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Seafood is a globally traded commodity, often involving complex supply chains which have varying degrees of traceability. A robust traceability system for seafood supply chains enables the collection and communication of key information about catch and fisheries origins vital for assurance of the legality and sustainability of seafood products. End-to-end traceability is increasingly demanded by retailers, consumers, NGOs and regulatory bodies to ensure food safety, deter IUU fishing and verify sustainable and ethical credentials. Here, we map three UK seafood supply chains and evaluate traceability performance in: Dover sole landed in the south west of England, North-East Atlantic (NEA) mackerel landed at Peterhead, Scotland, and brown crab and European lobster, landed at Bridlington, England. Through a comparative analysis of traceability performance, this study suggests improvements to the technologies, processes, and systems for traceability in the seafood sector. The application of monitoring technologies and regulatory changes across the sector have increased traceability and potentially reduced instances of IUU fishing. While shorter supply chains are more likely to achieve end-to-end traceability, vulnerable nodes in processing and distribution networks may result in a loss of seafood traceability. While traceability systems may provide sustainability information on seafood, a high level of traceability performance does not necessarily equate to a sustainable source fishery. Encouragingly, while UK seafood supply chains are meeting minimum regulatory requirements for traceability, in the present study, many stakeholders have indicated ambitions towards traceability best practice in order to provide confidence and trust in the UK fishing industry.

The use of marine protected areas can be an effective way to simultaneously achieve both conservation and fisheries management objectives. The creation of marine protected areas, in addition to many benefits, also entails several costs, including the need for financing to maintain adequate surveillance and conservation. The recent economic crisis significantly lowered budgets for the maintenance of Spanish Marine Protected Areas, that may have had serious consequences for the marine resources sustainability. In this study we evaluated the indirect impact of the 2008 economic crisis on the conservation of fish stocks in Marine Protected Areas. We compared the number of species, abundance and biomass levels of the ichthyofauna, and abundance and biomass of selected species in two marine reserves (Cabo de San Antonio and Tabarca Island) with control areas, two years before (2008 and 2010) and two years after (2014 and 2015) the budget cut. Results in San Antonio revealed a decrease in total abundance, total biomass and number of species after the crisis, which translates into a decrease in the reserve effect. While in Tabarca no reduction has been observed in these variables, so the reserve effect was maintained after the crisis. We have found that of the 18 species analyzed, in San Antonio the abundance and biomass of 8 and 6 species respectively have decreased after the crisis, while in Tabarca the abundance and biomass of 6 and 8 species respectively have decreased after the crisis. Therefore, surveillance in marine reserves is necessary for the conservation of the species. This research was funded through the 2013 call for realization of projects of emerging research of the University of Alicante (GRE13-11) and 2014 call for carrying out R&D projects for groups of emerging research of the Generalitat Valenciana (GV/2015/117). E. Arcas was supported by FPU Grant of the University of Alicante (UAFPU2019B-07).

The Spanish turbot aquaculture sector, the largest in Europe, presents a downward trend in the number of companies that compose it, being especially affected the small companies. The reasons behind this process are mainly due to the incompleteness of its institutional framework. The lack of effective regulation, the insecurity of property rights, the lack of consensus among agents competing for coastal use and the unequal allocation of public resources through subsidies have resulted in a process of concentration that has consolidated the dominance of large companies. As a result of this process, in 2021, the sector is composed of only four companies: two small companies and two large companies. The objective of this article is to provide a valuation framework where the real options methodology is applied to one of the small companies in the market to determine its abandonment possibilities. The results obtained show that the abandon option achieves a significant value, constituting a valid option for decision-makers. Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A-2018/341 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B2018/095 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C2018/48 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431E2018/07 Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RTI2018-099225-B-I00

Everyone agrees that the oceans should be used in a sustainable way, but there is no agreement on what this means, and this critically important concept has been devalued to the extent that it is typically a generic term for “greenness”. Problems include the lack of clear criteria for ecological sustainability, and that the definitions used for fisheries and other ecosystem components differ. The defining feature of “sustainability” as a concept is that it includes judgements about the future, as well as the present. Sustainable use can be assessed based on whether uses have impacts which would constrain future generations by preventing recovery of the environment, to a pre-use state, in a societally acceptable timescale. We present a practical approach to the assessment of ecological sustainability, based on its original roots in intergenerational equity, and which use the same criteria for all uses of the oceans.

Abstract Blue carbon produced by marine ranching has tremendous economic and ecological value. A sound blue carbon trading mechanism, a fair market environment, and an effective supervision framework will help to transform and upgrade the marine economy through blue carbon trading. The present study develops a three-party evolutionary game model, that consists of the government supervisory agency, the blue carbon trading platform, and the news media, to analyse the evolutionary equilibrium conditions and each party’s evolutionarily stable strategy. It also performs numerical simulations on the evolution strategies. The study results demonstrate: (1) More strict supervision from the government will prevent the platform from engaging in opportunistic behaviours, and ensure fairness in blue carbon trading. (2) The news media’s participation as a watchdog can play a role in restraining the platform’s non-compliance behaviours, but a free-rider issue may also arise, which leads to an absence of supervision. (3) Consumers’ recognition of marine ranching products and the proportion of blue carbon produced by marine ranching that is available for trading will indirectly affect the platform’s course of action. Lastly, the paper makes policy recommendations for the development of a well-functioning blue carbon trading mechanism, a fair market environment, and an effective supervision framework.

Abstract Various vulnerability assessment studies have revealed the effect of climate change and related extreme weather events on the small-scale fisheries households of coastal regions. However, hardly any study assesses the economic vulnerability of the poorest coastal households to extreme climatic events. The present study attempts to fill this gap by examining the economic vulnerability of deprived coastal households through a vulnerability assessment framework developed based on the IPCC approved strategy. A gender dimension is also brought to this study by assessing the households based on the household headship. A total of 120 male headed households and 30 female headed households from two coastal taluks of Thrissur district in Kerala, the Southwestern state of India, was selected for analysis. Female headed households emerged to be the most vulnerable group in all the three aspects considered – exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The study put forward suggestions to reduce the risks and improve the economic characteristics of poorest sections of the coastal households through women empowerment and policy intervention.