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Abstract The biosphere crisis requires changes to existing business practices. We ask how corporations can become sustainability leaders, when constrained by multiple barriers to collaboration for biosphere stewardship. We describe how scientists motivated, inspired and engaged with ten of the world’s largest seafood companies, in a collaborative process aimed to enable science-based and systemic transformations (2015–2021). CEOs faced multiple industry crises in 2015 that incentivized novel approaches. New scientific insights, an invitation to collaborate, and a bold vision of transformative change towards ocean stewardship, created new opportunities and direction. Co-creation of solutions resulted in new knowledge and trust, a joint agenda for action, new capacities, international recognition, formalization of an organization, increased policy influence, time-bound goals, and convergence of corporate change. Independently funded scientists helped remove barriers to cooperation, provided means for reflection, and guided corporate strategies and actions toward ocean stewardship. By 2021, multiple individuals exercised leadership and the initiative had transitioned from preliminary and uncomfortable conversations, to a dynamic, operational organization, with capacity to perform global leadership in the seafood industry. Mobilizing transformational agency through learning, collaboration, and innovation represents a cultural evolution with potential to redirect and accelerate corporate action, to the benefit of business, people and the planet.

Global demand for “blue food” is growing. In this quantitative synthesis, the authors analyse global seafood demand and project trends to 2050, finding considerable regional variation in the relationship between wealth and consumption.

The ocean supports many livelihoods, but this is currently not sustainable with pressures on the climate and ecosystems. Here, in this perspective, the authors outline the barriers and solutions for financing a sustainable ocean economy.

Humanity has never benefited more from the ocean as a source of food, livelihoods, and well-being, yet on a global scale this has been accompanied by trajectories of degradation and persistent inequity. Awareness of this has spurred policymakers to develop an expanding network of ocean governance instruments, catalyzed civil society pressure on the public and private sector, and motivated engagement by the general public as consumers and constituents. Among local communities, diverse examples of stewardship have rested on the foundation of care, knowledge and agency. But does an analog for stewardship exist in the context of globally active multinational corporations? Here, we consider the seafood industry and its efforts to navigate this new reality through private governance. We examine paradigmatic events in the history of the sustainable seafood movement, from seafood boycotts in the 1970s through to the emergence of certification measures, benchmarks, and diverse voluntary environmental programs. We note four dimensions of stewardship in which efforts by actors within the seafood industry have aligned with theoretical concepts of stewardship, which we describe as (1) moving beyond compliance, (2) taking a systems perspective, (3) living with uncertainty, and (4) understanding humans as embedded elements of the biosphere. In conclusion, we identify emerging stewardship challenges for the seafood industry and suggest the urgent need to embrace a broader notion of ocean stewardship that extends beyond seafood.

Small-scale fishing communities are increasingly connected to international seafood trade via exports in a growing global market. Understanding how this connectedness impacts local fishery systems, both socially and ecologically, has become a necessary challenge for fishery governance. Market prices are a potential mechanism by which global market demands are transferred to small-scale fishery actors. In most small-scale fisheries (SSF) this happens through various traders (intermediaries, middlemen/women, or patrons). By financing fishing operations, buying and selling products and transferring market information, traders can actively pass international market signals, such as price, to fishers. How these signals influence fishers’ decisions and the consequent fishing efforts, is still poorly understood yet significant for future social-ecological sustainability. This paper uses an economic framed field experiment, in combination with interviews, to shed light on this. It does so in the context of the Philippine patron-client “suki” arrangement. Over 250 fishers in Concepcion, Iloilo were asked in an economic experiment, to make decisions about fuel loans in light of changing market prices. Interviews with participants and their patrons gathered additional information on relevant contextual variables potentially influencing borrowing. They included fisher characteristics and socio-economic conditions. Contrary to our hypotheses, fishers showed no response in their borrowing behavior to experimental price changes. Instead, gender and the previous experiment round were predictive of their choice of loans in the experiment. We explore possible reasons for this and discuss potential implications for social-ecological sustainability and fishery governance.

Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) are a form of private governance using seafood supply chains to reduce environmental impacts of fishing in some of the most challenged fisheries. Some FIPs are industry-led, others are championed by NGOs. They range across many different fishery types, in both high- and low-income settings. Their diversity is notable, and their proliferation remarkable. This rapid growth suggests FIPs are becoming a key feature of the fisheries governance landscape globally. Based on a global sample of 107 FIPs, we systematically examined their reported actions, the actors involved, and their achievements in terms of policy and practice outputs. The most common actions were dialogues with policy stakeholders, data collection, and educational efforts directed at fishers. Common policy outputs included development of management plans and/or a management body, and rules for limiting entry and increasing compliance. Practice related outputs were dominated by gear changes, and observer and traceability programs. Only crab and lobster FIPs engaged in sustained policy conversations as one of the most common actions. Shrimp and tuna fisheries report more engagement in testing and implementing changes to fishery practices. While supply chain actors are involved in all FIPs, retailers and 1st tier suppliers are relatively absent from FIP activities, and are primarily involved in rallying financial support or some policy engagement. Based on our analysis we discuss the opportunities and challenges FIPs will likely need to engage with to contribute to a global transition to more socially and environmentally sustainable fisheries. We outline key areas where further work is needed to understand how FIPs can improve their contribution to global fisheries governance in the future.

Ocean activities are rapidly expanding as Blue Economy discussions gain traction, creating new potential synergies and conflicts between sectors. To better manage ocean sectors and their development, we need to understand how they interact and the respective outcomes of these interactions. To provide a first comprehensive picture of the situation, we review 3187 articles to map and analyze interactions between economically important ocean sectors and find 93 unique direct and 61 indirect interactions, often mediated via the ocean ecosystem. Analysis of interaction outcomes reveals that some sectors coexist synergistically (e.g. renewable energy, tourism), but many interactions are antagonistic, and negative effects on other sectors are often incurred via degradation of marine ecosystems. The analysis also shows that ocean ecosystems are fundamental for supporting many ocean sectors, yet 13 out of 14 ocean sectors have interactions resulting in unidirectional negative ecosystem impact. Fishing, drilling, and shipping are hubs in the network of ocean sector interactions, and are involved in many of the antagonistic interactions. Antagonistic interactions signal trade-offs between sectors. Qualitative analysis of the literature shows that these tradeoffs relate to the cumulative nature of many ecosystem impacts incurred by some sectors, and the differential power of ocean sectors to exert their rights or demands in the development of the ocean domain. There are also often time lags in how impacts manifest. The ocean governance landscape is not currently well-equipped to deal with the full range of trade-offs, and opportunities, likely to arise in the pursuit of a Blue Economy in a rapidly changing ocean context. Based on our analysis, we therefore propose a set principles that can begin to guide strategic decision-making, by identifying both tradeoffs and opportunities for sustainable and equitable development of ocean sectors.

Human activities are disrupting the Earth system’s biophysical processes, which underlie human wellbeing. The planetary boundary framework sets ‘safe’ global limits on these pressures, but a sub-global assessment of these pressures, their interactions and subsequent systemic effects is needed to enable corporate and public entities to assess the systemic environmental impacts of their decisions. Here, we developed a prototype Earth system impact metric that is savvy to Earth system interactions. First, we quantified sub-global interactions between climate change, surface water runoff, and vegetation cover using the global dynamic vegetation model LPJmL (Lund-Potsdam-Jena managed Land). Second, we used a feedback model to study how these interactions amplify environmental impacts. We found, for example, that interactions more than double the Earth system impacts of deforestation in some tropical forests. Finally, we combined these amplification factors with an assessment of the current state of the Earth system to create a prototype Earth system impact metric. We envision that future versions of our prototype metric will allow corporate and public actors to better assess the systemic environmental impacts of their decisions. Our ambition is that these results catalyse further scientific work to extend and improve this metric, as well as action by investors, companies, cities, and governments to deliver sustainable outcomes across the private and public sectors.

