Earth’s oceans are being severely damaged by climate change, pollution, overfishing and other destructive, human-caused shock waves.
To restore the oceans, and prevent their health from deteriorating further, decision makers and knowledge creators around the world must act together, and quickly—hence the theme of this year’s UN World Oceans Day: “Revitalization: collective action for the oceans.”
We asked IOF researchers how their research contributes to collective action for ocean health, what they have found are the biggest roadblocks to collaboration between groups, and how we can overcome these obstacles.
Santiago De la Puente
Santiago De la Puente understands that relationships between different stakeholders in our staggeringly complex global seafood market can be tense.
A PhD candidate in the Global Ocean Modelling Lab at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), De la Puente follows seafood value chains, tracking fish as they travel from the oceans to final consumers. With his modelling work, he aims to assess the socio-economic trade-offs of alternative management actions in favour of making seafood supply chains as economically efficient, socially just, and environmentally sustainable as possible.
One of De la Puente’s current projects has him detailing the value chain of Norwegian snow crab fisheries. Considered an invasive species in Norway, where king crab is preferred, snow crabs are still very popular throughout the world. Warming ocean temperatures, due to climate change, have brought more snow crab to Norway’s shores, while in countries where snow crab demand is high, stocks are plummeting.
“Climate change is affecting the oceans in many ways, and for some countries, like Norway, this presents as an opportunity, particularly for snow crab fisheries,” De la Puente said. “Norwegians have a chance to become important trade partners for the global snow crab market.”
However, if Norway chooses to export snow crab and not sell the crustaceans to its own market, only a small set of companies will benefit, according to De la Puente.
“If Norway builds an internal demand for snow crab, they could get more jobs and potentially get more income from seafood distribution and retail,” he said.
Global fish markets are as complex as the ocean itself, according to De la Puente. Changes in ocean temperature or to a nation’s political climate can create upheaval in markets across the world. The war between Russia and Ukraine, for example, has left Norway’s snow crab fisheries uncertain whether they can distribute to parts of Asia, and to Russia. The tightly interconnected nature of these markets, and the many different stakeholders involved in selling fish, challenges ocean sustainability efforts.
“Most stakeholders will agree that sustainable fisheries are a desired outcome,” De la Puente said. “But every step we take comes at a cost… for some fishers it might be a reduction in expected catch, for politicians it might mean they are less popular.”
In order for fishers, companies, governments, NGOs, and other interested groups to act collectively for the good of Earth’s oceans, a baseline level of trust needs to be established, De la Puente said. “Most stakeholder groups have a history of being at odds with each other.”
Fishers may be reluctant to share information about their fishing practices with other fishers if it could cost them an advantage in the market. Companies may hesitate to work with NGOs if they believe NGOs are seeking to cut industry profits.
“We need a common language,” De la Puente said. “For example, what matters to us as researchers, versus stakeholder groups, is quite different. A common language can help us all decide collectively what we want so we can move forward. The most important thing is that we approach this with humility. If we assume to know what other stakeholder groups want, we will definitely fail.”