Inequality is one of the key major social challenges of our time, with far-reaching implications for human well-being. If rising inequality is not properly monitored and addressed, it can lead to various political, economic, and social catastrophes. At the same time, our oceans - which produce vital food that directly supports the livelihood of about 500 million people, millions of jobs and economic activities, and provide opportunities to shape the cultures and identities of nearly 3 billion people - face unprecedented cumulative pressures from human activities and climate change due to the industrialization of the seas. Although some researchers have explored ocean equity approaches, incorporating ecological and social sciences is fundamental to induce transformative changes towards ocean equity, but is currently lacking. With a new narrative to heal the oceans and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development set to begin in 2021, an interdisciplinary approach that tackles ocean equity - here defined as the way marine resources are distributed and the distribution of rights and capacity for participation in decision-making, is critical to unlock current barriers for inequality research.
We welcome manuscripts that address the following sub-topics by:
• Exploring why and how inequality changes across space and time
• Disentangling inequalities in the most vulnerable groups (women, indigenous communities, and migrants) in small-scale and industrial fisheries
• Addressing asymmetric social power relationships, concentration of capital assets and ownership of fishing rights
• Explain why perceptions about impacts of inequality differ among individuals and collective groups in the context of different fisheries management systems (e.g. Individual Transferable Quotas, ITQs; Territorial Users Resource Fishing Rights, TURFs, MPAs, etc.)
• Understanding the role of human adaptive behavior and social processes to deal with inequality impacts across communities
• Developing transformative changes (including practices, values, regulations and social norms) towards ocean equity
• Views of the oceans from the land: linking terrestrial and coastal ecosystem communities
Inequality is one of the key major social challenges of our time, with far-reaching implications for human well-being. If rising inequality is not properly monitored and addressed, it can lead to various political, economic, and social catastrophes. At the same time, our oceans - which produce vital food that directly supports the livelihood of about 500 million people, millions of jobs and economic activities, and provide opportunities to shape the cultures and identities of nearly 3 billion people - face unprecedented cumulative pressures from human activities and climate change due to the industrialization of the seas. Although some researchers have explored ocean equity approaches, incorporating ecological and social sciences is fundamental to induce transformative changes towards ocean equity, but is currently lacking. With a new narrative to heal the oceans and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development set to begin in 2021, an interdisciplinary approach that tackles ocean equity - here defined as the way marine resources are distributed and the distribution of rights and capacity for participation in decision-making, is critical to unlock current barriers for inequality research.
We welcome manuscripts that address the following sub-topics by:
• Exploring why and how inequality changes across space and time
• Disentangling inequalities in the most vulnerable groups (women, indigenous communities, and migrants) in small-scale and industrial fisheries
• Addressing asymmetric social power relationships, concentration of capital assets and ownership of fishing rights
• Explain why perceptions about impacts of inequality differ among individuals and collective groups in the context of different fisheries management systems (e.g. Individual Transferable Quotas, ITQs; Territorial Users Resource Fishing Rights, TURFs, MPAs, etc.)
• Understanding the role of human adaptive behavior and social processes to deal with inequality impacts across communities
• Developing transformative changes (including practices, values, regulations and social norms) towards ocean equity
• Views of the oceans from the land: linking terrestrial and coastal ecosystem communities