Sharing the Benefits of Sustainable Fisheries: From Global to Local Legal Approaches to Marine Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (Science – Policy Analysis)

Abstract

This science-policy working paper aims at investigating the connections and misalignments between scientific approaches and evidence related to sustainable fisheries, including marine habitat protection, and policy debates, management approaches and scholarship in the context of ecosystem services. Within this broader context, the current analysis will first explore the science and policy of marine ecosystems and the “ecosystem approach”, then relate this to the scholarship and policy on “ecosystem services”, followed by connections with the literature on poverty alleviation.

Keywords: ecosystem services, ecosystem approach to fisheries, ecosystem approach, poverty alleviation, marine biodiversity, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UN Fish Stocks Agreement