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Community-based conservation can support livelihoods and biodiversity, while reinforcing local and Indigenous values, cultures, and institutions. Its delivery can help address cross-cutting global challenges, such as climate change, conservation, poverty, and food security. Therefore, understanding trends in community-based conservation is pertinent to setting and implementing global goals. We undertook a horizon scan to prioritize 15 emerging threats and opportunities expected to impact the future effectiveness of community-based conservation. Topics relate to global biodiversity policy; human rights; shifting human geography; inclusion, diversity, equity, and access; conservation finance and income; and economic reforms. Our findings offer guidance on strengthening community-based conservation to achieve global environmental and development goals.

The growing focus on the blue economy is accelerating industrial fishing in many parts of the world. This intensification is affecting the livelihoods of small-scale fishers, processors, and traders by depleting local fishery resources, damaging fishing gears, putting fishers' lives at risk, and compromising market systems and value chain positions. In this article, we outline the experiences, perspectives, and narratives of the small-scale fishing actors in Ghana. Drawing on qualitative interview data, we examine the relationship between small-scale and industrial fisheries in Ghana using political ecology and sustainable livelihood approaches. We demonstrate how industrialised, capital-intensive fishing has disrupted the economic and social organisation of local fishing communities, affecting incomes, causing conflicts, social exclusion and disconnection, and compromising the social identity of women. These cumulative impacts and disruptions in Ghana's coastal communities have threatened the viability of small-scale fisheries, yet coastal fishing actors have few capabilities to adapt. We conclude by supporting recommendations to reduce the number and capacity of industrial vessels, strictly enforce spatial regulations, and ensure "blue justice" against marginalisation.

© 2020 The Authors. Fish and Fisheries published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Concern over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has led to a number of policy, trade and surveillance measures. While much attention has been given to the impact of IUU regulation on industrial fleets, recognition of the distinct impacts on small-scale fisheries is conspicuously lacking from the policy and research debate. In this paper, we outline three ways in which the application of IUU discourse and regulation undermines small-scale fisheries. First, the mainstream construction of “illegal,” “unreported” and “unregulated” fishing, and also the categorical use of “IUU” in an all-inclusive sense, disregards the diversity, legitimacy and sustainability of small-scale fisheries practices and their governing systems. Second, we explore how the recent trade-related measures to counter IUU fishing mask and reinforce existing inequalities between different sectors and countries, creating an unfair burden on small-scale fisheries and countries who depend on them. Third, as IUU fishing is increasingly approached as “organized crime,” there is a risk of inappropriately targeting small-scale fisheries, at times violently. Reflecting on these three trends, we propose three strategies by which a more sensitive and ultimately more equitable incorporation of small-scale fisheries can be supported in the global fight against IUU fishing.

Calls to address social equity in ocean governance are expanding. Yet ‘equity’ is seldom clearly defined. Here we present a framework to support contextually-informed assessment of equity in ocean governance. Guiding questions include: (1) Where and (2) Why is equity being examined? (3) Equity for or amongst Whom? (4) What is being distributed? (5) When is equity considered? And (6) How do governance structures impact equity? The framework supports consistent operationalization of equity, challenges oversimplification, and allows evaluation of progress. It is a step toward securing the equitable ocean governance already reflected in national and international commitments.

As a significant actor in global governance, China has become increasingly active in addressing global environmental challenges. However, Chinese fishing practices do not conform with its policies. How do we understand China’s apparently incoherent stance? Using the case of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing governance, we explore why China shifted its approach from reluctance to engagement while still allowing the Chinese fleet’s IUU fishing activities to some extent. We find that China safeguards its self-interest by shaping domestic and international rules on anti-IUU fishing while pursuing means of legitimising its actions and intangible aspects of power in the oceans. Our findings have far-reaching implications. First, China’s notion of environmental responsibility is likely to remain within the scope of its interests and what China can control. Second, China’s global environmental approach can be understood as the pursuit of intangible aspects of great power status in addition to its tangible interests.

