Ocean & Coastal Management

Small islands provide an opportunity to influence the debate on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) towards sustainability, due to their specific natural and human features. The research goal was to understand how sustainability might be advanced through SEA in small islands, supported by the development of a conceptual framework and recommendations for its implementation. The framework developed provides for the identification of clusters of concepts linking SEA with sustainability in small islands, identified as being key actors, island cooperation and information exchange networks, and small islands SEA-specific issues. These clusters of concepts are interlinked through the actors in a continuous loop of learning and improvement process. The implementation of the framework is recommended based on different key factors, which derived from the conceptual framework: awareness for decision-makers; empowerment and ownership of practitioners and intermediate decision-makers; small islands cooperation and exchange networks; SEA specific issues for small islands; and, small islands specific stakeholders' engagement (local knowledge). The application of the framework developed was conceptualized for the Azores and Orkney archipelagos due to their well-established SEA systems, with similar legal background – the European Union SEA Directive (Directive 2001/42/EC). In the Azores, the SEA system may promote an easier transition towards new models of thinking, but more challenges are expected for Orkney practitioners and decision supporters which may need to use creative solutions to overcome them. Overall, this research concludes that a mind-set changing capacity is needed, enhancing future practice and influencing different stakeholders for the need of specific small islands approaches. The proposed framework should be adopted as a dynamic tool and adjusted iteratively with practice.

Sustainable production of fish and seafood products contributes to achieving the economic, social, and environmental goals in fisheries. Different sustainability strategies are applied to achieve these three goals. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the status and implementation of various sustainable fishery management strategies in the Philippines over the past 20 years. We identified various management themes and the extent these themes are related to economic, social and environmental sustainability goals using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) and text mining. Six sustainability management themes were identified. The analysis shows that overall, the sustainability management themes appear to be socio-economic in nature based on the relative occurrences of indicators belonging to the three sustainability goals. When comparing the strength of the three sustainability goals in each management theme, the social goal appears to be most prominent in four management themes, the economic goal in one theme, and a balance of the three sustainability goals in another theme. Furthermore, this study shows which fishery management themes are most (dis-)similar based on clustering. Policy makers and other fishery management bodies can use these insights to optimize the sustainability goals in fisheries by not only relying on a single management theme in each fishery, by improving focus on large scale fishers, by incorporating underexplored sustainability indicators, and by adapting current trends and proven-to-be effective management themes. This systematic review article focuses on the adaptation strategies of Asian fishermen toward climate change impacts. Generally, the fact that climate change is not a new phenomenon has attracted scholars to conduct numerous relevant studies. Unfortunately, most past researches were not from the perspectives of social science of the Asian's community. Hence, the present study reviewed a considerable amount of past studies on the act of adjusting with environmental change among the Asian fishermen which is known as one of the communities that are highly dependent on nature stability. Meanwhile, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) was adopted for the review of the current research which utilised two main journal databases, namely Scopus and Web of Science. Accordingly, the searching efforts resulted in a total of 18 articles that can be analysed systematically. Most importantly, the review managed to formulate five main themes, namely livelihood diversification, social, physical infrastructure, awareness-knowledge-experience, and conservation and enforcement based on the thematic analyses. Overall, further analysis of the five themes resulted in the establishment of a total of 21 sub-themes. Finally, a number of recommendations were presented at the end of this research for the reference of future scholars. In recent years, a considerable amount of studies published locally which focused on the influence of age on climate change ability. Accordingly, this has driven the present study to achieve its main objective which is to compare the adaptation ability between youth and older fishermen. The current research is quantitative in nature; hence, a survey was conducted on a total of 259 youth and older fishermen residing in different states of Malaysia, namely Pulau Pinang, Terengganu, Johor, and Kedah. The present study managed to conclude a unique and important result which stated that youth and older fishermen within the context of Malaysia have an equally strong adaptation ability. In regard to this matter, a number of recommendations were presented at the end of this paper with the hope that it can act as a basis for future scholars to conduct more climate change related studies.

The sustainability in the marine and coastal environment was conceptualized significantly since the Earth Summit in 1992 where Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) was proposed as one of the solutions that can support the decision makers to work together and provide decisive actions for the better coastal management. A right balance between the socio-economic growth and the environmental protection is the most important goal in the coastal management. In order to achieve the goal, a framework-based strategy, financial planning and policy enforcement must be implemented in the coastal management. Indonesia as one of the archipelagic states has adopted this concept within two Indonesian cooperation laws which were intended to enable the Indonesian government to manage the coastal areas more responsibly and accountably in the aim for the improved environment for future generations. Since the endorsement of those laws, however, the implementation has been lagging and the Indonesia government's focus is rather on the land-based development despite the consequence of the negligence in the coastal management. This is evident in the impact on the coastal environment that is caused by rapid and ill-planned developments in Indonesian coastal regions. As a result, Indonesia already lost four islands associated with Seribu Islands by 1999. It proves that Seribu Islands lack in the policy enforcement and were unnoticed by both the central government and the local government. This paper aims to assess the ecological vulnerability with a focus on coral reefs in Seribu Islands using Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing technologies. From the study results, it can be summarized that the urban pressures and pollutants from four main rivers in Jakarta Bay and Banten Province played a significant role in the environmental degradation. Most of the islands associated with Seribu Islands are at risk, if the urban development continues. The vulnerability analysis of Seribu Islands can assist the decision makers to prepare pivotal actions in order to adapt the changes and develop essential recovery programs for the region.