Coastal communities are on the frontlines of three accelerating global change drivers, climate change, blue growth, and the expansion of area-based conservation, leading to a “triple exposure” scenario. Despite efforts to maximize social benefits from climate, development, and conservation, externally driven processes can converge to amplify vulnerabilities and inequalities. Pre-existing social injustices increase the sensitivity of affected individuals to change and limit their capacity to adapt or benefit from the interacting impacts of triple exposure. We argue that external implementors cannot effectively and equitably achieve climate, economic, and conservation goals without prioritizing social justice and building general resilience. We therefore recommend that implementors: (1) address root causes of vulnerability, namely pre-existing social injustices; (2) use participatory systems approaches to improve understanding of local contexts and potential consequences of proposed initiatives; and (3) leverage inclusive partnerships to facilitate collaborative design and implementation. These strategies—applied together and adapted to local contexts—can support well-being, justice, and resilience within coastal communities experiencing rapid change.

Read the full report, to which Josheena Naggea has contributed to, here.

The term “blue justice” was coined in 2018 during the 3rd World Small-Scale Fisheries Congress. Since then, academic engagement with the concept has grown rapidly. This article reviews 5 years of blue justice scholarship and synthesizes some of the key perspectives, developments, and gaps. We
then connect this literature to wider relevant debates by reviewing two key areas of research – first on blue injustices and second on grassroots resistance to these injustices. Much of the early scholarship on blue justice focused on injustices experienced by small-scale fishers in the context of the blue economy.

In contrast, more recent writing and the empirical cases reviewed here suggest that intersecting forms of oppression render certain coastal individuals and groups vulnerable to blue injustices. These developments signal an expansion of the blue justice literature to a broader set of affected groups and underlying causes of injustice. Our review also suggests that while grassroots resistance efforts led by coastal communities have successfully stopped unfair exposure to environmental harms, preserved their livelihoods and ways of life, defended their culture and customary rights, renegotiated power distributions, and proposed alternative futures, these efforts have been underemphasized in the blue justice scholarship, and from marine and coastal literature more broadly. We conclude with some suggestions for understanding and supporting blue justice now and into the future.

Read the full report, which Josheena Naggea has contributed to, here.

Two Stanford scientists found hope and lessons for improving disaster response after oil spills hit close to home. Rebecca Miller, PhD ’21, and Josheena Naggea, PhD ’22, set out to understand differences in the emergency response to oil spills in places where they each have a personal connection – Pointe d'Esny, Mauritius and Huntington Beach, California – as a way to help lessen impacts from future spills. They published their findings Feb. 15 in Ecology and Society.

Read the full article here.

Kate Crosman is a social scientist with expertise in the complex governance of oceans and coasts. She’s spending 3 years in Norway as an André Hoffmann Fellow in Big Ocean Data, studying trustworthiness and trust in big data for ocean decision-making.

In this blog, Kate is writing about cognitive biases associated with processing information, and how they might influence the fishery for Calanus finmarchicus – a tiny plankton species that became a starting point for her research.

The Oceanic x Climate Summit was a daylong event hosted by Oceanic Global that took place at COP27. The summit immersed global stakeholders in the importance and potential of the ocean within the climate change narrative and supported multi-stakeholder action for the ocean and all it sustains.

Our Hoffmann Fellow, Josheena Naggea, was invited to speak at this session. Watch the recording here.

Read the full blog by Dr Josheena Naggea, Hoffmann Fellow and Commonwealth youth advocate for ocean-climate action, here.

My first experience attending the annual UN Climate Change Conference was an eye-opener. I attended the COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from 6th to 12th November as the first Nature Zone's Solidarity Fund recipient with ocean and climate expertise. From Day 1, I was swept off in a whirlwind of meetings, panel discussions, and speaking engagements.

What surprised and intrigued me most was the number of concrete actions and positive collaborations which happen at COP behind closed doors. With so many key actors from various public institutions, private sector and non-profit organisations in one place, it provides an opportunity for cross-sectoral discussions to support climate action from local to regional to global scales.

A new Fellowship with Arctic Basecamp will help the World Economic Forum develop a new project in support of the Arctic and Antarctic biospheres.

The University of Exeter is to enter its first partnership with the World Economic Forum to develop a new global initiative for the poles. The Hoffmann Fellowship on the poles is a two-year post hosted alongside the science communications platform Arctic Basecamp that will help the Forum develop a new project in support of the Arctic and Antarctic biospheres. Both regions are experiencing some of the most rapid warming on Earth, with the Arctic currently warming four times faster than the global average. The new Hoffmann Fellow will help to develop an integrated approach to tackling the common threats they face, and the implications for the rest of the world affected by polar tipping points.

