Insights for sustainable small-scale fisheries

This chapter addresses whether and how the ecosystem services framework and methodological tools can contribute to poverty alleviation research in the context of small-scale fisheries. In doing so, it explores, in particular, how the ESPA literature and knowledge base have contributed to a broader understanding of ecosystem services flows and trade-offs in fisheries management at appropriate scales for alleviating poverty in its multiple dimensions, and in enhancing human wellbeing. For the purposes of this analysis, the ecosystem services framework is contextualised in light of broader legal and policy instruments, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, which has paid considerable attention to this framework as a means to achieve an ecosystem approach, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Gaps in understanding the flows of marine and coastal ecosystem services at different scales can constrain the development of integrated management regimes with fair and equitable outcomes. However, advances in methodologies described in this chapter, including for predicting impacts of climate change on ecosystem services of greatest relevance to the most vulnerable communities, and for negotiating trade-offs, can assist managers, law- and policy-makers to identify more integrated, equitable and fair interventions that can result in poverty alleviation in its multiple dimensions.