Sebastian Villasante

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

Nature Ocean Sustainability

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...

Small-scale fisheries are important for livelihoods, food security, jobs and income worldwide. However, they face major challenges, including the increasing effects of climate change that pose serious risks to coastal ecosystems and fishing communities. Although scientific research on climate change impacts has increased in recent years, few studie...

The oceans are by far the largest carbon sink and are estimated to have absorbed roughly 40 percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions since the beginning of the industrial era. The climate services performed by the oceans can be described as an interaction between a physical and a biological carbon pump. Whereas the role of the physical car...

Seagrass ecosystems support human well-being by delivering a wide range of ecosystem services. Particularly important is the significant role they play in food provisioning by supporting fisheries worldwide. Despite their socio-economic importance, it is only recently when they have been considered as important social-ecological systems worldwide....

The establishment of Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) in EU Member States aims at increasing employment and territorial cohesion in coastal and inland fisheries-dependent communities through local initiatives funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). The locally-defined priorities relevant for small-scale fisheries range from...

International objectives for sustainable development and biodiversity conservation require restoring fish populations to healthy levels and reducing fishing impacts on marine ecosystems. At the same time, governments, retailers, and consumers are increasingly motivated to reduce the carbon footprint of food. These concerns are reflected in measures...

The social recognition of the services delivered by ecosystems takes advantage from knowledge on the historical narratives of their uses and benefits and may facilitate the societal transition towards a more conservation-based perception of natural systems. Historical analysis of ecosystem services have been barely addressed, possibly because of th...

El objetivo específico de este informe consiste en realizar una evaluación de carácter preliminar que recoja las principales percepciones de los actores de la industria pesquera (pesca artesanal, industrial, marisqueo, acuicultura e industria de la conservación), científicos, expertos de ONGs y representantes de la administración gallega, acerca de...

Local shrimp productivity and economic infrastructure may vary among small fisheries communities, which can lead to unequal conditions for fishers. As a result, shrimp landing’s domestic market value can be different and decentralized in space and time. The Small Scale Fisheries (SSF) have several characteristics, including the spatial and temporal...

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) are critical to food systems and livelihoods. However, the relation between fisheries resilience, outcomes of proximate and distal drivers and the potential space for transformative changes have been largely unexplored. Such knowledge is key to understanding how fishery resources, institutions and actors respond to, and...

Harmful fisheries subsidies have historically contributed to fleet overcapacity and continue to be allocated to the fishing industry to artificially maintain its profitability. However, in this contribution we show that removing harmful subsidies and reducing overfishing will help to recover the resource biomass, subsequently leading to increased l...

The global trade in cephalopods is a multi-billion dollar business involving the fishing and production of more than ten commercially valuable species. It also contributes, in whole or in part, to the subsistence and economic livelihoods of thousands of coastal communities around the world. The importance of cephalopods as a major cultural, social,...

High-risk industrial pollution is one of the most harmful events threatening natural ecosystems. Water pollution abatement strategies (WPAS)-ranging from mitigation to adaptation strategies-are key to deal with these threats. While WPAS have to be adequately valued and assessed, environmental-economic (EE) reasoning-resorting mainly to three analyt...

Español: El Catálogo Transformador de la Pesca Artesanal consta de una colección de relatos que entrelazan experiencias vivenciales y una prosa narrativa para conocer de primera mano el quién, el cómo y el por qué detrás de cada semilla de cambio en la pesca artesanal de Uruguay. El propósito del Catálogo es difundir los esfuerzos que se están real...

Spearfishing is practiced by a small fraction of younger recreational fishers and has received considerably less scientific attention than angling. This knowledge gap may negatively affect the ability for developing sustainable marine recreational fisheries. We address this through a global systematic review of the literature pertaining to marine s...

In 2019, the EU fishing fleet numbered 73 983 vessels with a combined gross tonnage of 1.33 million tonnes and engine power of 5.3 million kilowatts. Based on data submitted by Member States under the EU MAP, there were 57 236 active vessels in 2019 offering direct employment to 129 540 fishers, corresponding to 92 298 FTEs; on average earning EUR...

WTO must ban harmful fisheries subsidies (with also 296 co-authors)

This work is the result of an international research effort to determine the main impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on marine recreational fishing. Changes were assessed on (1) access to fishing, derived from lockdowns and other mobility restrictions; (2) ecosystems, because of alterations in fishing intensity and human presence; (3) the blue econom...

