Transforming Ocean Governance

Research Symposium

By Evan Andrews

TBTI Canada

On September 13, 2024, over 60 people from academia and the federal government gathered to discuss the role of social sciences and humanities (SSH) in ocean policymaking. The hybrid event was co-hosted by Ocean Frontier Institute Module I ‘Informing Governance Responses in a Changing Ocean’ (OFI I) and Moving Together for Marine Conservation (MTC), and facilitated by TBTI Canada. Together, participants explored the challenges, prospects, and next steps for positioning SSH in the context of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, with a focus on fisheries.

The symposium emphasized SSH for ocean governance, where transformations may be required to advance sustainability and justice. Participants shared challenges and prospects for developing, communicating, and using SSH in policy, decisions, and governance. These spanned individual, institutional, and societal factors, informing next steps for dialogue, research, and collaboration. Both academic and governmental participants saw value and attributed meanings in SSH for varied uses. The symposium identified energy and momentum to continue working together for thoughtful and actionable SSH about decision and policy making contexts. It highlighted areas of common interest and pathways forward for partnership and network building.

The symposium had rich conversations, which drew on diverse examples, perspectives, ideas, that connect us to the aim of transforming ocean governance. Thus, there is clear need to explore how we connect to ways forward for transform ocean governance, and people are keen to explore small-scale fisheries in Canada too. A key outcome of the symposium, then, was the prospect to pursue network and partnership building, and the common ground in transforming governance responses in a changing ocean. These next steps are building on three years of getting to know one another, our capacities, and motivations to collaborate. While laying the groundwork in the Fall, we are aiming to hold a ‘Making Connections’ dialogue in early Spring 2025, to unpack researcher, government, and others’ connections to the transformation goal, and to co-create capacities and for a major contribution to UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

How do you connect to transformation?

An evolving word cloud from academic-government dialogue, starting at the Transforming Ocean Governance Research Symposium

TBTI Canada at the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting

Brennan Lowery

Researchers from the TBTI Canada team recently presented at the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting in Honolulu, Hawai’i. The team consisted of Evan Andrews, Erica Hurley, Brennan Lowery, Maria-Andree Lopez Gomez, Edgar Becerril-Garcia, and Daniela Bernot Simon. They organized a session called “Moving together with small-scale fisheries for conservation”, which aimed to advance a ‘Blue Justice’ perspective emphasizing the need for equitable treatment and inclusion of small-scale fisheries in policy and decision-making about marine conservation. The presenters shared lessons from case studies and examples presented in the session to highlight the importance for conservation efforts to work with small-scale fishers and communities, including key considerations required in the design of institutions like marine protected areas to foster synergies between small-scale fisheries and conservation objectives. Presenters spoke about topics like the Moving Together for Marine Conservation community engagement project, breaking boxes and bridging silos through the Mi’kmaw concept of Msit No’kmaq, and the potential for storytelling to foster new forms of action for marine conservation and climate change.