Gender equality is a ubiquitous national goal, yet sectoral gender data gaps to support this goal persist. These gaps are both structural and sexist, concealing women’s contributions and impeding actions that would strengthen livelihoods and economic development, food security, and environmental sustainability. The small-scale fisheries sector offers a cogent example of this phenomenon. Building on lessons from the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative, we identify systemic changes and specific indicators needed to fill these gaps. This requires multiple data streams, many of which come from outside fisheries agencies, e.g., government statistical or census organizations, sourced from responsible agencies across multiple areas—economy and environment, governance and support services, and health and nutrition. Closing gender data gaps requires making the policy case and working across agencies to create an enabling institutional environment. Only then can data reflect and respond to the lives of the ~ 500 million people who depend on small-scale fisheries.

To effectively manage and protect ocean life and the people who depend on it, we need coordinated, comparable observations of ocean biodiversity. Seagrass cover and composition is an essential ocean variable (EOV) of the Global Ocean Observing System because seagrasses are the foundation of coastal ecosystems worldwide, and support diverse marine life and ecosystem services. We present guidelines for collecting and reporting seagrass data that fulfill specifications for the EOV, including three priority measurements to maximize compatibility among data sets: seagrass cover, species composition, and areal extent, with priority environmental variables for interpreting changes in status and condition. To promote interoperability, we present a standard format for seagrass EOV data and metadata. These guidelines will enable better monitoring and assessment of seagrass ecosystems, facilitate syntheses, inform the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework headline indicator “Extent of natural ecosystems,” and support evidence-based conservation and sustainable development.

Human interactions with the environment are critical for ecological integrity and long-term sustainability. Within this context, men’s roles are particularly significant in relation to the ocean, as they have historically dominated maritime activities including fisheries, trade, construction, travel, and seafaring. Achieving equitable fisheries management thus requires a more systematic understanding of how gender constructs shape practices in specific settings. Yet, the dynamics of men and masculinities remain insufficiently theorized, underscoring the need for more robust analytical frameworks. This viewpoint article argues that engaging directly with masculinities is essential for improving fisheries management and advancing ocean sustainability. The analysis builds on Hultman’s (2017) and Hultman and Pulé’s (2018) typology of industrial/breadwinner, ecomodern, and ecological masculinities, and explores this framework to small-scale fisheries on Unguja Island (Zanzibar), Tanzania. The findings indicate that masculinities in Zanzibar are closely associated with the fishing gear employed. Two distinct forms were identified. “Soft masculinity”, linked to basket-traps and handlines, is characterized by ecological knowledge, strong historical continuity, legality, slower modes of practice, and sustainability. In contrast, “hard masculinity”, associated with drag nets and spearfishing, reflects limited ecological knowledge, shallow historical roots, illegality, rapid extraction, and unsustainability. Taken together, these findings reveal how fishing gear and constructions of masculinity are deeply interconnected, and how these interrelations in turn shape ecological outcomes in the marine environment. The viewpoint therefore contributes a practical model for continued inquiry into masculinities—one that encourages the adoption of more inclusive and ecologically grounded ways of engaging with the ocean.

Livelihood initiatives are common within marine protected areas (MPAs) aiming for poverty alleviation or higher income opportunities. However, results can be mixed in reality, as well as change over time. Furthermore, who benefits is a key consideration, as results can vary based on inequalities, including gender. Here, the monetary outcomes of different livelihood strategies were investigated across three MPA regions in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Using a quantitative approach, the results show that livelihoods have shifted in a six-year period, with livelihood strategies differing in poverty incidence and income. Livelihood initiatives, namely seaweed farming and tourism, did not provide significantly higher monetary returns compared to long-standing livelihoods, such as fisheries. Seaweed farming showed income stability but a high poverty incidence predominantly within women-headed households. During the study period, men primarily remained in fisheries, whilst women shifted to small-scale businesses and fisheries, largely exiting seaweed farming. This underscores a need for adaptive, gender sensitive management within fast changing coastal contexts.