Esta actividad pretende divulgar el conocimiento científico mediante la creación de espacios dinámicos para la reflexión sobre la biodiversidad y la conservación de los ecosistemas marinos, con el fin de alcanzar una mayor comprensión del valor que representan estos ecosistemas de la Red Natura 2000 Rías Baixas, en general, y del Parque Nacional de...

The Working Group on Resilience and Marine Ecosystem Services (WGRMES) aims to improve scientific understanding and capacity to design data collection networks and methodologies in order to analyze the ecological, economic, social, and institutional dimensions of marine ecosystem services. The group progressed work in relation to five objectives:...

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...

This paper aims to develop a rapid assessment of the COVID-19 impact on the Galician (NW Spain) seafood sector, one of the most important maritime regions in the world. Here, we focus not only on the immediate COVID-19 impacts on the extractive fisheries sector, but also on the capacity of the aquaculture and the canned industries to supply seafood...

The Galician small-scale fisheries sector has been experiencing important changes. The presence of a wide range of ecological, economic, social and institutional drivers have forced the statu quo towards new transitions with the potential to generate desirable transformative changes. Sustainability transformations mean that changes fundamentally al...

El Grupo de Trabajo en Pesca Marítima Recreativa (GT PMR) es una red de ámbito nacional financiada por la Fundación Biodiversidad, del Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico a través del Programa Pleamar, cofinanciado por el Fondo Europeo Marítimo y de Pesca (FEMP). El GT PMR está coordinado por la Universidad de Santiago de...

The policy studies literature is divided on how information processing takes place in policy processes. Punctuated equilibrium theory claims that policy-makers tend to process information disproportionately, giving more weight to some incoming signals than to others. By contrast, thermostatic models of policy-making argue that policy-makers respond...

The global cephalopod trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry that involves shing and captive breeding of a dozen species of high commercial value. It also contributes wholly or partly to the income and subsistence of thousands of families around the world. Despite its broad ecological, social, and economic importance, limited research has been co...

Consumers today demand healthier and more sustainable seafood products that are tasty and convenient. Plant-based foods have been particularly sought for and the development of novel products in this category is expanding. Halophytes are emerging as a new category of marine vegetables with distinct organoleptic characteristics (e.g. salty) and func...

El propósito de este informe consiste en calcular los diferentes tipos de impactos medioambientales asociados a la pesca profesional desarrollada en los Espacios Naturales Protegidos (ENP) del Parque Natural Cabo de Gata-Níjar (Almería, Andalucía) y la Reserva Marina de Interés Pesquero de Os Miñarzos (Lira, Galicia). Esto, con el fin último de:...

Marine litter produces an extensive variety of negative environmental, economic, safety and health effects, including impacts on maritime cultural heritage. The economic impact of marine litter is highly relevant and manifests itself in numerous ways. The negative effects of marine litter on the marine environment and on people who directly or indi...

The fishing industry is one of the most impacted economic sectors by marine litter. However, the sector is also part of the problem since it has been estimated that over 45% of plastic debris found in the ocean are related to Abandoned, Lost or otherwise Discarded Fishing Gears (ALDFG) by the fisheries industry. ALDFG are a significant component of...

Carbon cycling in the mangrove ecosystem is one of the important processes determining the potential of coastal vegetation (mangroves), sediment, and adjoining waters to carbon absorption. This paper investigates the carbon storage capacity of five dominant mangrove species (Avicenia marina, Avicenia officinalis, Excoecaria agallocha, Rhizophora mu...

Abstract: Carbon cycling in the mangrove ecosystem is one of the important processes determining the potential of coastal vegetation (mangroves), sediment, and adjoining waters to carbon absorption. This paper investigates the carbon storage capacity of five dominant mangrove species (Avicenia marina, Avicenia officinalis, Excoecaria agallocha, Rhi...

Abstract: Carbon cycling in the mangrove ecosystem is one of the important processes determining the potential of coastal vegetation (mangroves), sediment, and adjoining waters to carbon absorption. This paper investigates the carbon storage capacity of five dominant mangrove species (Avicenia marina, Avicenia officinalis, Excoecaria agallocha, Rhi...

Carbon cycling in the mangrove ecosystem is one of the important processes determining the potential of coastal vegetation (mangroves), sediment, and adjoining waters to carbon absorption. This paper investigates the carbon storage capacity of five dominant mangrove species (Avicenia marina, Avicenia officinalis, Excoecaria agallocha, Rhizophora mu...