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Increasing recognition of the human dimensions of natural resource management issues, and of social and ecological sustainability and resilience as being inter-related, highlights the importance of applying social science to natural resource management decision-making. Moreover, a number of laws and regulations require natural resource management agencies to consider the “best available science” (BAS) when making decisions, including social science. Yet rarely do these laws and regulations define or identify standards for BAS, and those who have tried to fill the gap have done so from the standpoint of best available natural science. This paper proposes evaluative criteria for best available social science (BASS), explaining why a broader set of criteria than those used for natural science is needed. Although the natural and social sciences share many of the same evaluative criteria for BAS, they also exhibit some differences, especially where qualitative social science is concerned. Thus we argue that the evaluative criteria for BAS should expand to include those associated with diverse social science disciplines, particularly the qualitative social sciences. We provide one example from the USA of how a federal agency − the U.S. Forest Service − has attempted to incorporate BASS in responding to its BAS mandate associated with the national forest planning process, drawing on different types of scientific information and in light of these criteria. Greater attention to including BASS in natural resource management decision-making can contribute to better, more equitable, and more defensible management decisions and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in developing countries are expected to play a significant role in poverty alleviation and enhancing food security in the decades to come. To realize this expectation, a better understanding of their informal self-governance arrangements is critical for developing policies that can improve fishers’ livelihoods and lead to sustainable ecosystem stewardship. The goal of this paper is to develop a more nuanced understanding of micro-level factors—such as fishers’ characteristics and behavior—to explain observed differences in self-governance arrangements in Northwest Mexico. We focus on two ubiquitous forms of self-governance: hierarchical non-cooperative arrangements between fishers and fishbuyers, such as patron-client relationships (PCs), versus more cooperative arrangements amongst fishers, such as fishing cooperatives (co-ops). We developed an agent-based model of an archetypical SSF that captures key hypotheses from in-depth fieldwork in Northwest Mexico of fishers’ day-to-day fishing and trading. Results from our model indicate that high diversity in fishers’ reliability, and low initial trust between co-op members, makes co-ops’ establishment difficult. PCs cope better with this kind of diversity because, in contrast to co-ops, they have more flexibility in choosing whom to work with. However, once co-ops establish, they cope better with seasonal variability in fish abundance and provide long-term security for the fishers. We argue that existing levels of trust and diversity among fishers matter for different self-governance arrangements to establish and persist, and should therefore be taken into account when developing better, targeted policies for improved SSFs governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in assessing the effects of changing environmental conditions and management actions on human wellbeing. A challenge is to translate social science expertise regarding these relationships into terms usable by environmental scientists, policymakers, and managers. Here, we present a comprehensive, structured, and transparent conceptual framework of human wellbeing designed to guide the development of indicators and a complementary social science research agenda for ecosystem-based management. Our framework grew out of an effort to develop social indicators for an integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA) of the California Current large marine ecosystem. Drawing from scholarship in international development, anthropology, geography, and political science, we define human wellbeing as a state of being with others and the environment, which arises when human needs are met, when individuals and communities can act meaningfully to pursue their goals, and when individuals and communities enjoy a satisfactory quality of life . We propose four major social science-based constituents of wellbeing: connections, capabilities, conditions, and cross-cutting domains. The latter includes the domains of equity and justice, security, resilience, and sustainability, which may be assessed through cross-cutting analyses of other constituents. We outline a process for identifying policy-relevant attributes of wellbeing that can guide ecosystem assessments. To operationalize the framework, we provide a detailed table of attributes and a large database of available indicators, which may be used to develop measures suited to a variety of management needs and social goals. Finally, we discuss four guidelines for operationalizing human wellbeing measures in ecosystem assessments, including considerations for context, feasibility, indicators and research, and social difference. Developed for the U.S. west coast, the framework may be adapted for other regions, management needs, and scales with appropriate modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental governance is more effective when the scales of ecological processes are well matched with the human institutions charged with managing human-environment interactions. The social-ecological systems (SESs) framework provides guidance on how to assess the social and ecological dimensions that contribute to sustainable resource use and