•SES scholarship under-theorizes the distinct implications of slow and fast drivers.•This study investigates the social impacts of a rapid-onset sea cucumber fishery.•We present a novel framework for ...conceptualizing impacts on social systems.•The fishery has driven dramatic changes in social system structure, functions and feedbacks.•Such rapid change has implications for community vulnerability and adaptive capacity.
Research on vulnerability and adaptation in social-ecological systems (SES) has largely centered on climate change and associated biophysical stressors. Key implications of this are twofold. First, there has been limited engagement with the impacts of social drivers of change on communities and linked SES. Second, the focus on climate effects often assumes slower drivers of change and fails to differentiate the implications of change occurring at different timescales. This has resulted in a body of SES scholarship that is under-theorized in terms of how communities experience and respond to fast versus slow change. Yet, social and economic processes at global scales increasingly emerge as ‘shocks’ for local systems, driving rapid and often surprising forms of change distinct from and yet interacting with the impacts of slow, ongoing ‘trends’. This research seeks to understand the nature and impacts of social shocks as opposed to or in concert with trends through the lens of a qualitative case study of a coastal community in Mexico, where demand from international seafood markets has spurred rapid development of a sea cucumber fishery. Specifically, we examined what different social-ecological changes are being experienced by the community, how the impacts of the sea cucumber fishery are distinct from and interacting with slower ongoing trends and how these processes are affecting system vulnerability, adaptations and adaptive capacity. We begin by proposing a novel framework for conceptualizing impacts on social systems, as comprised of structures, functions, and feedbacks. Our results illustrate how the rapid-onset of this fishery has driven dramatic changes in the community. New challenges such as the ‘gold-rush-style’ arrival of new actors, money, and livelihoods, the rapid over-exploitation of fish stocks, and increases in poaching and armed violence have emerged, exacerbating pressures from ongoing trends in immigration, overfishing and tourism development. We argue that there is a need to better understand and differentiate the social and ecological implications of shocks, which present novel challenges for the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of communities and the sustainability of marine ecosystems.
The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a telescope array that observes the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over 75% of the sky from the Atacama Desert, Chile, at frequency bands ...centered near 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz. CLASS measures the large angular scale (1° θ 90°) CMB polarization to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio at the r ∼ 0.01 level and the optical depth to last scattering to the sample variance limit. This paper presents the optical characterization of the 40 GHz telescope during its first observation era, from 2016 September to 2018 February. High signal-to-noise observations of the Moon establish the pointing and beam calibration. The telescope boresight pointing variation is <0 023 (<1.6% of the beam's full width at half maximum (FWHM)). We estimate beam parameters per detector and in aggregate, as in the CMB survey maps. The aggregate beam has an FWHM of 1 579 0 001 and a solid angle of 838 6 sr, consistent with physical optics simulations. The corresponding beam window function has a sub-percent error per multipole at < 200. An extended 90° beam map reveals no significant far sidelobes. The observed Moon polarization shows that the instrument polarization angles are consistent with the optical model and that the temperature-to-polarization leakage fraction is <10−4 (95% C.L.). We find that the Moon-based results are consistent with measurements of M42, RCW 38, and Tau A from CLASS's CMB survey data. In particular, Tau A measurements establish degree-level precision for instrument polarization angles.
Authorship should acknowledge and reward those deserving of such credit. Moreover, being an author on a paper also means that one assumes ownership of the content.
Journals are increasingly requiring ...author roles to be specified at time of submission using schemes such as the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT) system, which relies on 14 different roles. Yet, there are many other aspects of research that are not adequately captured by the list of roles, particularly in applied environmental disciplines such as conservation science, environmental science and applied ecology.
The growing recognition that authorship should reflect contributions that extend beyond the usual data collection, analysis and writing provides the ideal backdrop for rethinking contributions in conservation science. Here we propose a more inclusive approach to authorship that recognizes and values diverse contributions and contributors using an expanded list of CRediT roles.
Determining who is deserving of authorship is challenging. That is particularly salient in conservation science where contributions are diverse and may extend beyond data collection, analysis or writing. This image illustrates the interconnectedness of contributors and the challenges with determining who has earned authorship.
