OpenChannels Literature Update Archives

For the week of 28 May 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Marine Policy has published, Assessing real progress towards effective ocean protection. "The United Nations’ target for global ocean protection is 10% of the ocean in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) by 2020. There has been remarkable progress in the last decade, and some organizations claim that 7% of the ocean is already protected and that we will exceed the 10% target by 2020. However, currently only 3.6% of the ocean is in implemented MPAs, and only 2% is in implemented strongly or fully protected areas. Here we argue that current protection has been overestimated because it includes areas that are not yet protected, and that areas that allow significant extractive activities such as fishing should not count as ‘protected.’ The most rigorous projections suggest that we will not achieve the 10% target in truly protected areas by 2020. Strongly or fully protected areas are the only ones achieving the goal of protecting biodiversity; hence they should be the MPA of choice to achieve global ocean conservation targets."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org.

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-05-30. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,
– Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 21 May 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Marine Policy has published, Attitudes to a marine protected area are associated with perceived social impacts. "Marine protected areas (MPAs) conserve marine biodiversity and ecosystems by limiting or prohibiting resource use in specific areas. Reduced access to a marine resource will invariably impact local communities which reside nearby and utilise those resources. Social dimensions are recognised as crucial to the success of MPAs in meeting environmental goals, however, these dimensions are poorly understood. While much research is focused on developing countries, the majority of recent growth in MPA coverage is occurring in more economically developed settings. This research aims to address this gap by exploring the diversity of social impacts associated with an established MPA on the mid-coast of Western Australia. A range of extractive and non-extractive stakeholders were interviewed to identify the type of impacts experienced and how these are associated with attitudes towards the MPA. The results demonstrate there is a strong association between the nature of the impacts experienced by stakeholders and their attitudes. The social impacts are not distributed uniformly among stakeholders, with some groups of extractive users suffering the majority of the negative impacts and holding highly critical attitudes. The most common adverse impacts affect individual users’ well-being including feelings of fear, stress, uncertainty and inequity, while impacts on fishing activities are limited. Those who reported broader scale community or environmental benefits held largely positive assessments of the MPA. Together these results illustrate the importance of identifying and mitigating the full spectrum of social impacts experienced, as opposed to a narrow focus on the disruption of fishing activities or socio-economic impacts alone."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org.

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-05-23. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,
– Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 14 May 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Marine Policy has published, Fisheries as social struggle: A reinvigorated social science research agenda. "Many social scientists in the field of fisheries display a strong concern for the social engineering of environmental sustainability, but also a tendency to identify with the concerns of government. This paper posits that social scientists have their own responsibility in the fisheries field, and that this responsibility includes more attention to the realm of social struggle and distributional justice. Social struggles within and over fisheries are argued to be globally intensifying, as a result of four trends: (1) the condition that inshore fisheries have now largely become a zero sum game; (2) the new sets of controls that are occurring in the fish value chain; (3) the incursion of new business interests into marine and coastal space; and (4) the increasing participation, if not interference, by governments in what used to be mainly fisher affairs. Not only does a reinvigorated social science agenda create attention to other, neglected domains of fisher society; the authors argue that addressing distributional justice concerns may be a precondition for achieving sustainable human-nature relations."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org.

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-05-16. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,
– Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 07 May 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Aquatic Mammals has published, Anthropogenic Impacts on the Welfare of Wild Marine Mammals. "Marine mammal welfare has most frequently been a topic of discussion in reference to captive animals. However, humans have altered the marine environment in such dramatic and varied ways that the welfare of wild marine mammals is also important to consider as most current publications regarding anthropogenic impacts focus on population-level effects. While the preservation of the species is extremely important, so too are efforts to mitigate the pain and suffering of marine mammals affected by noise pollution, chemical pollution, marine debris, and ever-increasing numbers of vessels. The aim of this review is to define welfare for wild marine mammals and to discuss a number of key anthropogenic effects that are currently impacting their welfare."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org.

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/oa/2018-05-09. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

Thank you for being part of the OpenChannels Community,
– Allie Brown, Raye Evrard, and the rest of the OpenChannels Team

For the week of 30 April 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Biological Conservation has published, Delineating priority areas for marine biodiversity conservation in the Coral Triangle. "Identifying priority areas for biodiversity conservation requires systematic approaches and integrated ecological and biological information. Here, we applied a range of ecological criteria to assess areas of biodiversity importance in the Coral Triangle region, a priority region for marine biodiversity conservation because of its high species richness and endemicity. We used distribution data of three biogenic habitats to assess the criterion of sensitive habitat, modeled geographic distributions of 10,672 species ranges and occurrence records of 19,251 species to evaluate the criterion of species richness, distributions of 834 species of special conservation concern to examine the criterion of species of conservation concern, distributions of 373 reef fish species to assess the criterion of restricted-range species, and distribution of nesting sites and migratory route of six species of sea turtle to evaluate the criterion of areas of importance for particular life history stages. We identified areas of biodiversity importance by superimposing each of the different criterion. We performed two tiers of multi-criteria analysis: (1) a Coral Triangle regional level analysis to identify “clustered hotspots” (i.e., groups of cells) of biodiversity significance, and (2) a site-based analysis to identify the specific sites (cells) of greatest biodiversity importance. We found that approximately 13% of the Coral Triangle was clustered into hotspots of high biodiversity importance. These areas occurred along the southern part of the Philippines, the north-eastern part of Malaysian Sabah, central to eastern reaches of Indonesia, the eastern part of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. By comparison, the site-based analysis identified seven sites of highest biodiversity importance in the Coral Triangle include: (1) the northern tip of Sulawesi Island, (2) Ambon Island, (3) Kei Islands, (4) Raja Ampat Archipelago of Indonesian Papua, (5) the Verde Island Passage, (6) the southern part of Negros Island, and (7) Cebu Island. This information is useful to inform participatory decision-making processes in the Coral Triangle region to identify priority areas for conservation and management."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org (.)

