Sebastian Villasante

University of Santiago de Compostela | USC · European Research Council Consolidator Grant I IPBES Transformative Changes Assessment

Recreational spearfishing is a fishing method that occurs globally, yet receives considerably less attention in the scientific literature relative to other recreational fishing methods, such as angling. Lack of scientific information on spearfishing may negatively affect the development and management of marine recreational fisheries. We conducted...

Saltmarshes play a key role in global and regional climate change mitigation by providing carbon sequestration and storage. Although highly productive, saltmarshes face increasing pressures from climate-induced sea level rise (SLR), causing further erosion and reducing their capacity to store carbon. We used field sampling, remote sensing, and mode...

TIDES – Transformative Initiatives Driving Equity and Sustainability – are initiatives that are created by, and further motivated, individuals, communities, or societies to take collective action in favour of our oceans and marine resources and for the people to rely on them – now and in the future. TIDES can be projects, associations, networks, o...

Although the Paris Agreement establishes targets to limit global warming -including carbon market mechanisms-, little research has been done on developing operational tools to achieve them. To cover this gap, we use CO2 permit markets towards a market-based solutions (MBS) scheme to implement blue carbon climate targets for global fisheries. The sc...

One of the most relevant information gaps in worldwide fisheries is related to the origin and consequences of the gender gap. Recreational fisheries show a remarkable gender gap, which has been especially poorly addressed in the scientific literature. In 2021, the Spanish Working Group on Marine Recreational Fishing (MRF) developed a broad diagnosi...

Biophysical tipping points pose existential threats to current and future generations, both human and non-human, with those currently underserved being the most vulnerable. Social tipping points, as deliberate interventions into systems with the expectation of non-linear impacts and widespread change, have the potential to address some of these cha...

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...

Coastal ecosystem services (ES) can be significantly altered by marine litter, because of its multiple economic and social impacts at different scales. However, current scientific evidence of the perceived impacts of marine litter in the different ES is still scarce in Galicia (Spain). The aim of this study was to evaluate the main perceived effect...

Seagrass meadows deliver key ecosystem services in coastal environments worldwide, by hosting early and adult life stages of many fish stocks, improving water quality, capturing carbon dioxide (mitigating the effects of global warming), protecting against adverse events and providing leisure opportunities. Shellfishing is often carried out in seag...

Machine learning covers a large set of algorithms that can be trained to identify patterns in data. Thanks to increases in the amounts of data and computing power available, it has become pervasive across scientific disciplines. We first highlight why machine learning is needed in marine ecology. Then we provide a quick primer on machine learning t...

The Working Group on Social and Economic Dimensions of Aquaculture (WGSEDA) addresses how to balance the negative and positive social and economic consequences of aquaculture development. A particular focus is placed on developing methods and indicators to assess the social and economic trade-offs of aquaculture. In this report, WGSEDA summarizes t...

The expansion of neoliberalization of fisheries in developing countries has been largely driven by political economic decisions. Artisanal fisheries and aquaculture have not been exempt from these privatization measures, the implementation of deregulation measures in the fisheries sector, and commoditization strategies oriented mainly to exports. H...

The need to better understand the trade-offs between food production, trade and consumption; social and environmental impacts and health requirements remains a critical challenge. Additionally, there is an urgency to transform the food system to reach the dietary patterns required to address the current diet-environment-health trilemma. Transformat...

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are key management tools that contribute to the conservation of worldwide marine ecosystems, increasing nature's contributions to people derived from ecosystem services. These ecosystem services include key processes such as the release of oxygen, but also leisure opportunities, cultural inspiration, and food and medic...

Anthropogenic pressures put at jeopardy ecosystem services (ES) provided by natural habitats. Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) approaches can support policymakers dealing with physical, chemical, and biological stresses caused by high-risk water pollution (HRWP) and sudden-accidental pollution (SAP). The objective of this study is to evaluate how a...

The Blue Economy is raising optimism worldwide but the human expansion into, and the overcrowding of, the oceans threaten the life that sustains it. Here, we provide recommendations on how to sustain ocean life in the face of such Blue Economy growth.

