Consistency in conservation: Marine protected areas (MPAs) are now well established globally as tools for conservation, for enhancing marine biodiversity, and for promoting sustainable fisheries. That said, which regions are labeled as MPAs varies substantially, from those that full protect marine species and prohibit human extraction to those that permit everything from intensive fishing to mining. This inconsistency can in some cases inhibit both conservation and quantifying the proportion of the marine environment that is truly protected. Grorud-Colvert et al . review the consistency of MPAs and propose a framework by which levels of protection can be evaluated and improved. —SNV

Marine spatial planning (MSP) seeks to reduce conflicts and environmental impacts, and promote sustainable use of marine ecosystems. Existing MSP approaches have successfully determined how to achieve target levels of ocean area for particular uses while minimizing costs and impacts, but they do not provide a framework that derives analytical solutions in order to co-ordinate siting of multiple uses while balancing the effects of planning on each sector in the system. We develop such a framework for guiding offshore aquaculture (bivalve, finfish, and kelp farming) development in relation to existing sectors and environmental concerns (wild-capture fisheries, viewshed quality, benthic pollution, and disease spread) in California, USA. We identify > 250,000 MSP solutions that generate significant seafood supply and billions of dollars in revenue with minimal impacts (often < 1%) on existing sectors and the environment. We filter solutions to identify candidate locations for high-value, low-impact aquaculture development. Finally, we confirm the expectation of substantial value of our framework over conventional planning focused on maximizing individual objectives.

Coastal and marine ecosystems characterized by foundation species, such as seagrass beds, coral reefs, salt marshes, oyster reefs, and mangrove forests, are rich in biodiversity and support a range of ecosystem services including coastal protection, food provisioning, water filtration, carbon sequestration, recreational opportunities, cultural value, among others. These ecosystems have experienced degradation and a net loss of total area in regions around the world due to a host of anthropogenic stressors, resulting in declines in the associated ecosystem services they provide. Because of the extensive degradation in many locations, increasing attention has turned to ecosystem restoration of these marine habitats. Restoration techniques for marine and coastal ecosystems are generally more expensive when compared to terrestrial ecosystems, highlighting the importance of carefully selecting locations that will provide the largest return on investment, not only for the probability and magnitude of restoration success, but also for ecosystem service outcomes. However, site selection and spatial planning for marine ecosystem restoration receive relatively little attention in the scientific literature, suggesting a need to better study how spatial planning tools could be incorporated into restoration practice. To the degree that site selection has been formally evaluated in the literature, the criteria have tended to focus more on environmental conditions beneficial for the restored habitat, and less on ecosystem service outcomes once the habitat is restored, which may vary considerably from site to site, or with more complex landscape dynamics and spatial patterns of connectivity. Here we (1) review recent (2015–2019) scientific peer-reviewed literature for several marine ecosystems (seagrass beds, salt marshes, and mangrove forests) to investigate how commonly site selection or spatial planning principles are applied or investigated in scholarly research about marine ecosystem restoration at different spatial scales, (2) provide a conceptual overview of the rationale for applying spatial planning principles to marine ecosystem restoration, and (3) highlight promising analytical approaches from the marine spatial planning and conservation planning literatures that could help improve restoration outcomes. We argue that strategic site selection and spatial planning for marine ecosystem restoration, particularly applied at larger spatial scales and accounting for ecosystem service outcomes, can help support more effective restoration.

The United States had a $14 billion seafood trade deficit in 2016, importing more than 2.5 million tons of edible fishery products, 90% of the value of the seafood Americans eat (1). Half of those seafood imports are from aquaculture (2). Meanwhile, demand in the United States for local, fresh, and sustainably produced seafood is growing, and the absence of sufficient local supply to meet this demand clearly represents a lost opportunity for sustainability and economic growth. Expanded domestic seafood production in the United States could promote significant economic development and job creation. Yet, wild-fishery production has only a relatively modest potential for sustainable growth. Aquaculture, therefore, represents the only realistic option for expanding domestic production (3). With sufficient spatial planning, a significant expansion of offshore aquaculture in the United States—using, for example, underwater cage technologies such as this one off the coast of Hawaii—would boost not only the supply of sustainable fish but jobs as well. Image courtesy of Rick Decker (photographer). Indeed, the vast expanses of favorable growing areas with suitable depths, current speeds, temperatures, and access to ports give the United States some of the highest offshore aquaculture production potential in the world (4). And yet, despite huge potential benefits in terms of a reduced trade deficit, local job and revenue creation, and a domestic source of safe and sustainable seafood, marine aquaculture production in the United States lags far behind many other countries worldwide. This failure to realize offshore aquaculture potential is partially attributable to reasonable concerns over environmental impacts and the lack of a streamlined, objective, and predictable policy framework for offshore aquaculture permitting and regulation. The key to addressing both is scientifically informed, proactive spatial planning that identifies optimal locations for sustainable aquaculture development. This type of spatial planning could minimize negative environmental, … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: slester{at}fsu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Climate change is already producing ecological, social, and economic impacts on fisheries, and these effects are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude in the future. Fisheries governance and regulations can alter socio-ecological resilience to climate change impacts via harvest control rules and incentives driving fisher behavior, yet there are no syntheses or conceptual frameworks for examining how institutions and their regulatory approaches can alter fisheries resilience to climate change. We identify nine key climate resilience criteria for fisheries socio-ecological systems (SES), defining resilience as the ability of the coupled system of interacting social and ecological components (i.e., the SES) to absorb change while avoiding transformation into a different undesirable state. We then evaluate the capacity of four fisheries regulatory systems that vary in their degree of property rights, including open access, limited entry, and two types of rights-based management, to increase or inhibit resilience. Our exploratory assessment of evidence in the literature suggests that these regulatory regimes vary widely in their ability to promote resilient fisheries, with rights-based approaches appearing to offer more resilience benefits in many cases, but detailed characteristics of the regulatory instruments are fundamental.