The intensifying extraction, privatization, and conservation of maritime spaces are transforming seascapes globally. Amidst rapid coastal change and the ambiguous reconfiguration of oceans as frontiers are coastal dwellers who occupy the shadows of these seascapes. In contrast to the capture of high-profile marine species, the harvest of the edible nests of balinsasayaw (swiftlet, Aerodramus fuciphagus) remains largely concealed at the interstitial spaces between land, coast, and sea. In the Philippines, harvesters known as busyador negotiate social relations, political networks, and karst systems to extract these lucrative nests. Despite the nest industry growing in value in Southeast Asia, we show how the busyador struggle in precarious social relations and spaces peripheral to coastal governance in northern Palawan Island. Building on the concept of ‘seascape assemblages’, we emphasize the importance of the less visible human-nonhuman relations that shape the nest harvest and trade. We trace the marginal social histories of the balinsasayaw by highlighting the precarious nature of the harvest, revealing how the busyador are subject to unfair working conditions, dispossession, and violence. We argue that as state actors and local elites reconfigure oceans as frontiers for development and conservation, struggles over labour and tenure rights, livelihood opportunities, and justice at sea are disregarded.

The blue economy is a globally emerging concept for ocean governance that seeks to tap the economic potential of the oceans in environmentally sustainable ways. Yet, understanding and implementation of particular visions of the blue economy in specific regions diverge according to national and other contexts. Drawing on a discourse analysis of Chinese language documents, this article assesses how the blue economy has been conceptualised in Chinese state policy and discourse. Part of a state ideology and practice of modernisation that is defined in terms of rejuvenation under a strong state, the blue economy in China is seen as an opportunity to promote modernisation from overlapping economic, geopolitical and ecological perspectives and actions. China’s distinctive model for the blue economy presents emerging challenges for global ocean governance.

Calls for global action on environmental issues have been popular since the 1970s and public interest in them has been raised by rallying people to the notion that we all share one world. One need look no further than the COVID-19 pandemic to realize that sharing a world does not mean an equally felt impact or equally shared burden among all people when that world is threatened. Despite the initial good intentions of this ‘one world’ voice, when applied to the oceans the term ‘one’ risks reflecting only the more privileged sectors of society and their worldviews, rather than the diverse circumstances and values underpinning the complexity of human–ocean relationships. While we support the authors' sentiments of unity, their recognition of the oceans' roles in our interconnectedness, and the lack of a planet (or ocean) ‘B’, we also want to stress that humanity is not all in the same boat, people do not have the same destination in mind and we set out into the ocean future from very different home ports. Even within a region or nation, different people in society are poised to benefit differently from the future ocean economy and environment, depending on how ocean governance is developed, and on the conservation actions that support its sustainability. Thus, while the paper by Laffoley et al. makes the important point that the biophysical properties of the ocean play a significant role in every society and every Earth system, we must question ‘the first, simple step of dropping the “s”, recognizing the ocean as a single entity, and referring to the ocean in the singular’ (Laffoley et al., 2020, p. 13) with regard to three risks associated with that seemingly ‘modest proposal’. The first risk is that calls for ‘one ocean’ can undermine the notion of and action for ocean or blue justice. Although air, water, soil and oceans are all interconnected global biophysical systems, their degradation is often felt most acutely at local levels, and by poor and historically marginalized peoples. Thus, while the ‘one ocean’ narrative plays well in global, high-level discussions, it underplays the historical experiences of fighting environmental injustice. The environmental justice movement is rooted in local people's resistance to the actions of governments and corporations who located their most polluting industries and processes in proximity to the poorest people, thereby reducing their health and quality of life much more than that of wealthier people located further away (Bullard, 1990). Managing diverse local impacts in equitable ways requires different actions along different pathways. Each of these calls for different actors, knowledge, policies, objectives, financing, institutions and organizations. The diversity and local specificity of the required responses are not well served by global homogenization. The second risk is that appealing to the biophysical fluidity implicit in ‘one ocean’ panders to a view that ocean economic benefits will also mix, flow – or trickle down – to all. The reality is that the ocean ‘estate’ is unequally resource-endowed and inequitably claimed and allocated, and there are structural barriers to economic fluidity. Taking fisheries as an example, those making economic profit from the ocean – industrial fisheries and retailers – and those taken advantage of by those sectors – fish workers and artisanal fisheries – do not share the same ocean from an economic perspective. Inequities and barriers to ocean economic fluidity extend to all sectors of the ocean economy – who gets to live by the ocean, derive cultural identity from it or get nutrient rich food from it (Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2016). All of these inequities are hidden by the idea of ‘one ocean’. Third, ‘one ocean’ thinking risks undermining certain kinds of knowledge about the ocean: knowledge that is local and/or Indigenous, practical or ‘phronetic’ (Allison et al., 2020). In designing policies to be implemented, context and diverse values need to be considered throughout decision-making processes and assessments of effectiveness. The holistic nature of the ‘One Health’ framing espoused by Laffoley et al. (2020) provides a more diverse and inclusive knowledge base beyond the ocean governance model of science-based regulations of economic development. In this current world that is increasingly demanding diversity, equity and inclusion, we must focus on governance models built on solidarity borne from the recognition of this diversity, not through another top-down call for unity. Finding and building the way for such solidarity is critical in times of disasters. When the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami struck Japan's northern coasts, English fisher friends approached Ota, eager to send money in support for the affected communities. They reasoned that they all shared the oceans. They cared for the heritage and the ways of life in Japan's coastal communities – heritage and ways of life that are not of their own – and wanted to contribute to their survival. We recognize that Laffoley and colleagues share this same spirit in proposing ‘one ocean’ and that they prioritize the heritages and lives of coastal peoples no less than biodiversity. Yet the ‘one ocean’ narrative risks concealing the localized costs of and responses to environmental degradation, downplaying the ways in which benefits from the ocean are inequitably distributed and minimizing diverse knowledge contributions.

