Rashid Sumaila

University of British Columbia | UBC · IOF

The development of informal science learning programs is a key strategy for supplementing traditional training for early career researchers (ECR). Within the marine sector, there has been a proliferation of international summer schools (a form of informal science learning program) to support ECRs to develop the networks, skills, and attributes need...

Aquaculture-producing countries should prioritize transparent reporting of the subsidies they provide to the sector.

Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss will require government policies to reverse environmental destruction and align economic activity with sustainability goals. Subsidy-based policies feature prominently in current national and international policy discussions about ways to address these challenges. Given this, now is a critical moment to...

Many seafood products marketed as “sustainable” are not. More exacting sustainability standards are needed to respond to a fast-changing world and support United Nations SDGs. Future fisheries must operate on principles that minimise impacts on marine life, adapt to climate change and allow regeneration of depleted biodiversity, while supporting an...

Cephalopods are growing in commercial importance due to their unique biological characteristics; however, uncertainty about the pressure facing cephalopod fisheries poses a challenge to the health of fisheries and to policy development. Therefore, identifying and quantifying the dynamics of the sustainability of global cephalopod fisheries becomes...

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) aims to halt global biodiversity loss. However, its implementation process will need strategic financing particularly to address the divide between the Global North and Global South. Highly migratory marine vertebrates (henceforth marine megafauna) connect distant ecosystems providing ecosyst...

The effects of climate change on marine ecosystems are causing cascading impacts on livelihood, food security, and culture through fisheries. Such impacts interact and exacerbate the effects of overfishing on marine social‐ecological systems, complicating the rebuilding of ecosystems to achieve desirable and sustainable ocean futures. Developing ef...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a critical tool for safeguarding marine species and habitats for the future, though the effects of projected climate change raise concerns about their long-term success. Assessing the degree to which MPAs may be exposed to future novel climatic conditions is, therefore, crucial for informing conservation and manage...

Aquaculture has the potential to support a sustainable and equitable food system in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on food security, climate change, and biodiversity (FCB). Biological diversity amongst aquaculture organisms can drive diverse contributions to such goals. Existing studies have assessed the performanc...

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) play an important role in food systems, the environment, culture, the livelihoods of millions of people and sustainable development as a whole. They frequently operate on common resources and carry out their activity in a collective, traditional and more sustainable way than other forms of fishing. Moreover, many SSF com...

Radical and quick transformations towards sustainability will be fundamental to achieving a more sustainable future. However, deliberate interventions to reconfigure systems will result in winners and losers, with the potential for greater or lesser equity and justice outcomes. Positive tipping points (PTPs) have been proposed as interventions in c...

Climate change is causing persistent, widespread, and significant impacts on marine ecosystems which are predicted to interact and intensify. Overfishing and associated habitat degradation have put many fish populations and marine ecosystems at risk and is making the ocean more vulnerable to climate change and less capable of buffering against its...

Eradicating poverty and harmful fisheries subsidies are two pressing challenges frequently addressed in international agendas for sustainable development. Here we investigate a potential solution for addressing both challenges simultaneously by asking the hypothetical question: to what extent can harmful fisheries subsidies provided by a country fi...

Canada’s marine environments are undergoing largescale changes defi ned by shift s and trends in their mean physical or chemical states over decadal time scales or large spatial scales (ocean basin–wide). Th ese changes aff ect biological communities and human societies through impacts on marine ecosystems, subsistence practices, especially those o...

Recently, there has been a rapid increase in the use of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) worldwide, partly due to the continued loss of marine biodiversity and habitat. The sustainability of marine resources is threatened in all regions of the world by major events such as climate change, marine pollution, and overfishing, as well as illegal, unreport...

Blue food systems are crucial for meeting global social and environmental goals. Both small-scale marine fisheries (SSFs) and aquaculture contribute to these goals, with SSFs supporting hundreds of millions of people and aquaculture currently expanding in the marine environment. Here we examine the interactions between SSFs and aquaculture, and the...

A new food system indicator framework and monitoring architecture is presented to track food system transformation towards global development, health and sustainability goals. Five themes are considered: (1) diets, nutrition and health; (2) environment, natural resources and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty and equity; (4) governance; and (5) r...

Harmful, capacity-enhancing subsidies distort fishing activities and lead to overfishing and perverse outcomes for food security and conservation. We investigated the provision and spatial distribution of fisheries subsidies in the Indian Ocean. Total fisheries subsidies in the Indian Ocean, estimated at USD 3.2 billion in 2018, were mostly harmful...

There has been a rapid increase in the use of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) throughout the world recently, partly due to the continued loss of marine biodiversity and habitat. The sustainability of marine resources is threatened in all regions of the world by major events such as climate change, marine pollution, overfishing, illegal, unreported an...