In this paper, we explore the power of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization (E-mode) data to corroborate four potential anomalies in CMB temperature data: the lack of large ...angular-scale correlations, the alignment of the quadrupole and octupole (Q–O), the point-parity asymmetry, and the hemispherical power asymmetry. We use CMB simulations with noise representative of three experiments—the Planck satellite, the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), and the LiteBIRD satellite—to test how current and future data constrain the anomalies. We find the correlation coefficients ρ between temperature and E-mode estimators to be less than 0.1, except for the point-parity asymmetry (ρ = 0.17 for cosmic-variance-limited simulations), confirming that E-modes provide a check on the anomalies that is largely independent of temperature data. Compared to Planck component-separated CMB data (smica), the putative LiteBIRD survey would reduce errors on E-mode anomaly estimators by factors of ∼3 for hemispherical power asymmetry and point-parity asymmetry, and by ∼26 for lack of large-scale correlation. The improvement in Q–O alignment is not obvious due to large cosmic variance, but we found the ability to pin down the estimator value will be improved by a factor ≳100. Improvements with CLASS are intermediate to these.
Inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis of the root causes of overfishing can lead to misguided and ineffective fisheries policies and programmes. The “Malthusian overfishing narrative” suggests that ...overfishing is driven by too many fishers chasing too few fish and that fishing effort grows proportionately to human population growth, requiring policy interventions that reduce fisher access, the number of fishers, or the human population. By neglecting other drivers of overfishing that may be more directly related to fishing pressure and provide more tangible policy levers for achieving fisheries sustainability, Malthusian overfishing relegates blame to regions of the world with high population growth rates, while consumers, corporations and political systems responsible for these other mediating drivers remain unexamined. While social–ecological systems literature has provided alternatives to the Malthusian paradigm, its focus on institutions and organized social units often fails to address fundamental issues of power and politics that have inhibited the design and implementation of effective fisheries policy. Here, we apply a political ecology lens to unpack Malthusian overfishing and, relying upon insights derived from the social sciences, reconstruct the narrative incorporating four exemplar mediating drivers: technology and innovation, resource demand and distribution, marginalization and equity, and governance and management. We argue that a more nuanced understanding of such factors will lead to effective and equitable fisheries policies and programmes, by identifying a suite of policy levers designed to address the root causes of overfishing in diverse contexts.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) socio-ecological effectiveness depends on a number of management and governance elements, among which stakeholder engagement and community support play key roles. ...Collaborative conservation initiatives that engage stakeholders in action research and knowledge co-production processes can enhance management and governance of MPAs. To design effective strategies aimed at reconciling biodiversity conservation and management of sustainable human uses, it is key to assess how local communities respond to such initiatives and identify the set of contextual factors, institutional, local and individual, potentially affecting these responses. This paper presents the approach and results of one such initiative, spanning 6 EU countries and 11 MPAs in the Mediterranean Sea, focusing on small-scale fishers as key MPA users. Through a collaborative project, managers and fishers agreed upon specific governance interventions (e.g. increasing stakeholder engagement, engaging fishers in monitoring activities, reducing fishing efforts) to be implemented in each MPA for one year. Structured surveys queried: MPA managers on the MPA context, governance structure, feasibility and effectiveness of the tested interventions; and small-scale fishers on their perceptions of the impact of the tested interventions on a set of 9 socio-ecological variables (e.g. amount of fish caught, level of participation in decision-making, support for the MPA). Results revealed that the interventions tested were relatively feasible, effective and cost-effective. Fishers reported positive perceptions of the interventions for the 9 variables considered, especially for level of support for the MPA and for those associated with aspects of governance. Proportional odds models highlighted perceived effects are maximized under certain institutional, local and individual circumstances (e.g. old MPAs, small fisher communities, and fishers with a high proportion of income from fisheries). Findings highlight that employing good governance processes involving stakeholders may rapidly generate improved local support for conservation and provide insights for potential leverage points upon which to act to maximize perceived effectiveness and enhance support toward MPAs.