Protected areas (PAs) are the foremost policy tool for biodiversity conservation internationally. In order for PAs to deliver desired conservation outcomes effectively, equitably, and for the long-term, they require a high level of support from local communities. A mosaic of factors have been proposed aiming to explain the level of support for PAs...

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...

The United Nations (UN) Decade of Ocean Science highlights a need to improve the way in which scientific results effectively inform action and policies regarding the ocean. Our research contributes to achieving this goal by identifying practical actions, barriers, stakeholder contributions and resources required to increase the sustainability of ac...

The COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent public health interventions have depressed demand and disrupted supply chains for many fishing businesses. This paper provides an analysis of the COVID-19 impacts on the profitability of the EU fishing fleets. Nowcasting techniques were used to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic perform...

Achieving food security and biodiversity conservation presents interconnected challenges. Aquatic food systems are important contributors to global food security to satisfy an intensifying demand for protein-based diets, but global economic growth threatens marine systems. Cephalopod (octopus, squid, cuttlefish) fisheries can contribute to food sec...

While the science supporting fisheries management has generally been dominated by the natural sciences, there has been a growing recognition that managing fisheries essentially means managing economic systems. Indeed, over the past seven decades, economic ideas and insights have increasingly come to play a role in fisheries management and policy. A...

La dieta mediterránea es reconocida internacionalmente por mejorar la salud de la población con productos locales, tradicionales, de temporada y principalmente de origen vegetal, como frutas, verduras, legumbres, cereales y aceite de oliva. Esta dieta se ha asociado a menor riesgo de desarrollar enfermedad cardiovascular y factores de riesgo cardi...

WGCEPH worked on six Terms of Reference. These involved reporting on the status of stocks; reviewing advances in stock identification, assessment for fisheries management and for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), including some exploratory stock assessments; reviewing impacts of human activities on cephalopods; developing identificati...

Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history, undermining ecosystem functioning and negatively impacting people’s quality of life. The social-ecological vulnerability framework emerged as a promising tool for identifying those highly vulnerable areas where management interventions need to be prioritized to avoid biodiversity a...

The concept of ecosystem services has become increasingly important in understanding the interactions between humans and nature and the associated implications in terms of human well-being. Despite growing interest in ecosystem services research, knowledge of their ecological underpinnings and their integration with socioeconomic and management com...

Human population (often treated as overpopulation) has long been blamed as the main cause of biodiversity loss. Whilst this simplistic explanation may seem convenient, understanding the accuracy of the statement is crucial to develop effective priorities and targets to manage and reverse ongoing biodiversity loss. If untrue, the assertion may under...

Despite its relevance, the economic contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty alleviation is still poorly understood. This study investigates why some fishers perform economically better in fisheries than others under similar conditions and whether these variations in performance were due to individual adaptive strategies related to fishing...

Revista Galega de Ecoloxía e Medio Ambiente. Resumeo. Son efectivos os espazos protexidos para a conser-vación da biodiversidade e o benestar humano? desenvolvemento sustentábel Vista das Illas Cíes. Os océanos son unha peza esencial nos sistemas que, desde millóns de anos atrás, fixeron posible a vida na Terra. Regulan o clima, achegan auga potab...

The European Union landing obligation (LO) entered fully into force in 2019, with the aim of reducing discards by inducing fishing gear selectivity improvements and fleets’ behaviour changes. However, to date there has been no synthesis review of the economic and social impacts of the LO. To cover this gap, the objective of this paper is to provide...

The boom-and-bust trajectory of the Argopecten purpuratus industry in Chile shows the progression from resource extraction (fishing) to production (aquaculture). This paper analyses the effects of environmental, economic, and scientific-technological factors. The influence of each factor on scallop production in Chile was reviewed for the period be...

7-page summary of the full study covering key findings

This study for Oceana involved a multi-disciplinary team of researchers to determine the global and regional significance of blue shark fisheries. It estimates the global blue shark catch, maps trade in the species, calculates economic values for blue shark and explores the policies and management measures in place. The report finds that there is...