Gene therapy is widely perceived as an intervention only for the rich, and it’s no mystery why: Zynteglo, a gene therapy for the blood disorder beta thalassemia, will soon reach the US market with a $2.8 million price tag for a one-time infusion. Beyond the cost, these treatments also require sophisticated equipment, expert personnel, and a highly developed regulatory environment. However, in addition to beta thalassemia, gene therapy can treat sickle cell disease, hemophilia, and (in the future) HIV—conditions where most of the affected individuals live in LMICs.

Do low-income countries really lack the capacity to deliver such treatments? In the early 2000s, funders, pharmaceutical companies, and governments of donor countries who were reluctant to provide antiretroviral therapies (ART)—a highly effective HIV treatment—to LMICs contended that ART was too expensive and too complex for developing countries’ limited health infrastructures. But advocates persevered, and by 2020, 19 million people in Africa were benefiting from these life-saving drugs.

Read the full article here, written by Hoffmann Fellow Kevin Doxzen.

Gene therapy is one of the fastest growing areas of healthcare, with over 2,000 therapies in development globally. The new techniques could challenge some of the world’s most feared diseases, including HIV and cancer.

But the enormous cost means poorer countries could miss out, and the fact that R&D is concentrated in richer countries means the therapies developed there might not always be suitable for use in other parts of the world.

This episode of the Radio Davos podcast hears from a senior healthcare figure in Uganda on what needs to be done.

Guests:

Cissy Kityo, Executive Director of the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Uganda.

Kevin Doxzen, Hoffmann Fellow, Precision Medicine and Emerging Biotechnologies, World Economic Forum.

This white paper developed in collaboration with Thunderbird School of Global Management and Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, provides an overview of what is required to sustainably deliver gene therapies in LMICs, from preliminary R&D through clinical trials all the way to market access.

Expert insight was contributed by clinical leaders across LMICs who are actively engaged in gene therapy research, offering case studies comparing struggles and successes across multiple political economies.

As part of a growing movement seeking to disrupt global health paradigms, this publication aims to motivate and guide action by policy-makers, health-systems leaders, pharmaceutical companies, funders and other stakeholders.

By Hoffmann Fellow, Kevin Doxzen

The sovereignty of Indigenous communities in the US raises important ethical and legal questions around the ownership and use of genetic data by governments and companies. Kevin Doxzen recommends new data policies to address these timely questions. Read more here.

Governments aiming to integrate precision medicine into their healthcare systems must find a way of overcoming technological, ethical, and legal challenges. In a report for the Brookings Institute, Kevin Doxzen examines how agile governance offers essential tools and processes capable of promoting precision medicine innovation while safeguarding the public from unintended consequences. Read the full report here.

"My first expedition to Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, was about observing, absorbing, and participating in big data collection in action. The trip was months delayed due to the pandemic. And it was absolutely magic." Read more here.

While plenty of marine scientists are tracking the ocean's sea creatures, Alfredo Girón-Nava is tracking the vessels working to harvest them: the commercial fishing industry. Read full article and watch video here.

In 2015, Palau embarked on an extraordinary journey, announcing protection of 80% of the waters in its domain. In creating the Palau National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS), Palau once again asserted its visionary leadership in ocean conservation and its determination to chart its own destiny. The PNMS is one of the largest marine protected areas (MPAs) in the world. Crucially, unlike many large-scale MPAs, the Sanctuary has the entire population of the country residing at its heart. Thus, implementation of the PNMS provided both the opportunity and the imperative to demonstrate how ambitious protection of ocean resources can enable an island nation to ensure its food security and grow its economy in an era of tumultuous change in the climate and in the ocean.

This report was created by Hoffmann Fellow Emily Kelly in collaboration with the Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) and the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, in collaboration with an expert Working Group, in anticipation of the implementation of the Palau National Marine Sanctuary. Read full report here.

While marine biodiversity and ecosystem health are vital to support the many services that the ocean provides to national economies and local communities, there is no current global observing system for marine life.

Our Hoffmann Fellow, Alfredo Giron at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and with the Friends of Ocean Action, participated in a global study to identify the gaps and opportunities to establish such system. Read more here.

Ahead of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 12^th Ministerial Conference, the topmost decision-making body of the WTO, scientists around the world sign a letter urging to end harmful subsidies that incentivize overfishing.

