Hybridizing research and decision-making: a path toward sustainability in marine spaces

Abstract

Projecting the combined effect of management options and the evolving climate is necessary to inform shared sustainable futures for marine activities and biodiversity. However, engaging multi-sectoral stakeholders in biodiversity-use scenarios analysis remains a challenge. Using a marine social-ecological case study, we coupled co-designed visioning narratives at the horizon 2050 with an ecosystem-based model. Our analysis revealed a mismatch between the stated vision endpoints at 2050 and the model predictions narrative objectives. However, the discussions that arose from the approach opened the way for previously unidentified transformative pathways. Hybridizing research and decision-making with iterative collaborative modelling frameworks can enhance adaptive management policies, levering paths toward sustainability.

Low human interest for the most at-risk reef fishes worldwide

“…The result is that human attention is incredibly biased on a very small swathe of species across the Tree of Life, a trend that is clear among the scientific community as well as the broader public (12)(13)(14)(15)(16). A marked bias in conservation support and actions toward particular taxa (17)(18)(19) is more worrying given that public awareness could be a key factor in our willingness to engage in collective conservation actions (20,21); scientific knowledge is essential to our ability to build effective conservation strategies (22). These biases of perception on the intrinsic value of species, regardless of their contributions to people, both in the scientific community and the broader public, result in biases in how ecosystems are valued and prioritized for conservation.…”