There have been a number of indications of strong negative impacts of Covid-19 and the preventive measures associated with the pandemic for all food sectors. However, there is increasing evidence that the picture is quite nuanced where the Covid related measures are creating challenges for some and opportunities for others. In this paper we investi...

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.

The mapping and assessment of ecosystem services supplied by Atlantic coastal zone biomes provide a highly valuable source of information for understanding their current and potential benefits to society. The main objective of this research is to map and assess the values provided by Provisioning, Regulating & maintenance and Cultural ecosystem ser...

Nature Ocean Sustainability

We evaluated the associations between marine recreational fishing, stress, seafood consumption, and sleep quality in a cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey of a convenience sample of 244 fishers recruited in 2019 in Spain. Fishers’ stress levels were moderate, with a mean stress index score of 36.4 units on a scale from 14 (very low stress) t...

In many parts of the world, the future of small-scale fisheries seems bleak. However, local development initiatives led by fishers and other stakeholders are emerging and consolidating to offer promising new pathways. In this paper, we analyze eleven sustainability initiatives, or seeds of change, with the potential to inspire transformative change...

Small-scale fisheries support the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide, contributing in terms of food supply and nutrition, jobs and income, and cultural and identity values. Despite this relevance, consideration of small-scale fisheries (SSF onwards) is often lacking from international policies, in part due to the lack of available informat...

This study evaluates the costs and benefits on fisheries and aquaculture of three types of spatial protection measures: (i) Fish Stock Recovery Areas (FSRAs), (ii) Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and areas designated as (iii) Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs). The research assesses how far fisheries co-management approaches ca...

Recreational charter boat fisheries provide alternative economic development to traditional commercial fisheries, especially to coastal communities in warm seas. Charter boat fishing has been little studied in temperate regions, and the factors that trigger its development and social contribution to fishing communities are unknown. We performed an...

Marine protected areas provide cultural services including the aesthetic appreciation of the landscape and the performance of recreational activities. In this study, we use the photographs shared by users in a digital repository to describe the distinctive characteristics of two terrestrial-maritime natural parks in Spain. In total, 1,041 photos an...

La pesca marina recreativa es una actividad importante en Europa, con 9 millones de personas que la practican. La Unión Europea (UE) obliga a los Estados miembro a proporcionar datos sobre las capturas de animales acuáticos con fines recreativos a través del Marco de Recopilación de Datos (UE Data Frame Collection) y el Plan Plurianual (UE MAP). En...

Productivity is an important measure in terms of economic performance of commercial fisheries. However, research on productivity of small-scale fisheries has been largely unexplored. To address this research gap, this paper quantifies the productivity and performance of shellfish production for shellfishing on-foot and aquaculture shellfish farms i...

STECF review and advice on 2 ad hoc contracts aimed to quantify fishing activity with mobile bottom-contacting fishing gears that is deployed within marine protected areas, with respect to effort, catches and the first-sale value of the catches.

The non-material aspects of nature are frequently the most socially valued and demanded nature’s contributions to people (NCP). This is because non-material NCP often lay the foundations of key human well-being dimensions such as identities, experiences, and capabilities. Yet, while research on material NCP such as food and water abound, studies of...

Climate change mitigation depends to a large extent on economic sectors modifying their production processes to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO₂. However, greenhouse gas emission assessments are usually excluded from management of capture fisheries. Traditionally, hake (Merluccius ssp.) has been an important foo...

Recent review papers have addressed progress in stock assessment and forecasting for fished cephalopods but there remains a need to develop appropriate management for many European cephalopod fisheries, given that cephalopods are not quota species under the Common Fisheries Policy. Here we briefly review potential barriers to sustainable fishing an...

In past centuries, the impacts on cephalopods from humankind were negligible. The first documented small-scale exploitation of cephalopods occurred in the Mediterranean and Asia. Between 1950-2019, global cephalopod catches increased by about an order of magnitude, from 0.5 million tones to a peak of 4.85 million tons. The human impact on the ocean...