Households within tropical coastal communities face a multitude of stressors related to environmental, social and economic change. To minimise negative impacts on households, a priority is to understand and if possible build adaptive capacity to enable adjustment to both extant, and anticipated stressors. Adaptive capacity may not be equally distributed across households due to social differences and inequalities, including gender. In this study we sought to understand whether the factors underlying adaptive capacity differ between men- and women-headed households across three marine protected areas (MPAs) in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Adaptive capacity was significantly higher in men-headed households compared to women-headed households between different MPAs as a whole, however significant differences were not found for men and women-headed households within the MPAs. The factors underlying adaptive capacity were investigated through boosted regression trees, a relatively novel approach within the field, and found to be similar between men and women counterparts. These factors were agency, material conditions, low ecosystem dependence, education, occupational multiplicity and needs satisfaction (i.e. a poverty indicator) which was singularly important in women-headed households. While the factors themselves were similar in men and women–headed households, gendered differences were found regarding differing levels in the identified factors. Accordingly, the processes that underly the differences found should be addressed within initiatives seeking to understand and build adaptive capacity.

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) are crucial for food security and poverty alleviation. Many SSF are however under pressure, and in need of better management paying special attention to the key seascape ecosystems which are supporting them. This study investigates the importance of seagrass beds for SSF households and their food security in southwestern Madagascar. The specific aims of this study were to: i) analyze if and how seagrassassociated fish contributes to subsistence and/or the economy of local fishing households, ii) identify and compare seagrass ecosystem goods and services valued by local fishers in a rural and an urban setting, and iii) analyze links between local people and seagrasses in terms of local ecological knowledge, use and traditions. The results showed that seagrasses were the most important fishing habitats for most fishers. Seagrass-associated fish species were both the economically most important and most commonly fished species, and are a major source of protein in the region. Further, seagrass-derived sea urchins are important complements to local people's diets. The findings illustrate that seagrasses contribute both through subsistence and income generation to food security and wellbeing of coastal people in southwestern Madagascar. This highlights the need to consider seagrass ecosystems in management towards sustainable SSF and their ability to sustain food security for future generations.

The UN Decade of Ocean Science (UNDOS) aims to: Generate knowledge, support innovation, and develop solutions for equitable and sustainable development of the ocean economy under changing environmental, social and climate conditions. Changing conditions affect certain groups more than others, depending on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Gendered differentiation has been studied in small scale coastal fisheries. However, this approach is often limited to male-female gender dichotomies. In contrast, the present analysis takes a more expansive approach centered around the concept of intersectionality, to demonstrate more nuanced differences in terms of individuals' access to resources for adaptation. We build on multiple Earth System Governance contextual conditions and research lenses to demonstrate that an intersectional approach allows greater understanding of gendered adaptation options impacted by various other factors. This must include investigations beyond the traditional gender binary, which we have sought to achieve in this study by using broader local and individualistic context to observe different communities. We compare gender intersectionality in case studies from India and Tanzania. The evidence demonstrates that intersectional factors vary, impacting adaptiveness to changing Anthropocene conditions, depending upon cross-cutting context-specific systems of hierarchy and discrimination. However, despite variation, we demonstrate there are common factors to be investigated across all locations when identifying possible intersectional impacts of ocean policy interventions, particularly wealth, marriage and family roles, and social networks.

Conserving biodiversity with a growing human population is a key sustainability challenge. Consequently, a vast number of development initiatives across the globe have been designed to combine social, economic, and environmental perspectives. For the most part, the development community is well acquainted with the negative experiences and unintended consequences that some projects have or may bring. However, in tropical coastal ecosystems, this aspect is not completely acknowledged, studied, or understood. Here, we use tropical seagrass meadows as a model social-ecological system to investigate how sustainable development initiatives result in unintended consequences with both positive and negative outcomes for environment and society. We analyze the initiatives and their effects in terms of a typology encompassing ???flow???, ???addition???, and ???deletion??? effects and investigate them across four types of sustainable development initiatives that occur within tropical coastal environments: (1) megafauna conservation, (2) alternative livelihood programs, (3) mosquito net malaria prophylaxis, and (4) marine protected areas. Using these four initiatives as examples, we show that sustainable development initiatives can produce unintended effects with major consequences. Further, we illustrate how not assessing such effects may ultimately undermine the initial goals of the sustainable development intervention. Our study suggests that acknowledging unintended effects and transitioning them so that they become sustainable is more effective than ignoring effects or viewing them as trade-offs. We strongly stress the need for an a priori process in which positive effects, negative effects, and potential uncertainties and surprises are considered when planning the development intervention, and we argue for greater social-ecological monitoring of initiatives. As such, this contribution links to contemporary approaches dealing with the sustainability of natural resources and social-ecological systems and bridges with the importance of development initiatives in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.