Project description
Understanding inequality in society from ocean stressors
According to the United Nations, inequality is a defining challenge of the 21st century that impacts the well-being of people around the world. The oceans play an important part in this as they provide food, jobs, and space for recreation, amongst other vital things. With a focus on ocean equity, the EU-funded EQUALSEA project will shed light on how certain ocean stressors, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, affect marine protected areas and coastal communities and the impact of this on society. The project's work will analyse how transformative changes can be fostered to deal with ocean inequalities, and advance research in this field.
Objective
Inequality is one of the key major social challenges of our time, with far-reaching ramifications for human well-being. Our oceans, which produce vital food, enable jobs and economic activities, and provide opportunities to shape cultures and identities of people, face unprecedented cumulative pressures from human activities and climate change due to industrialization of the seas. Although some researchers have explored ocean equity, significant gaps remain. Firstly, interdisciplinary approaches combining ecological and social sciences are fundamental to induce transformative changes towards ocean equality, but lacking. Secondly, there is a clear lack of data on different inequalities at seas for both small-scale and commercial fisheries. Thirdly, more than 4.3 billion people globally rely on fish as their major source of protein, but social, cultural and health factors which explain oceans inequalities remain largely unknown. Consequently, there is an urgent need for an interdisciplinary approach that addresses asymmetric social power relationships and concentration of capital assets and ownership of fishing rights focused on the most vulnerable groups. EQUALSEA will (a) develop a new transformative adaptation framework for ocean inequality, (b) identify multiple critical drivers which induce social tipping points dynamics and transformative changes across space and time, and (c) contribute to monitor progress towards ocean equity for local communities and top international organizations. To do this, I will combine modelling and simulation techniques and cross-case comparison to develop a typology of different inequalities tested in 20 MPAs and implemented for 3 in-depth case studies across Africa, Europe and Latin America. Together, the ontological framework and integration of modelling methods will significantly advance research on ocean inequality, developing the necessary tools to deliver sustainable impacts towards achieving equity for economies and societies.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantHost institution
15782 Santiago De Compostela
Spain