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/oa/2018-05-02. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

-Allie Brown and Raye Evrard

For the week of 23 April 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Frontiers in Marine Science has published, Perspectives on the Great Amazon Reef: Extension, Biodiversity, and Threats. "Here we provide a broad overview of the Great Amazon Reef System (GARS) based on the first-ever video surveys of the region. This footage supports four major hypotheses: (1) the GARS area may be six times larger than previously suggested (up to 56,000 km²); (2) the GARS may extend deeper than previously suggested (up to 220 m); (3) the GARS is composed of a greater complexity and diversity of habitats than previously recognized (e.g., reef platforms, reef walls, rhodolith beds, and sponge bottoms); and (4) the GARS represents a useful system to test whether a deep corridor connects the Caribbean Sea to the Southwest Atlantic Ocean. We also call attention to the urgent need to adopt precautionary conservation measures to protect the region in the face of increasing threats from extractive oil and gas practices. With less than 5% of the potential area of the GARS surveyed so far, more research will be required to inform a systematic conservation planning approach and determine how best to establish a network of marine protected areas. Such planning will be required to reconcile extractive activities with effective biodiversity conservation in the GARS."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org (.)

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-04-25. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

-Allie Brown and Raye Evrard

For the week of 16 April 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Fisheries has published, Social Media for Fisheries Science and Management Professionals: How to Use It and Why You Should. "Social media has revolutionized how people communicate with one another. This has important implications for science, environmental advocacy, and natural resource management, with numerous documented professional benefits for people in each of these fields. Some fisheries management professionals have been wary of social media use, in no small part due to unfamiliarity. The goal of this paper is to summarize the professional benefits of social media usage that are applicable for fisheries science and management professionals and to provide a detailed guide for those who wish to get started. Though many Web 2.0 tools exist, this paper will focus on the use of Facebook, Twitter, and blogs."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org (.)

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-04-18. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

-Allie Brown and Raye Evrard

For the week of 09 April 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Ecological Indicators has published, A modelling framework for MSP-oriented cumulative effects assessment. "This research presents a comprehensive Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) based on the Tools4MSP modelling framework tested for the Italian Adriatic Sea."

We also have a few new MarXiv summaries, including:

• Taking home-ranges into account for Mediterranean MPAs could offer increased recovery benefits.

• Beating the Microbead: How private environmental governance has influenced the regulatory process of banning microbeads in the UK.

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org (.)

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-04-11. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

-Allie Brown and Raye Evrard

For the week of 26 March 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Frontiers in Marine Science has published, Fishermen Follow Fine-Scale Physical Ocean Features for Finance. "The seascapes on which many millions of people make their living and secure food have complex and dynamic spatial features—the figurative hills and valleys—that influence where and how people work at sea. Here, we quantify the physical mosaic of the surface ocean by identifying Lagrangian Coherent Structures for a whole seascape—the U.S. California Current Large Marine Ecosystem—and assess their impact on the spatial distribution of fishing. We observe that there is a mixed response: some fisheries track these physical features, and others avoid them. These spatial behaviors map to economic impacts, in particular we find that tuna fishermen can expect to make three times more revenue per trip if fishing occurs on strong Lagrangian Coherent Structures. However, we find no relationship for salmon and pink shrimp fishing trips. These results highlight a connection between the biophysical state of the oceans, the spatial patterns of human activity, and ultimately the economic welfare of coastal communities."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org (.)

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-03-28. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

-Allie Brown and Raye Evrard

P.S. Next week we will have half a table at the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference in Seattle. Come by and find us if you're there! 

For the week of 12 March 2018

Greetings OpenChannels Community Members,

Nature Communications has published, Marine spatial planning makes room for offshore aquaculture in crowded coastal waters. "Marine spatial planning (MSP) seeks to reduce conflicts and environmental impacts, and promote sustainable use of marine ecosystems. Existing MSP approaches have successfully determined how to achieve target levels of ocean area for particular uses while minimizing costs and impacts, but they do not provide a framework that derives analytical solutions in order to co-ordinate siting of multiple uses while balancing the effects of planning on each sector in the system. We develop such a framework for guiding offshore aquaculture (bivalve, finfish, and kelp farming) development in relation to existing sectors and environmental concerns (wild-capture fisheries, viewshed quality, benthic pollution, and disease spread) in California, USA. We identify > 250,000 MSP solutions that generate significant seafood supply and billions of dollars in revenue with minimal impacts (often < 1%) on existing sectors and the environment. We filter solutions to identify candidate locations for high-value, low-impact aquaculture development. Finally, we confirm the expectation of substantial value of our framework over conventional planning focused on maximizing individual objectives."

As always, if we've missed anything, please feel free to let us know. You may simply reply to this message, or you may email Allie directly at abrown [at] openchannels.org (.)

You can read everything (not just the free stuff) we have found this week at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-update/2018-03-14. Additionally, you can browse literature by the week we've added it at https://www.openchannels.org/literature-by-week.

-Allie Brown and Raye Evrard

P.S. OCTO is at the 6IMDC in San Diego this week! Look out for MarineDebris.org totes and MarXiv stickers (if there are any left).