The current focus on mangroves as key ecosystems in mitigating the impacts of climate change has largely neglected the livelihoods of coastal dwellers interacting with mangroves. This article provides a review of scholarly and policy attention paid to these social groups and their means of struggle. It argues that the latest dominant governance discourse tying mangroves to blue carbon signifies a departure from catering to coastal people's interests and rights in mangroves. We describe the evolving discourses that have shaped mangrove use and conservation in the Philippines since the 1970s. While the mid-century preoccupation with mangrove conversion to fish farms gradually gave way to the pursuit of community-based mangrove conservation in the late 1980s and 1990s, recent experiences suggest a comparably weakened focus towards recognizing local access and use patterns. We contend that the present blue carbon framing of mangroves, which harbours technocratic and financialized ideals of sustainability, poses a fundamental disadvantage to local users of mangroves. We conclude by reflecting on ways to redress this trend via a new framing of mangroves.

Illegal wildlife trade is gaining prominence as a threat to biodiversity, but addressing it remains challenging. To help inform proactive policy responses in the face of uncertainty, in 2018 we conducted a horizon scan of significant emerging issues. We built upon existing iterative horizon scanning methods, using an open and global participatory approach to evaluate and rank issues from a diverse range of sources. Prioritized issues related to three themes: developments in biological, information, and financial technologies; changing trends in demand and information; and socioeconomic, geopolitical shifts and influences. The issues covered areas ranging from changing demographic and economic factors to innovations in technology and communications that affect illegal wildlife trade markets globally; the top three issues related to China, illustrating its vital role in tackling emerging threats. This analysis can support national governments, international bodies, researchers, and nongovernmental organizations as they develop strategies for addressing the illegal wildlife trade.

This paper examines how state and non-state actors govern through pursuing speculative conservation among resource-dependent people who must renegotiate altered livelihoods amidst extractivism in ruptured landscapes. As donor aid declines and changes form, bilaterals, state agencies, and civil society now pursue advocacy in overlapping spaces of intensifying extractivism and speculative governance in the ruptured frontiers of Southeast Asia. In these spaces, bilaterals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) struggle to work with upland farmers who negotiate the contrasting expectations of the abstract, speculative nature of conservation initiatives and the lucrative nature of extractive labour in the face of dramatic transformations of agrarian livelihoods and landscapes. Through a case study of the Philippine uplands, we demonstrate that as speculative conservation unfolds and manifests within and beyond these landscapes, it endeavours to revalue nature monetarily in ways that help reorganise labour and capital in an effort to overcome the exhaustion of capital wrought by rupture. We propose that during moments of rupture speculative conservation coproduces value from ruin by renewing and preserving capital flows.