Las redes sociales entre actores y grupos de interés están recibiendo cada vez más atención en los estudios sobre la gestión de los recursos naturales, especialmente en los que se refieren a la gestión adaptativa basada en diferentes formas de participación y cogestión. Las redes sociales se han concebido principalmente como recursos que habilitan la colaboración y la coordinación entre diferentes actores. Aquí, continuamos la discusión iniciada por Newman y Dale (2005), que destacaron el hecho de que no todas las redes sociales son creadas iguales. Discutimos la relación entre algunas características estructurales y las funciones de las redes sociales con respecto al manejo de los recursos naturales, centrándonos en las implicaciones estructurales que a menudo se pasan por alto al estudiar las redes en el contexto del manejo de los recursos naturales. Presentamos varias medidas que se utilizan para cuantificar las características estructurales de las redes sociales y vincularlas con una serie de procesos como el aprendizaje, el liderazgo y la confianza, que se consideran importantes en el manejo de recursos naturales. Se muestra esquemáticamente que puede haber yuxtaposiciones entre las diferentes características estructurales que necesitan ser equilibradas en lo que nos imaginamos como estructuras de redes sociales conducentes a la cogestión adaptativa de los recursos naturales. Sostenemos que es esencial desarrollar una comprensión de los efectos que las diferentes características estructurales de las redes sociales tienen sobre la gestión de los recursos naturales.

The majority of the world’s fishers, fishworkers and their dependents live in coastal tropical areas that are, and will be, highly exposed to human-induced climate change. Projections indicate such change could result in coastal populations being more frequently and acutely impacted by natural disasters. Increasing aid interventions is a likely knock-on effect of such scenarios. How these external natural and social disturbances interact and affect local fisheries and small-scale producers is in part determined by the internal dynamics of the social-ecological system (SES). Economic vulnerability often characterizes communities in these settings and influences the means with which they navigate changes. The patron-client system is prolific in many rural economies and small-scale fisheries. It forms a central element in the organization of market interactions and often provides much needed finance for low-income households in place of formal options. How such injection of capital promotes individuals’ ability to buffer income fluctuations at the expense of long-term sustainability of the broader fishery system is still an area in need of examination. This paper contributes to shed light on this issue by using a case study approach to trace the historical development of the fishery system in the Iloilo Province (Philippines) in relation to a major natural disaster—super-typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda—and the subsequent aid intervention that followed. The aim is to assess how the patron-client system filtered these two related disturbances and to highlight the resulting tensions between short-term individual resilience and longer-term SES sustainability.

We examine the benefits flowing from a coastal seascape through seafood trade to various social groups in two distinct small-scale fishery case studies. A knowledge gap currently exists in relation to how benefits from a fishery, and the associated trade, are ultimately distributed, specifically, how market structures and relations, and the combined dynamics of the local fishing society, can mediate these flows. Previous research into improved fisheries governance for food and livelihood security has failed to integrate the structure of the market place as well as the multidimensional nature of actor relations that influence extractive behavior. Using a value chain framework, we take a relational approach to study these gaps. Surveys were conducted in two fisheries (Zanzibar and the Philippines) as part of a comparative analysis including market-types, assistance networks, and income inequality. Chain structures, gender roles, and levels of contractualization within the two cases differed vastly, appearing to give rise to different types of income inequalities and barriers to participation. In the Philippines economic exchanges revolve more around provision of financial capital, although in both systems social standing and obligations play a role in determining market structures. In Zanzibar trading agents engaging customers in predetermined sale arrangements earn relatively more than their counterpart freelancers, however at the production level no income differences are seen between those with or without arrangements. Both cases stand to be further integrated into the international seafood market, which raises questions over how certain actors will benefit, based on their current participation and access. Results emphasize the need for more evidence in regards to benefits flows and how aspects such as gender and transaction forms impact them. This is necessary for governance decisions around fisheries, poverty alleviation, and increased global market integration.

