Understanding change, complexities, and governability challenges in small-scale fisheries: a case study of Limbe, Cameroon, Central Africa.

Unlabelled: Climate change, globalization, and increasing industrial and urban activities threaten the sustainability and viability of small-scale fisheries. How those affected can collectively mobilize their actions, share knowledge, and build their local adaptive capacity will shape how best they respond to these changes. This paper examines the changes experienced by small-scale fishing actors, social and governance complexities, and the sustainability challenges within the fisheries system in Limbe, Cameroon.

Coral reefs: Moving beyond Malthus.

Environmental problems are often construed as having straightforward causes, such as human population growth or greed. Yet, the social sciences offer more elaborate theories that allow for a much more accurate and actionable understanding of these causes. A new study puts the explanatory power of some such theories to the test on coral reefs.

Regenerative food systems and the conservation of change.

In recent years, interest has increased in regenerative practices as a strategy for transforming food systems and solving major environmental problems such as biodiversity loss and climate change. However, debates persist regarding these practices and how they ought to be defined. This paper presents a framework for exploring the regenerative potential of food systems, focusing on how food systems activities and technologies are organized rather than the specific technologies or practices being employed.

Evaluating patterns and drivers of spatial change in the recreational guided fishing sector in Alaska.

Understanding the impacts of recreational fishing on habitats and species, as well as the social and ecological importance of place to anglers, requires information on the spatial distribution of fishing activities. This study documented long-term changes in core fishing areas of a major recreational fishery in Alaska and identified biological, regulatory, social, and economic drivers of spatial fishing patterns by charter operators. Using participatory mapping and in-person interviews, we characterized the spatial footprint of 46 charter operators in the communities of Sitka and Homer since the 1990s.

Diagnosing water security in the rural North with an environmental security framework.

This study explores the nature of water security challenges in rural Alaska, using a framework for environmental security that entails four interrelated concepts: availability, access, utility, and stability of water resources. Many researchers and professionals agree that water insecurity is a problem in rural Alaska, although the scale and nature of the problem is contested. Some academics have argued that the problem is systemic, and rooted in an approach to water security by the state that prioritizes economic concerns over public health concerns.

Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska.

Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on "the front line of climate change." Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term , referring to migration caused by climate change, originally was coined for these places.

Toward a Theory of Coexistence in Shared Social-Ecological Systems: The Case of Cook Inlet Salmon Fisheries.

Coexistence theory (CT) in community ecology provides a functional perspective on how multiple competing species coexist. Here, I explore CT's usefulness for understanding conflict and coexistence among human groups with diverse livelihood interests in shared resources such as fisheries. I add three concepts from social science research on coexistence: adaptability, pluralism, and equity and apply this expanded theoretical framework to the case of salmon fisheries in Alaska's Cook Inlet, synthesizing catch records with anthropological research.

Rebuilding northern foodsheds, sustainable food systems, community well-being, and food security.

Background: Multiple climatic, environmental and socio-economic pressures have accumulated to the point where they interfere with the ability of remote rural Alaska Native communities to achieve food security with locally harvestable food resources. The harvest of wild foods has been the historical norm, but most Alaska Native villages are transitioning to a cash economy, with increasing reliance on industrially produced, store-bought foods, and with less reliable access to and reliance on wild, country foods. While commercially available market foods provide one measure of food security, the availability and quality of market foods are subject to the vagaries and vulnerabilities of the global food system; access is dependent on one's ability to pay, is limited to what is available on the shelves of small rural stores, and, store-bought foods do not fulfill the important roles that traditional country foods play in rural communities and cultures.

Alternative perspectives on the sustainability of Alaska's commercial fisheries.

Many believe commercial fisheries in Alaska (U.S.A.

Managing environmental risks: the benefits of a place-based approach.

Context: Effective management of environmental risks such as food and water contamination requires both high quality scientific information and effective, informed social policy. Not only must health practitioners and policy-makers recognize the complexities of human health as a social phenomenon, they must also negotiate the vagaries of uncertainty, precaution, and ethics in their implementation of public health guidelines and advisories. For example, some health practitioners in Alaska have argued against implementation of US Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization's standardized consumption advisories for methylmercury (MeHg) in fish, in favor of place-based approaches to evaluating and communicating risk.

Transitional states in marine fisheries: adapting to predicted global change.

Global climate change has the potential to substantially alter the production and community structure of marine fisheries and modify the ongoing impacts of fishing. Fish community composition is already changing in some tropical, temperate and polar ecosystems, where local combinations of warming trends and higher environmental variation anticipate the changes likely to occur more widely over coming decades. Using case studies from the Western Indian Ocean, the North Sea and the Bering Sea, we contextualize the direct and indirect effects of climate change on production and biodiversity and, in turn, on the social and economic aspects of marine fisheries.

A risk-benefit analysis of wild fish consumption for various species in Alaska reveals shortcomings in data and monitoring needs.

Northern peoples face a difficult decision of whether or not to consume wild fish, which may contain dangerous levels of contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg), but which also offer a number of positive health benefits, and play an important role in rural household economies. Here, new methods for developing consumption advice are applied to an existing data-set for methylmercury (MeHg) levels in Alaskan fish. We apply a quantitative risk-benefit analysis for eight freshwater, saltwater and anadromous fish species, using dose-response relationships to weigh the risks of MeHg bioaccumulation against the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) toward cardiovascular and neurodevelopmental health endpoints.