management, but rarely if ever has been operationalized for multiple localities in a spatially explicit, quantitative manner. Here, we use the case of small-scale fisheries in Baja California Sur, Mexico, to identify distinct SES regions and test key aspects of coupled SESs theory. Regions that exhibit greater potential for social-ecological sustainability in one dimension do not necessarily exhibit it in others, highlighting the importance of integrative, coupled system analyses when implementing spatial planning and other ecosystem-based strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] This special issue examines successes and failures in small-scale fisheries. [•] Highlights common conditions that could be causing problems or creating benefits. [•] To generate cumulative lessons, each article uses a common diagnostic framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of the role of institutional arrangements and ecological factors that facilitate the emergence and sustainability of successful collective action in small-scale fishing social–ecological systems. Using a modified logistic growth function, we simulate how ecological factors (i.e. carrying capacity) affect small-scale fishing communities with varying degrees of institutional development (i.e. timeliness to adopt new institutions and the degree to which harvesting effort is reduced), in their ability to avoid overexploitation. Our results show that strong and timely institutions are necessary but not sufficient to maintain sustainable harvests over time. The sooner communities adopt institutions, and the stronger the institutions they adopt, the more likely they are to sustain the resource stock. Exactly how timely the institutions must be adopted, and by what amount harvesting effort must be diminished, depends on the ecological carrying capacity of the species at the particular location. Small differences in the carrying capacity between fishing sites, even under scenarios of similar institutional development, greatly affects the likelihood of effective collective action. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

My goal was to describe how biological and ecological factors give shape to fishing practices that can contribute to the successful self-governance of a small-scale fishing system in the Gulf of California, Mexico. The analysis was based on a comparison of the main ecological and biological indicators that fishers claim to use to govern their day-to-day decision making about fishing and data collected in situ. I found that certain indicators allow fishers to learn about differences and characteristics of the resource system and its units. Fishers use such information to guide their day-to-day fishing decisions. More importantly, these decisions appear unable to shape the reproductive viability of the fishery because no indicators were correlated to the reproductive cycle of the target species. As a result, the fishing practices constitute a number of mechanisms that might provide short-term buffering capacity against perturbations or stress factors that otherwise would threaten the overall sustainability and self-governance of the system. The particular biological circumstances that shape the harvesting practices might also act as a precursor of self-governance because they provide fishers with enough incentives to meet the costs of organizing the necessary rule structure that underlies a successful self-governance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) contribute substantially to global food security, sustainable marine ecosystems and poverty alleviation. Yet many SSF face problems of overexploitation and poverty calling for novel governance approaches that enhance human-wellbeing, equity and ecological sustainability. External policies and interventions to support such governance transformations, however, need to take their often self-governed nature into account. Common practices based on informal arrangements between different fishery actors can make existing, mal-adapted structures very persistent and hence difficult to overcome. Here we combine multi-method empirical research on SSF in Mexico with agent-based modeling to analyze if and under which conditions interventions can shift ongoing self-organizing dynamics into directions that support the new governance form. We are particularly interested in the effectiveness of two different types of interventions, financial and social, and their performance under variable social and ecological conditions as commonly found in SSF. Our analysis reveals that a combination of financial and social support during extended periods of time is necessary to ensure persistence of new governance forms in face of competition with established forms, as well as environmental and social uncertainty. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the endogenous self-organizing dynamics created by the interplay between social (e.g. the dynamics of trust) and ecological (e.g. resource dynamics) processes in order to devise policies and measures to initiate a shift towards more sustainable pathways. • Combination of financial and social support needed for transforming governance. • Interventions need to be applied over extended periods of time. • Additional actions are needed to build resilience in uncertain world. • Combining empirical research with agent-based modelling allowed studying dynamic complexity. • Reinforcing feedbacks are particularly critical for overcoming lock-ins and accelerating adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors discuss issues concerning social indicators and highlight the importance of engaging critical social science concepts for sustainability. They highlight the adverse of impact of tracking only economic growth on social and environmental progress as well as the need for broader understanding and assessment of human well-being.