Edward H Allison

University of Washington Seattle | UW · School of Marine and Environmental Affairs

Blue foods, sourced in aquatic environments, are important for the economies, livelihoods, nutritional security and cultures of people in many nations. They are often nutrient rich¹, generate lower emissions and impacts on land and water than many terrestrial meats², and contribute to the health³, wellbeing and livelihoods of many rural communities...

Blue foods play a central role in food and nutrition security for billions of people and are a cornerstone of the livelihoods, economies, and cultures of many coastal and riparian communities. Blue foods are extraordinarily diverse, are often rich in essential micronutrients and fatty acids, and can be produced in ways that are more environmentally...

In a changing climate, there is an imperative to build coupled social-ecological systems—including fisheries—that can withstand or adapt to climate stressors. Although resilience theory identifies system attributes that supposedly confer resilience, these attributes have rarely been clearly defined, mechanistically explained, nor tested and applied...

Injustices are prevalent in food systems, where the accumulation of vast wealth is possible for a few, yet one in ten people remain hungry. Here, for 194 countries we combine aquatic food production, distribution and consumption data with corresponding national policy documents and, drawing on theories of social justice, explore whether barriers to...

The ocean economy has the potential to improve human wellbeing. Yet, in practice, its rapid acceleration is often producing few benefits and substantial social harms for rural and resource dependent coastal communities. We urge a global transformation to a socially sustainable and equitable blue economy that benefits coastal populations.

With a focus on the ocean, we collaborated across social, ecological and legal disciplines to respond to the United Nations call for transformation in the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ by developing a set of 13 principles for transformative ocean governance. These principles can be used to help chart a course of action that responds to...

Nature Ocean Sustainability

Calls to address social equity in ocean governance are expanding. Yet ‘equity’ is seldom clearly defined. Here we present a framework to support contextually-informed assessment of equity in ocean governance. Guiding questions include: (1) Where and (2) Why is equity being examined? (3) Equity for or amongst Whom? (4) What is being distributed? (5)...

In this chapter we discuss the place of fishing communities and fishing livelihoods within the emerging spatial turn in ocean management. It is argued that the place-specific and mobile livelihood strategies of fishing communities – which do not always fit within spatial management logics – have to be considered carefully in ocean management. The c...

Blue foods play a central role in food and nutrition security for billions of people and are a cornerstone of the livelihoods, economies, and cultures of many coastal and riparian communities. Blue foods are extraordinarily diverse, are often rich in essential micronutrients and fatty acids, and can often be produced in ways that are more environme...

Livelihood diversification is increasingly central to policy advice and investments in rural development and fisheries management. For small‐scale fishing communities in low‐ to middle‐income countries, more diverse livelihoods are generally hypothesized to reduce fishing pressure and vulnerabilities to external shocks and adverse trends while enab...

In recent decades, interest in and application of behavioral insights to conservation theory and practice have expanded significantly. Yet the growth of integrated strategies to adapt and guide human behavior in service of conservation outcomes has included limited engagement with questions of equity and power. Here we examine the use of behavioral...

Recent discussions of healthy and sustainable diets encourage increased consumption of plants and decreased consumption of animal-source foods for both human and environmental health. Seafood is often peripheral in these discussions. This paper examines the relative environmental costs of sourcing key nutrients from different kinds of seafood, othe...

The Pacific food system has become progressively more integrated into global food regimes. This integration has had impacts on availability and consumption of food, population health, and vulnerability to external drivers. We describe major elements of the contemporary food system to provide a foundation for analysis of food system transitions and...

Wild-caught fish are a bioavailable source of nutritious food that, if managed strategically , could enhance diet quality for billions of people. However, optimising nutrient production from the sea has not been a priority, hindering development of nutrition-sensitive policies. With fisheries management increasingly effective at rebuilding stocks a...

The contribution of seafood to global food security is being increasingly highlighted in policy. However, the extent to which such claims are supported in the current food security literature is unclear. This review assesses the extent to which seafood is represented in the recent food security literature, both individually and from a food systems...

The sustainable use of fisheries resources is a priority of the African Union in developing the Blue Economy (BE). Growing global demand for seafood has attracted diverse actors to African waters, including Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFNs) fleets. Complex fisheries governance challenges, unsustainable rates of fishing and rising fisheries-rela...

In a changing climate, there is an imperative to build coupled social-ecological systems-including fisheries-that can withstand or adapt to climate stressors. Although resilience theory identifies system attributes that supposedly confer resilience , these attributes have rarely been clearly defined, mechanistically explained, nor tested and applie...

Voluntary (or non-binding) commitments offer an action-oriented mechanism for addressing interconnected, complex and pressing issues. Though not designed to replace negotiated or binding outcomes, voluntary commitments can offer a critical tool in currently ungoverned or under-governed systems. The Blue Economy is an example of a rapidly evolving a...

Despite contributing to healthy diets for billions of people, aquatic foods are often undervalued as a nutritional solution because their diversity is often reduced to the protein and energy value of a single food type (‘seafood’ or ‘fish’)1–4. Here we create a cohesive model that unites terrestrial foods with nearly 3,000 taxa of aquatic foods to...