Keystone species have a disproportionate influence on the structure and function of ecosystems. Here we analyze whether a keystone-like pattern can be observed in the relationship between transnational corporations and marine ecosystems globally. We show how thirteen corporations control 11-16% of the global marine catch (9-13 million tons) and 19-40% of the largest and most valuable stocks, including species that play important roles in their respective ecosystem. They dominate all segments of seafood production, operate through an extensive global network of subsidiaries and are profoundly involved in fisheries and aquaculture decision-making. Based on our findings, we define these companies as keystone actors of the Anthropocene. The phenomenon of keystone actors represents an increasingly important feature of the human-dominated world. Sustainable leadership by keystone actors could result in cascading effects throughout the entire seafood industry and enable a critical transition towards improved management of marine living resources and ecosystems.

Understanding the cross-scale nature of how natural resource trading links to local extraction patterns remains a topic of great relevance to stewardship and sustainable use of ecological systems. Microeconomic influences on a society's pattern of small-scale natural resources utilization can exacerbate resource overuse, especially under increased population pressure. In many rural communities that are based on a limited diversity of resource industries, quantifying the response of extractors and traders to market and environmental fluctuations is critical to understanding management constraints. We examine the fishing practices of a small lake in Uganda, East Africa, from the dual perspectives of the traders and the fishers using a Bayesian Belief Network approach based on detailed interview surveys. Fishers in this small lake target Nile perch (Lates niloticus) and Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), two fish species of high commercial and food security significance in East Africa. We combined data on financial, social, and ecological systems to understand how aspects of trading quantitatively relate to fish extraction patterns in Lake Nabugabo Uganda. Importantly, we find that the patron-client type relationships generate incentives to extract specific fish, whereas "freelancer" independent fishers are able to create responsive and flexible extraction practices that match market and environmental fluctuations. Management of fishing administered by local Beach Management Units will likely have a higher probability of success when in synchrony with trading relationships and ecological dynamics. We use this study in Uganda to reflect on methodological challenges and opportunities of combining multiple types of data sets for cross-scale analysis of social-ecological system dynamics.

Food lies at the heart of both health and sustainability challenges. We use a social-ecological framework to illustrate how major changes to the volume, nutrition and safety of food systems between 1961 and today impact health and sustainability. These changes have almost halved undernutrition while doubling the proportion who are overweight. They have also resulted in reduced resilience of the biosphere, pushing four out of six analysed planetary boundaries across the safe operating space of the biosphere. Our analysis further illustrates that consumers and producers have become more distant from one another, with substantial power consolidated within a small group of key actors. Solutions include a shift from a volume-focused production system to focus on quality, nutrition, resource use efficiency, and reduced antimicrobial use. To achieve this, we need to rewire food systems in ways that enhance transparency between producers and consumers, mobilize key actors to become biosphere stewards, and re-connect people to the biosphere.

Although ecosystem services are increasingly recognized as benefits people obtain from nature, we still have a poor understanding of how they actually enhance multidimensional human well-being, and how well-being is affected by ecosystem change. We develop a concept of "ecosystem service elasticity" (ES elasticity) that describes the sensitivity of human well-being to changes in ecosystems. ES Elasticity is a result of complex social and ecological dynamics and is context dependent, individually variable, and likely to demonstrate nonlinear dynamics such as thresholds and hysteresis. We present a conceptual framework that unpacks the chain of causality from ecosystem stocks through flows, goods, value, and shares to contribute to the well-being of different people. This framework builds on previous conceptualizations, but places multidimensional well-being of different people as the final element. This ultimately disaggregated approach emphasizes how different people access benefits and how benefits match their needs or aspirations. Applying this framework to case studies of individual coastal ecosystem services in East Africa illustrates a wide range of social and ecological factors that can affect ES elasticity. For example, food web and habitat dynamics affect the sensitivity of different fisheries ecosystem services to ecological change. Meanwhile high cultural significance, or lack of alternatives enhance ES elasticity, while social mechanisms that prevent access can reduce elasticity. Mapping out how chains are interlinked illustrates how different types of value and the well-being of different people are linked to each other and to common ecological stocks. We suggest that examining chains for individual ecosystem services can suggest potential interventions aimed at poverty alleviation and sustainable ecosystems while mapping out of interlinkages between chains can help to identify possible ecosystem service trade-offs and winners and losers. We discuss conceptual and practical challenges of applying such a framework and conclude on its utility as a heuristic for structuring interdisciplinary analysis of ecosystem services and human well-being.