In the Global South, small-scale fisheries may be highly influenced by taboos and traditional beliefs that are believed to maintain fishing pressure within sustainable limits, maintain ecosystem balance and mitigate risks associated with work at sea. However, despite their potentially significant role in mediating human-resource interactions, limit...

Technological advances over the past century have greatly reduced the proportion of human labour required to produce the world’s food. On land, these advances have continually increased yields, feeding a growing human population even as the number of farmers has fallen. It has long been recognized that technological advances do not necessarily incr...

Fuel forms a significant portion of the total expenditure for many commercial fishing vessels and in some cases, profitability can be dictated by fuel costs. In many nations, including the UK, these fuel costs are reduced by cost-reducing subsidies. There is evidence of growing support from various channels that public opinion is moving towards a r...

Climate change poses a major challenge for global marine ecosystems and species, leading to a wide range of biological and social-ecological impacts. Fisheries are among the well-known sectors influenced by multiple effects of climate change, with associated impacts highly variable among species and regions. To successfully manage fisheries, scient...

Background Ocean-related options (OROs) to mitigate and adapt to climate change are receiving increasing attention from practitioners, decision-makers, and researchers. In order to guide future ORO development and implementation, a catalogue of scientific evidence addressing outcomes related to different ORO types is critical. However, until now, s...

Radical and quick transformations towards sustainability have winners and losers, with equity and justice embedded to a greater or a lesser extent. According to research, only the wealthiest 1–4 % of the global population will radically need to change their consumption, behaviours, societal values and beliefs in order to make space for an equitable...

Global aquatic or ‘blue’ foods, essential to over 3.2 billion people, face challenges of maintaining supply in a changing environment while adhering to safety and sustainability standards. Despite the growing concerns over their environmental impacts, limited attention has been paid to how blue food production is influenced by anthropogenic environ...

Oxygen is crucial for the survival of marine species. Yet, the ocean has experienced a loss of approximately 2% of its oxygen inventory since the last century, resulting in adverse impacts on marine life and ecosystems. In particular, changes in the gap between the supply and demand for dissolved oxygen lead to physiological and ecological variatio...

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are globally underfunded. We present a five-step framework that can help practitioners prioritize actions that may improve financial sustainability, which was applied to six MPAs in Colombia, Bonaire, and Belize. Limited funds were found to directly undermine effectiveness towards conservation goals for five sites, wit...

Harmful fisheries subsidies contribute to overfishing leading to environmental and societal impacts. If only fisheries and ecosystems within the subsidising nations' jurisdiction were affected, then unilateral actions might be sufficient to help safeguard our ocean and the people reliant upon it. However, just as fish move between jurisdictions, so...

Background Animal movement data are regularly used to infer foraging behaviour and relationships to environmental characteristics, often to help identify critical habitat. To characterize foraging, movement models make a set of assumptions rooted in theory, for example, time spent foraging in an area increases with higher prey density. Methods We...

Transforming food systems is essential to bring about a healthier, equitable, sustainable, and resilient future, including achieving global development and sustainability goals. To date, no comprehensive framework exists to track food systems transformation and their contributions to global goals. In 2021, the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiat...

Representing about 8% of the world’s oceans, marine protected areas (MPAs) are effective instruments for mitigating the damage that overfishing can do to ecological and economic systems. Yet, less than 2% of the ocean is proclaimed an exclusive no-take zone. Expecting their number and size to increase significantly in the coming years, meticulous i...

Accounts of fishing conflicts have been rising globally, particularly between small-scale and industrial vessels. These conflicts involve verbal or physical altercations, and may include destruction of boats, assault, kidnapping, and murder. Current scholarship around industrial/small-scale fishing conflicts theorizes them as a form of resource con...

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...

Mariculture development has contributed to improving global food and nutrition security. This commentary reviews the importance of blue growth and the potential for aquaculture to fill the nutritional gap left by wild fisheries. On this basis, Chinese mariculture development was analyzed, focusing on five representative large-scale aquaculture prac...

The Blue Economy (BE) has captured the attention of diverse interests to the ocean and there is rising concern about making it more equitable and inclusive. As it currently stands, diversity, social equity, and inclusion considerations have not been foregrounded in the discourse surrounding the BE and are continuously overlooked and undervalued. Th...

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...

One of the greatest threats to the conservation of transboundary stocks is the failure of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) to equitably allocate future fishing opportunities. Across RFMOs, catch history remains the principal criterion for catch allocations, despite being recognized as a critical barrier to governance stability. T...

Background: Animal movement data are regularly used to infer foraging behaviour and relationships to environmental characteristics, often to help identify critical habitat. To characterize foraging, movement models make a set of assumptions rooted in theory, for example, time spent foraging in an area increases with higher prey density. Methods: We...