© 2017 Fabinyi, Barclay and Eriksson. Growing trade networks through globalization have expanded governance of local environments to encompass multiple scales. The governing role of market actors, such as traders and consumers in importing countries, has been recognized and embraced for sustainable seafood sourcing and trade. The perceptions that affect the conduct of these actors are a potential influence on governance of distal environments. In this paper we investigate the perceptions of sea cucumber traders in China. Sea cucumbers are an important global fishery commodity predominantly traded to China, the world's largest seafood market, and seven traded species are endangered globally. We examine what traders and consumers in China perceive as important issues in seafood markets, and where they perceive the responsibility for sustainable fisheries to lie, to interpret what scope there is for sustainability to become an important issue in China's seafood markets. We find that clusters of perceptions about cultural status, quality, health and food safety, and country of origin influence decisions that consumers make. These norms are rooted in sociocultural practice and drive current trade strategies. While traders do want to mitigate risks and secure supplies, food safety, product quality and country of origin are viewed as more important concerns than stock sustainability. Responsibility for sustainable fishing is perceived to be that of national governments in production countries. Trading practices and consumer perceptions together pose a serious challenge to sustainable seafood markets, further confounded by clandestine cross-border gray trade into China.

Understanding the social drivers of increased seafood consumption in China, such as consumer perspectives in banquets, will be crucial if practical strategies to introduce sustainability into this market are to be successfully implemented. Based on 34 semi-structured interviews with key informants including seafood restaurant operators, seafood consumers and seafood traders, this study investigated seafood consumer attitudes and behaviours in Beijing seafood restaurants. The results and discussion is divided into sections that address the popularity and reasons behind the popularity of: 1) seafood banquets in general; 2) fish at banquets; 3) other forms of seafood at banquets; and 4) preferred characteristics and qualities of seafood at banquets. The consumption of certain types of seafood such as live reef fish and sea cucumber is becoming increasingly popular, while the consumption of shark fin is decreasing in popularity. Awareness and concern about sustainability and traceability issues were relatively low, and more significant themes for understanding consumer preferences about seafood include social status and prestige, food safety and quality, and health and nutrition. The paper concludes by demonstrating the implications for market-based interventions and government regulation.

International audience; Corals and coral-associated species are highly vulnerable to the emerging effects of global climate change. The widespread degradation of coral reefs, which will be accelerated by climate change, jeopardizes the goods and services that tropical nations derive from reef ecosystems. However, climate change impacts to reef social–ecological systems can also be bi-directional. For example, some climate impacts, such as storms and sea level rise, can directly impact societies, with repercussions for how they interact with the environment. This study identifies the multiple impact pathways within coral reef social–ecological systems arising from four key climatic drivers: increased sea surface temperature, severe tropical storms, sea level rise and ocean acidification. We develop a novel framework for investigating climate change impacts in social–ecological systems, which helps to highlight the diverse impacts that must be considered in order to develop a more complete understanding of the impacts of climate change, as well as developing appropriate management actions to mitigate climate change impacts on coral reef and people.

This paper examines the implications of changing Chinese seafood value chains for producers in source countries. The paper shows how institutions mediate the relationship between luxury seafood consumption in China and the ability of producers to environmentally and socio-economically upgrade. Examples come from the live reef fish for food trade in the Philippines and different seafood products from North America. The paper traces the implications of differences in institutional context across developing and developed countries. Fisheries value chains linking China and Southeast Asia exemplify environmental and socio-economic downgrading, as a consequence of an institutional context of weak regulation and local financing capacities in the Philippines. In contrast, the massively different institutional context of North American seafood production means that growth in Chinese consumption presents opportunities to upgrade.