Decisions about climate change are inherently moral. They require making moral judgements about important values and the desired state of the present and future world. Hence there are potential benefits in explaining climate action by integrating well-established and emerging knowledge on the role of morality in decision-making. Insights from the s...

Aquatic foods from marine and freshwater systems are critical to the nutrition, health, livelihoods, economies and cultures of billions of people worldwide, but climate-related hazards may compromise their ability to provide these benefits. Here, we estimate national-level aquatic food system climate risk using an integrative food systems approach...

Small-scale fisheries and aquaculture (SSFA) provide livelihoods for over 100 million people and sustenance for ~1 billion people, particularly in the Global South. Aquatic foods are distributed through diverse supply chains, with the potential to be highly adaptable to stresses and shocks, but face a growing range of threats and adaptive challenge...

Aquatic foods are rich in micronutrients essential to human health, and fisheries and aquaculture are increasingly recognized for their capacity to contribute to reducing global micronutrient deficiencies and diet-based health risks. Whether fisheries and aquaculture sector and public health nutrition policies align to meet this goal, however, is u...

The relationship between aquatic foods and food nutrition and security is increasingly recognised in policy and practice, yet many governance instruments do not acknowledge or support this important connection. The most effective policy approaches to support the link between these sectors, or ‘best practices’ are currently unknown. We reviewed rele...

Global food system analyses call for an urgent transition to sustainable human diets but how this might be achieved within the current global food regime is poorly explored. Here we examine the factors that have fostered major dietary shifts across eight countries in the past 70 years. Guided by transition and food-regime theories, we draw on data...

In recent decades, scientists and practitioners have increasingly focused on identifying and codifying the best ways to manage activities in marine systems, leading to the development and implementation of concepts such as the social-ecological systems approach, ecosystem-based management, integrated management, marine spatial planning, participato...

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns are creating health and economic crises that threaten food and nutrition security. The seafood sector provides important sources of nutrition and employment, especially in low-income countries, and is highly globalized, allowing shocks to propagate. We studied COVID-19-related disruptions, impacts, and...

Increasing the production of food from the ocean is seen as a pathway toward more sustainable and healthier human diets. Yet this potential is being overshadowed by competing uses of ocean resources in an accelerating “blue economy.” The current emphasis on production growth, rather than equitable distribution of benefits, has created three unexami...

The international development community is off-track from meeting targets for alleviating global malnutrition. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus across scientific disciplines that fish plays a crucial role in food and nutrition security. However, this ‘fish as food’ perspective has yet to translate into policy and development funding priorities...

Populations of river fish are threatened by pressures on land and water resources. Networks of reserves managed by Indigenous people at community level offer a way to conserve fish diversity and enhance yields of nearby fisheries. Networks of reserves boost fish biodiversity in the Salween River basin.

Along the U.S. West Coast, sustainable manage­ment has rebuilt fish stocks, providing an oppor­tunity to supply nutrient-rich food to adjacent coastal communities where food insecurity and diet-based diseases are common. However, the market has not successfully supplied locally sourced seafood to nutritionally vulnerable people. Rather, a few organ...

Human wellbeing relies on the Biosphere, including natural resources provided by ocean ecosystems. As multiple demands and stressors threaten the ocean, transformative change in ocean governance is required to maintain the contributions of the ocean to people. Here we illustrate how transition theory can be applied to ocean governance. We demonstra...

Through a historical lens, this paper illustrates the differing economic, legal, institutional, social and cultural relationships people of varying cultures have with the ocean. Focusing on the institutions that affect access and rights, this paper addresses concerns about the appropriation of marine resources and displacement of indigenous vision...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Tropical fisheries substantially contribute to the well-being of societies in both the tropics and the extratropics, the latter through ‘telecoupling’ — linkages between distant human–natural systems. Tropical marine habitats and fish stocks, however, are vulnerable to the physical and biogeochemical oceanic changes associated with rising greenhous...

Global demand for freshwater and marine foods (i.e., seafood) is rising and an increasing proportion is farmed. Aquaculture encompasses a range of species and cultivation methods, resulting in diverse social, economic, nutritional, and environmental outcomes. As a result, how aquaculture develops will influence human wellbeing and environmental hea...

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns are creating health and economic crises that threaten food and nutrition security. The seafood sector provides important sources of employment and nutrition, especially in low-income countries, and is highly globalized, allowing shocks to propagate internationally. We use a resilience ‘action cycle’ fr...

The 2015 U.S. West Coast domoic acid event was caused by a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) that consisted mostly of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia australis. It was unprecedented in its toxicity and geographic extent and resulted in extended and widespread closures of the lucrative commercial Dungeness crab and popular recreational razor clam fisher...

The ocean is important for everyone—it produces oxygen and food, stores carbon and heat, offers space for economic activities and recreation, and continues to inspire and support culture and well-being. Globally, the value of key ocean assets has been estimated at US$24 trillion and the value of derived services at between $1.5 trillion and $6 tril...

This paper examines the distribution of the goods and services provided by the ocean, existing inequities and the resulting impacts on the environment, human health, and income distribution now and in the future. The paper outlines the tensions and trade-offs, and presents recommendations for addressing some of the underlying and systemic features...