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•We present a collaborative conservation initiative spanning 11 MPAs in 6 countries.•We administered structured surveys to MPA managers and small-scale fishers.•Interventions tested were relatively feasible, effective and cost-effective.•Small scale fishers reported positive perceptions of the interventions.•Perceived effects maximized in certain institutional, local, individual conditions.
Recently, oceans have become the focus of substantial global attention and diverse appeals for “transformation.” Calls to transform ocean governance are motivated by various objectives, including the ...need to secure the rights of marginalized coastal communities, to boost ocean-based economic development, and to reverse global biodiversity loss. This paper examines the politics of ocean governance transformations through an analysis of three ongoing cases: the FAO’s voluntary guidelines for small-scale fisheries; debt-for-“blue”-nature swaps in the Seychelles; and the United Nations’ negotiations for a high seas’ treaty. We find that transformations are not inevitable or apolitical. Rather, changes are driven by an array of actors with different objectives and varying degrees of power. Objectives are articulated and negotiated through interactions that
may
reassemble rights, access, and control; however, there is also the potential that existing conditions become further entrenched rather than transformed at all. In particular, our analysis suggests that: (1) efforts to transform are situated in contested, historical landscapes that bias the trajectory of transformation, (2) power dynamics shape whose agendas and narratives drive transformational change, and (3) transformations create uneven distributions of costs and benefits that can facilitate or stall progress toward intended goals. As competing interests over ocean spaces continue to grow in the coming decades, understanding the processes through which ocean governance transformations can occur—and making the politics of transformative change more explicit—will be critical for realizing equitable ocean governance.
•The emergence of export markets for high-value fisheries tends to lead to collapse.•We examine three case studies of resistance to the high-value seafood trade.•Despite short-term financial ...incentives, fishing communities rejected export markets.•Communities asserted Indigenous values and governance in the face of capitalist incursion.•Communities recommonized their fisheries and prevented collapse.
The emergence of export markets for high-value seafood products tends to produce a predictable pattern of serial depletion of resources and social disruption in coastal communities, a phenomenon described as ‘the tragedy of the commodity’. The sea cucumber trade epitomizes these challenges, with cases of rapid growth followed by fishery collapse documented across the Indo-Pacific and the majority of assessed stocks worldwide overexploited. Is this ‘boom-bust’ sequence inevitable? We examine three cases of resistance to the sea cucumber trade from Palau, Pohnpei, and Yap. Despite the overwhelming short-term financial incentives to export, fishers, youth, elected and traditional leaders, and civil society organizations coordinated to ban the trade at its peak, using public protest, court battles, and customary and statutory law. We show that, like the tragedy of the commons, Indigenous peoples and local communities can organize to resist the tragedy of the commodity. They do so by asserting Indigenous values, rights, and institutions, recommonizing the resource and preventing fisheries collapse. These cases challenge the inevitability of the tragedy of the commodity and the narrative of poor fishers as vulnerable and disempowered.
Abstract
The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) observes the polarized cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the angular scales of 1° ≲
θ
≤ 90° with the aim of characterizing primordial ...gravitational waves and cosmic reionization. We report on the on-sky performance of the CLASS
Q
-band (40 GHz),
W
-band (90 GHz), and dichroic
G
-band (150/220 GHz) receivers that have been operational at the CLASS site in the Atacama desert since 2016 June, 2018 May, and 2019 September, respectively. We show that the noise-equivalent power measured by the detectors matches the expected noise model based on on-sky optical loading and lab-measured detector parameters. Using Moon, Venus, and Jupiter observations, we obtain power to antenna temperature calibrations and optical efficiencies for the telescopes. From the CMB survey data, we compute instantaneous array noise-equivalent-temperature sensitivities of 22, 19, 23, and 71
μ
K
cmb
s
for the 40, 90, 150, and 220 GHz frequency bands, respectively. These noise temperatures refer to white noise amplitudes, which contribute to sky maps at all angular scales. Future papers will assess additional noise sources impacting larger angular scales.
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