When environmental processes cut across socioeconomic boundaries, traditional top-down government approaches struggle to effectively manage and conserve ecosystems. In such cases, governance arrangements that foster multiactor collaboration are needed. The effectiveness of such arrangements, however, depends on how well any ecological interdependencies across governed ecosystems are aligned with patterns of collaboration. This inherent interdisciplinary and complex problem has impeded progress in developing a better understanding of how to govern ecosystems for conservation in an increasingly interconnected world. We argue for the development of empirically informed theories, which are not only able to transcend disciplinary boundaries, but are also explicit in taking these complex social-ecological interdependences into account. We show how this emerging research frontier can be significantly improved by incorporating recent advances in stochastic modeling of multilevel social networks. An empirical case study from an agricultural landscape in Madagascar is reanalyzed to demonstrate these improvements.

Social networks among actors and stakeholders are gaining attention in studies of natural resource management, particularly those of adaptive management based on different forms of participation and co-management. In this sense, social networks have primarily been envisioned as enabling different actors to collaborate and coordinate management efforts. Here, we continue the discussion initiated by Newman and Dale (2005), which highlighted the fact that not all social networks are created equal. We discuss the relation between some structural characteristics and functions of social networks with respect to natural resource management, thus focusing on structural implications that are often overlooked when studying social networks within the context of natural resource management. We present several network measures used to quantify structural characteristics of social networks and link them to a number of features such as learning, leadership, and trust, which are identified as important in natural resource management. We show schematically that there may be inherent juxtapositions among different structural characteristics that need to be balanced in what we envision as social network structures conducive to adaptive co-management of natural resources. We argue that it is essential to develop an understanding of the effects that different structural characteristics of social networks have on natural resource management.

Adaptive comanagement (ACM) has been suggested as the way to successfully achieve sustainable environmental governance. Despite excellent research, the field still suffers from underdeveloped frameworks of causality. To address this issue, we suggest a framework that integrates the structural frame of Plummer and Fitzgibbons' "adaptive comanagement" with the specific process characteristics of Senecah's "Trinity of Voice." The resulting conceptual hybrid is used to guide the comparison of two cases of stakeholder participation in fisheries management - the Swedish Co-management Initiative and the Polish Fisheries Roundtable. We examine how different components of preconditions and the process led to the observed outcomes. The analysis shows that despite the different cultural and ecological contexts, the cases developed similar results. Triggered by a crisis, the participating stakeholders were successful in developing trust and better communication and enhanced learning. This can be traced back to a combination of respected leadership, skilled mediation, and a strong focus on deliberative approaches and the creation of respectful dialogue. We also discuss the difficulties of integrating outcomes of the work of such initiatives into the actual decision-making process. Finally, we specify the lessons learned for the cases and the benefits of applying our integrated framework.

We reviewed the literature on leadership in linked social-ecological systems and combined it with the literature on institutional entrepreneurship in complex adaptive systems to develop a new theory of transformative agency in linked social-ecological systems. Although there is evidence of the importance of strategic agency in introducing innovation and transforming approaches to management and governance of such systems, there is no coherent theory to explain the wide diversity of strategies identified. Using Holling's adaptive cycle as a model of phases present in innovation and transformation of resilient social-ecological systems, overlaid by Dorado's model of opportunity context (opaque, hazy, transparent) in complex adaptive systems, we propose a more coherent theory of strategic agency, which links particular strategies, on the part of transformative agents, to phases of system change.