The recent rapid growth in aquaculture production reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization may have inadvertently generated what we denote here as aquaculture over-optimism. An extreme form of this is the notion that we need not worry about sustaining wild fish stocks because we can meet the global need through farming. Here...

Climate change and fishing present dual threats

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...

Ocean warming and deoxygenation are already modifying the habitats of many aerobic organisms. Benthic habitat in the Northeast Pacific is sensitive to deoxygenation, as low oxygen concentrations occur naturally in continental shelf bottom waters. Here, we examine the potential impacts of deoxygenation and ocean warming on the habitat distribution o...

In 2017, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries signed a second warning letter to humanity to caution against our continued wholesale destruction of global ecosystems (Ripple et al., 2017). Here, we reaffirm their message with a similar warning specifically focused on the ocean: humanity must immediately and significantly alter our harmful...

Rebuilding overexploited marine populations is an important step to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 14-Life Below Water. Mitigating major human pressures is required to achieve rebuilding goals. Climate change is one such key pressure, impacting fish and invertebrate populations by changing their biomass and biogeography. H...

The magnitude of subsidies provided to the fishing sector by governments worldwide is immense—an estimated $35.4 billion USD per year. The majority of these subsidies may be impeding efforts to sustainably manage fisheries by incentivizing overfishing and overcapacity. Recognizing the threat these subsidies pose, the World Trade Organization has se...

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...

Arctic ecosystems are at risk to climate impacts, challenging existing conservation measures such as protected areas. This study aims to describe the ecological dynamics of the Canadian Beaufort Sea Shelf (BSS) ecosystem and the Tarium Niryutait Marine Protected Area (TNMPA) under historical changes in sea surface temperature and sea ice extent. Us...

Previous studies have shown that multiple-environmental stressors are expected to have significant and geographically differential impacts on the health and abundance of marine species. In this paper, we analyze the combined impacts of ocean warming, overfishing and mercury pollution in European waters by projecting the impacts of climatic and non-...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the fisheries and aquaculture sector, and public policies are needed to mitigate it. Nevertheless, the lack of information makes it challenging to generate an adequate response. It is relevant to study the sector's response to past shocks to generate the elements to react to present and future shocks. We present a...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) require sustained funding to provide sustained marine protection. Up until now government budgets, multi- and bi-lateral aid, and philanthropic grants have been commonly relied upon to finance the management and enforcement of MPAs. But new funding mechanisms, such as impact investments or blue carbon, are increasingly...

Climate change is shifting the distribution of shared fish stocks between neighboring countries' Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and the high seas. The timescale of these transboundary shifts determines how climate change will affect international fisheries governance. Here, we explore this timescale by coupling a large ensemble simulation of an Ea...

The ocean, which regulates climate and supports vital ecosystem services, is crucial to our Earth system and livelihoods. Yet, it is threatened by anthropogenic pressures and climate change. A healthy ocean that supports a sustainable ocean economy requires adequate financing vehicles that generate, invest, align, and account for financial capital...

In September 2018, a group of 14 Heads of States and Governments from all regions of the world came together to create the High Level Panel (HLP) for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (SOE). The HLP is co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Norway and the President of Palau. Simply put, the HLP seeks to ensure a SOE worldwide. In February 2021, the #Virtual...

Food systems that support healthy diets in sustainable, resilient, just, and equitable ways can engender progress in eradicating poverty and malnutrition; protecting human rights; and restoring natural resources. Food system activities have contributed to great gains for humanity but have also led to significant challenges, including hunger, poor d...

Extreme temperature events have occurred in all ocean basins in the past two decades with detrimental impacts on marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and services. However, global impacts of temperature extremes on fish stocks, fisheries, and dependent people have not been quantified. Using an integrated climate-biodiversity-fisheries-economic...

Harmful fisheries subsidies contribute to overfishing leading to environmental and societal impacts1. If only fisheries within the subsidising nations’ jurisdiction were affected, then unilateral actions might be sufficient to help safeguard our ocean and the people reliant upon it. However, just as fish move between jurisdictions2, so too do the s...

p>The original version of this Article contained errors in the author affiliations. The affiliation of Malin Jonell and Beatrice Crona with Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden was inadvertently omitted. The affiliation of Malin Jonell with Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Scienc...

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...

Numerous studies have focused on the need to expand production of ‘blue foods’, defined as aquatic foods captured or cultivated in marine and freshwater systems, to meet rising population- and income-driven demand. Here we analyze the roles of economic, demographic, and geographic factors and preferences in shaping blue food demand, using secondary...

Alternative food networks (AFNs) for seafood employ different approaches along their diverse value chains, yet typically share five common attributes – supporting small-scale and place-based fishing operations through the provision of traceable, sustainable, and high-quality seafood products to customers. While a range of benefits from AFNs have be...