on many factors. This variability makes it difficult to keep fishers' incomes and livelihoods stable over time. Here, we use a multispecies small-scale fishery from the Ria de Arousa (NW Spain) as an example to illustrate the complexity and economic contributions of SSFs and to analyse the performance of SSFs in terms of net income per fisher. Our results show that the mean total landed value from SSFs is approximately 35 million US$·year−1, which represents almost 25% of the total annual value of Spanish SSF landings and almost 4% of the value of European Union SSF landings. Our study reveals that from 2008 to 2014, the total landed value of the fishing fleet operating in the area has decreased by 11.8 million US$·year−1, a decrease of 18.8% within the seven-year study period. The study also indicates that floating shellfisheries are by far the type of fishing gear that generates the largest total landings and landed value in the Ria de Arousa, generating a mean revenue of 19.66 million US$·year−1. The total economic weight of floating shellfisheries together with the high distribution of licenses provides license holders with year-round economic stability. The combination of the number of fishing gear selected and the number of species that generate their revenues plays an important role in shaping fishers' ability to obtain an income from SSFs. Nevertheless, high dependence on and specialisation in shellfisheries could reduce fishers' social-ecological resilience and hamper their ability to cope with uncertain natural dynamics in changing ecosystems. We find that the net income per fisher varies between 4,000 and 42,000 US$·year−1, with a mean net income per fisher of 21,800 US$·year−1. Taking into account the Spanish minimum wage, almost 40% of fishers in the study area earn at least the minimum wage, 8% earn almost double the minimum wage, and 1.4% make three times the minimum wage. From a global perspective, we found that only three out of the 33 countries analysed present fishers' net incomes that are above or almost equal to the national average wage and far above each country's minimum wage. (Full publication)

David VanderZwaag participated on the IUCN delegation to the first negotiation session at the UN for a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction; New York, NY, September 4-17, 2018.

There is great interest and rapid progress around the world in developing sets of indicators of marine ecosystem integrity for assessment and management. However, the complexity of coastal marine ecosystems can challenge such efforts. To address this challenge, an expert-based, hierarchical, and adaptive approach was developed with the objectives of healthy marine ecosystems and community partnerships in monitoring and management. Small sets of the top-ranked indicators of ecosystem integrity and associated human pressures were derived from expert-rankings of lists of identified candidate indicators of the status of, and pressures on, each of 17 ecosystem features, organized within 8 elements in turn within 3 overlapping aspects of ecosystem health. Over 200 experts played a role in rating the relative value of 1035 candidate indicators. A panel of topic experts was assigned to each of the 17 ecosystem features to apply 21 weighted indicator selection criteria. Selection criteria and candidate indicators were identified through literature reviews, expert panels, and surveys, and they were evaluated in terms of the experts' judgements of importance to the health of Canada's Pacific marine ecosystems. This produced a flexible, robust, and adaptable approach to identifying representative sets of indicators for any scale and for any management unit within Canada's Pacific. At the broadest scale, it produced a top 20 list of ecosystem state and pressure indicators. These top indicators, or other sets selected for smaller regions, can then guide the development of both regional and nested local monitoring programs in a way that maximizes continuity while including locally unique values. This hierarchical expert-based approach was designed to address challenges of complexity and scale and to enable efficient selection of useful and representative sets of indicators of ecosystem integrity while also enabling the participation of broad government and stakeholder communities. Full publication

OceanCanada News

William Cheung Wins Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award

Congratulations to William Cheung, co-lead of OceanCanada’s NDIS Working Group and Changing Oceans Cross-Cutting Theme, for winning the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (CUFA BC) Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award. The award is in recognition of his contributions to the community beyond the academic world for his research on marine climate change. In addition to being published in prestigious scholarly journals such as Science and Nature, his work is regularly highlighted in media outlets, giving him a highly visible international public profile. The award was conferred at a gala dinner on April 12 in Vancouver.

This paper investigates the economic impact of future global change on fishing dependent inhabitants of the Tonle Sap floodplain in Cambodia. We compare the net income from individuals’ current livelihoods to that derived from reallocating their livelihood activities under 4 different scenarios depicting future change. Respondents generally chose to retain their current livelihood strategy under all future scenarios. Less than 10% of those who did change livelihood allocation actually experienced a gain in economic benefits. Those engaged in single livelihoods experienced an average income loss of 18% across all scenarios, compared to 9% for the multi-livelihood group. Respondents’ choices generated the best economic outcome under a status quo scenario, thus suggesting a low capacity to adapt when faced with unfamiliar future scenarios. Our study contributes to identifying and understanding the economic impact of future global changes on fisheries dependent individuals in the Tonle Sap floodplain ecosystem.

Indigenous knowledge and ecological science have complementary differences that can be fruitfully combined to better understand the past and predict the future of social-ecological systems. Cooperation among scientific and Indigenous perspectives can improve conservation and resource management policies. (Full publication)

Marine user–environment conflicts can have consequences for ecosystems that negatively affect humans. Strategies and tools are required to identify, predict, and mitigate the conflicts that arise between marine anthropogenic activities and wildlife. Estimating individual-, population-, and species-scale distributions of marine animals has historically been challenging, but electronic tagging and tracking technologies (i.e., biotelemetry and biologging) and analytical tools are emerging that can assist marine spatial planning (MSP) efforts by documenting animal interactions with marine infrastructure (e.g., tidal turbines, oil rigs), identifying critical habitat for animals (e.g., migratory corridors, foraging hotspots, reproductive or nursery zones), or delineating distributions for fisheries exploitation. MSP that excludes consideration of animals is suboptimal, and animal space-use estimates can contribute to efficient and responsible exploitation of marine resources that harmonize economic and ecological objectives of MSP. This review considers the application of animal tracking to MSP objectives, presents case studies of successful integration, and provides a look forward to the ways in which MSP will benefit from further integration of animal tracking data.

This is an article originally published on the Port of Vancouver website on June 25, 2018. Port of Vancouver is an OceanCanada Partner.

Meet two people connected through their desire to protect our iconic resident killer whales; ship pilot, Robin, and Krista who leads the port’s ECHO program.​

Eelgrass (Zostera marina) has been designated an Ecologically Significant Species in Atlantic Canada. The development and rapid expansion of netpen finfish aquaculture into sensitive coastal habitats has raised concerns about the impacts of finfish aquaculture on eelgrass habitats. To date, no studies have been done in Atlantic Canada to examine these impacts or to identify potential monitoring variables that would aid in the development of specific conservation and management objectives. As a first step in addressing this gap, we examined differences in environmental variables, eelgrass bed structure and macroinfauna communities at increasing distances from a finfish farm in Port Mouton Bay, a reference site in adjacent Port Joli Bay, and published survey results from other sites without finfish farms along the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia. Drawing on research done elsewhere and our results, we then identified possible metrics for assessing and monitoring local impacts of finfish aquaculture on eelgrass habitats. Our results suggest some nutrient and organic enrichment, higher epiphyte loads, lower eelgrass cover and biomass, and lower macroinfauna biomass closer to the farm. Moreover, community structure significantly differed between sites with some species increasing and others decreasing closer to the farm. Changes in the macroinfauna community could be linked to observed differences in environmental and eelgrass bed variables. These results provide new insights into the potential impacts of finfish aquaculture on eelgrass habitats in Atlantic Canada. We recommend a suite of measures for assessment and monitoring that take into account response time to disturbance and account for different levels of eelgrass organizational response (from physiological to community). Download PDF  | View Publication | View at Peer Journal