This paper outlines the results of a systematic review of the literature on adaptive comanagement (ACM). Adaptive comanagement is an emergent governance approach for complex social-ecological systems that links the learning function of adaptive management (experimental and experiential) and the linking (vertically and horizontally) function of comanagement. Given the rapid growth of adaptive comanagement scholarship, there is value in a systematic analysis of how the concept is being conceptualized to elucidate agreement and discrepancies and to examine the challenges this presents for cross-case comparisons and the possibility of arriving at more generalizable insights. A synthesis-based methodology has been developed involving a comprehensive search and screening of academic databases and the internet. A detailed analysis of 108 documents was undertaken to characterize the state of the ACM literature, unpack the construct of ACM, and examine relationships among aspects of ACM based on accumulated experiences to date. The systematic review and analysis reveals imprecision, inconsistency, and confusion with the concept. Robust evidentiary insights into how the variables or components of ACM interrelate as well as relate to goals and outcomes are, therefore, presently not possible. These findings lead to the discussion of a series of challenges for ACM scholarship. Opportunities remain for ACM scholars to pursue theoretical development in rigorous ways that facilitate empirically based cross-site comparisons.

Both global and local environmental problems call for the transformation of many contemporary and unsustainable governance approaches. Therefore, recent interest has sprung up around factors that facilitate and hinder societies from transforming governance of natural resources. Using a social-network approach, we study links between informal power structures and knowledge sharing and consensus building. We examine how this interaction may have affected the (in)ability of a community to move from open-access to some form of collective action for resource management. Individuals occupying central positions in a knowledge network can be instrumental in determining which knowledge and interpretation of ecological signals is most dominant. If the same individuals are also influential in other areas, they are highly likely to become opinion leaders. We use this notion of opinion leaders to frame our study. The study is set in a rural fishing community in East Africa where access to fishing equipment is of utmost importance for generating household income, but such gear ownership is not evenly distributed in the village. Hence, we use gear-exchange networks to explore power. Our results show a clear and strong relationship between centrality in the knowledge network and in-degree centrality (reflecting gear-lending capacity) in the gear-exchange network, supporting the idea that opinion leaders exist. We also indicate that a majority of these potential opinion leaders demonstrate little recognition of declining fisheries. We relate our findings to existing theories of influence and governance transformability at the community level, and explore ideas about how social networks can help identify potential change agents in communities experiencing inertia with respect to collective action for improved resource management.

Popular concern over water quality has important implications for public water management because it can both empower water utilities to improve service but also limit their ability to make changes. In the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, obtaining sufficient high-quality water resources for a growing urban population poses a major challenge. Decision makers and urban hydrologists are aware of these challenges to water sustainability but the range of acceptable policy and management options available to them is constrained by public opinion. Therefore, this study examines cultural models of water quality and water management, termed ethnohydrology, among urban residents. The study yields three key findings. First, urban residents appear to have a shared model of ethnohydrology which holds that a) there are significant water quality risks associated with low financial investments in city-wide water treatment and the desert location of Phoenix, and b) government monitoring and management combined with household-level water treatment can yield water of an acceptable quality. Second, people with high incomes are more likely to engage in expensive water filtration activities and to agree with the cultural ethnohydrology model found. Third, people living in communities that are highly concerned about water quality are less likely to share high agreement around ethnohydrology. The results have implications for water policy making and planning, particularly in disadvantaged and vulnerable communities where water quality is perceived to be low.

The social networks is one factor determining the flow of information within communities and as such may be important in determining successful implementation of community based management. We mapped the social network used for communication of knowledge and information related to natural resource extraction among villagers in a coastal seascape in Kenya. We further identified subgroups and examined their interrelations while measuring to what extent personal attributes such as occupation can explain observed group structure. Finally, we compared the local ecological knowledge held by villagers of different occupations with the structure of the communication network to map how well this structure can explain distribution of ecological knowledge among them. Results show that communication occurs primarily between fishermen who use the same gear type, which may inhibit exchange of ecological knowledge within the community. This may partly explain why the community has been unsuccessful in regulating resource extraction, especially since potentially influential groups of nonfishermen have a limited communication with the various fisher groups. Analysis of network structure also shows that groups most central, and hence potentially most influential, are dominated in numbers by migrant deep sea fishermen, hypothetically less motivated to initiate collective action for resource management. Hence, we conclude that a lack of collective action to remedy an unsustainable situation may be attributed to various different but distinct aspects of the specific structure of the social network.