Global changes in marine systems: A social–ecological approach

This paper presents the case for the adoption of a social–ecological approach to marine systems, which recognises the interdependence of biophysical and human social components. It discusses the management and governance challenges that arise when biophysical marine systems and fishing-dependent human communities, considered as interdependent marine social–ecological systems, are stressed by global changes. Drivers of change in marine biophysical systems include processes such as climate variability and change, human processes such as fishing, habitat degradation, and contaminants, and their interactions. Fishing makes marine populations, marine communities, and ecosystems more sensitive to climate forcing. Human communities’ responses to marine ecosystem variability can ameliorate or exacerbate these changes. Drivers of change in fishing-dependent human communities include environmental and resource changes, human social changes relating to demographics, health issues, and shifting societal values, and their interactions at local and global scales. This multi-faceted interdependence means that fisheries management needs to develop approaches which maintain the capacities of both fish and fishing communities, acting as interactive social–ecological systems, to adapt to the impacts of globalization and environmental change. In general, a less-heavily fished marine system managed on an ecosystem basis is likely to provide more stable catches under normal conditions than would a heavily fished system. However, under climate change the whole ecosystem may alter in ways that cannot yet be predicted. Issues of scale are crucial, and fisheries governance needs a concerted effort to contrast and compare multiple local management ‘experiments’, since the exposure, susceptibility, and adaptive capacities of biophysical and human social marine systems varies immensely. These ‘experiments’ should be conducted in developed and developing nations so as to understand the range of policy issues which support marine social–ecological systems in an era of global change.