Social indicators, both mature and emerging, are underused

Citizen science programs monitoring ecosystems and natural resources are promoted for their potential to foster environmental awareness and stewardship. We surveyed volunteers in natural resource monitoring programs to determine whether they perceived changes in their environmental attitudes and decision‐making. The majority of participants perceived changes in their attitude toward the resource being monitored, but not in their decision‐making toward the resource they monitored or toward the environment more broadly. While the resources volunteers monitored in this study were diverse, program volunteers themselves were not. Participants were largely white, older, affluent, well‐educated, held strong preexisting environmental attitudes, and were involved in other conservation, research, or management efforts. While engaging this narrow range of self‐selected volunteers has the potential to reinforce existing pro‐environmental attitudes through strengthening social networks, citizen science programs can increase their potential to promote attitude and behavioral change by making a concerted effort to engage a more diverse “citizenry.”

Comanagement of natural resources is a well-established approach to the management of common-pool resources such as small-scale fisheries, operating in multiple contexts and settings for over two decades. These programs are expected to be adaptable and promote social and ecological benefits, such as sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity goals. As programs mature, it is important to consider how some core principles of comanagement have manifested in practice, as well as whether they deliver on these promised benefits. Drawing from the conservation, small-scale fisheries, and fisheries management literature, this paper examines three fundamental principles of fisheries comanagement: participation, equity, and power. The conceptualization, definitions, and measures of each theme are presented, with discussion of the current gaps in the literature. We also demonstrate the deep interrelationships between these key dimensions of comanagement, and the need for greater attention to their combined influence on comanagement outcomes and processes. While the literature offers foundational ideas for incorporating these themes into fisheries comanagement practice, tethering these concepts to clear, but context-specific goals and practices is essential for improving social outcomes. We find that key goals of fisheries comanagement could be impeded by the lack of depth in addressing these themes in practice, and suggest the need for greater critical attention to their expressions in comanagement processes.