The “blob” of anomalously warm surface water that persisted in the North Pacific Ocean from 2013 to 2016 resulted in a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) of Pseudo-nitzschia along the entire United States West Coast. The bloom produced record-breaking concentrations of domoic acid, a marine neurotoxin, that contaminated seafood and necessitated fish...

Effects of ocean deoxygenation on people remain understudied and inherently challenging to assess. Few studies address the topic and those that do generally include more readily quantified economic losses associated with ocean deoxygenation, exclude non-use and existence value as well as cultural services, and focus on relatively small, bounded sys...

Environmental NGOs are increasingly called upon to respect human rights when undertaking conservation programs. Evaluating a family planning program running alongside marine management measures in Madagascar, we find that family planning services provided by an environmental NGO can support women’s reproductive rights. Family planning services allo...

The term ‘Blue Economy’ is increasingly used in various marine sectors and development frameworks. For it to be a truly useful approach, however, we argue that social benefits and equity must be explicitly prioritized alongside environmental and economic concerns. This integration of social dimensions within the Blue Economy is required to ensure t...

Nutrient content analyses of marine finfish and current fisheries landings show that fish have the potential to substantially contribute to global food and nutrition security by alleviating micronutrient deficiencies in regions where they are prevalent.

With the anticipated boom in the 'blue economy' and associated increases in industrialization across the world's oceans, new and complex risks are being introduced to ocean ecosystems. As a result, conservation and resource management increasingly look to factor in potential interactions among the social, ecological and economic components of these...

Infographic designed by @McCorkStudios for publication: Kelly, R., Mackay, M., Nash, K.L., Cvitanovic, C., Allison, E.H., Armitage, D., Bonn, A., Cooke, S.J., Frusher, S., Fulton, E.A., Halpern, B.S., Lopes, P.F.M., Milner-Gulland, E.J., Peck, M.A., Pecl, G.T., Stephenson, R.L. & Werner, F. (2019) Ten tips for developing interdisciplinary socio-ec...

Interdisciplinary research and collaborations are essential to disentangle complex and wicked global socio-ecological challenges. However, institutional structures and practices to support interdisciplinary research are still developing and a shared understanding on how best to develop effective interdisciplinary researchers (particularly at early...

The vast developmental opportunities offered by the world's coasts and oceans have attracted the attention of governments, private enterprises, philanthropic organizations, and international conservation organizations. High-profile dialogue and policy decisions on the future of the ocean are informed largely by economic and ecological research. Key...

Sustainability standards for seafood mainly address environmental performance criteria and are less concerned with the welfare of fisheries workers who produce the seafood. Yet human rights violations such as slavery and human trafficking are widespread in fisheries around the world, and underscore the need for certification bodies and other seafoo...

Literature search strings. (DOCX)

Many human populations are dependent on marine ecosystems for a range of benefits, but we understand little about where and to what degree people rely on these ecosystem services. We created a new conceptual model to map the degree of human dependence on marine ecosystems based on the magnitude of the benefit, susceptibility of people to a loss of...

Disaster research often focuses on how and why communities are affected by a discrete extreme event. We used the community capitals framework to understand how community characteristics influence their preparedness, response to, and recovery from successive or multiple disasters using the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake and the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Sp...

Seafood is the world's most internationally traded food commodity. Approximately three out of every seven people globally rely on seafood as a primary source of animal protein (1). Revelations about slavery and labor rights abuses in fisheries have sparked outrage and shifted the conversation (2, 3), placing social issues at the forefront of a sect...

The patterns by which different nations share global fisheries influence outcomes for food security, trajectories of economic development, and competition between industrial and small-scale fishing. We report patterns of industrial fishing effort for vessels flagged to higher- and lower-income nations, in marine areas within and beyond national jur...

There has been increasing attention to and investment in local environmental stewardship in conservation and environmental management policies and programs globally. Yet environmental stewardship has not received adequate conceptual attention. Establishing a clear definition and comprehensive analytical framework could strengthen our ability to und...

Because of the complexity and speed of environmental, climatic, and socio-political change in coastal marine social-ecological systems, there is significant academic and applied interest in assessing and fostering the adaptive capacity of coastal communities. Adaptive capacity refers to the latent ability of a system to respond proactively and posi...

There has been increasing attention to and investment in local environmental stewardship in conservation and environmental management policies and programs globally. Yet environmental stewardship has not received adequate conceptual attention. Establishing a clear definition and comprehensive analytical framework could strengthen our ability to und...

To minimize the impacts of climate change on human wellbeing, governments, development agencies, and civil society organizations have made substantial investments in improving people’s capacity to adapt to change. Yet to date, these investments have tended to focus on a very narrow understanding of adaptive capacity. Here, we propose an approach to...

Fisheries and aquaculture policies are not currently designed to focus on food security and nutrition but the fisheries sector makes significant contributions, both directly to nutritious diets in the form of bioavailable micronutrients and indirectly to support livelihoods, economic growth, and trade. This chapter outlines a four-step process to i...