Our Hoffmann Fellow, Alfredo Giron at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and with the Friends of Ocean Action, was one of the nearly 300 scientists who provided insights into the letter. Read more here.

The zooplankton Calanus finmarchicus will be the starting point for the André Hoffmann Fellow Kate Crosman’s work to understand trust in Big Ocean Data. How? Read on.

The gulf’s sardine fishery has collapsed four times in the past 30 years, and researchers in California worry about the future of the sardine industry.

Our Fellow - Alfredo Giron of Stanford University and Octavio Aburto of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography looked at how sardines are faring. Read more about their study here.

Read the Q&A with our Fellow - Alfredo Giron-Nava, and Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor here

Our Fellow - Alfredo Giron Nava - a marine ecologist, studies community-based fisheries management and conservation along with Anastasia Quintana - a social scientist. Together they have published a new paper, on May 26, 2021 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, showing how critical community support is to conservation efforts and how smaller reserves that are “good enough” ecologically can foster that support and lead to successful long-term conservation.

Read more about their work here.

Protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 is an ambitious goal that will deliver numerous benefits. How do we ensure these benefits reach the right communities?

With livestock alone producing 15% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, aquatic food represents an opportunity for locally produced, nutritious food for millions of people. What innovations will reimagine existing aquatic food production to produce sustainable, nutritious aquatic food that effectively supports global foods systems?

Watch the UpLink Deep Dive session on how The Blue Food Challenge and the Friends of Ocean Action are reimagining foods systems around aquatic food production featuring our Fellow - Emily Kelly - as a panelist.

Friends of Ocean Action and UpLink launched the Blue Food Challenge in order to uncover innovations to help accelerate the integration of aquatic foods into global food systems. This challenge was run with the benefit of four partners: X (Alphabet), Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, WorldFish, and Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Ocean.

Read the full Forum Agenda blog post by Hoffmann Fellow Emily Kelly here.

Read the full article from our Fellow Kevin Doxzen here.

What's inside an mRNA vaccine vial? How do mRNA vaccines differ from other approaches, and what’s their promise for the future?

New Gene therapies may soon treat dozens of rare diseases, but million-dollar price tags will put them out of reach for many, says Kevin Doxzen in his article here

Read the story from DIANA M. BOWMAN and our Fellow KEVIN DOXZEN here.

Biotechnology research and policy expert joins Thunderbird School of Global Management and Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at ASU through World Economic Forum fellowship - meet Kevin Doxzen

Meet our Fellow Kate Crosman - she is a social scientist from the U.S, with expertise in the complex governance of oceans and coasts. For the next three years, she will be living in Norway, working on the overall theme of “trustworthiness and trust in big data for oceans”. She recently moved to the city Trondheim.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing robs nations of up to $23.5 billion annually, undermining fisheries management and cheating legal fishers. Vessels engaged in IUU fishing
often also traffic people and contraband, and violate human rights protections and environmental standards. In short, IUU fishing vessels pose a serious threat to the environment, security and economies of port states around the world. In Sustainable Development Goal 14, governments
committed to end IUU fishing by 2020. That commitment has sparked new momentum and created the potential for a new value proposition for governments and for businesses.

Read full white paper written by Hoffmann Fellow Annie Brett here.

This Blue Paper examines the role that ocean data and technology could play in securing a better understanding and stewardship of the ocean and its resources. Lead author is Hoffmann Fellow Annie Brett and you can read the paper here.

This Blue Paper, which examines illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the drivers associated with it, comes at an extremely relevant time. IUU fishing is already undermining the sustainability of the ocean, and recognition of the significant risks it poses for future fisheries productivity and the attainment of a sustainable ocean economy is growing, along with our understanding of the cascading social and environmental consequences that go beyond fisheries to impact food, nutritional and maritime security. The paper details tangible actions that must be taken to end this threat. Many of these are recognisable from previous high-level papers and reports dating to 2001, indicative that the global response has been extremely slow. However, the paper also makes clear that there are decisive opportunities for transformational action, enabled by new technology, knowledge and partnerships that can turn the tide. We know what needs to be done, and leaders must take the opportunity to act. With only one year left to fulfil the target set by UN Sustainable Development Goal 14.4—to end IUU fishing and overfishing by 2020—we are delighted to be able to contribute to this debate through this paper.

Read the full blue paper, to which Hoffmann Fellow Annie Brett contributed to, here.

About the Tuna 2020 Traceability Declaration

The Tuna 2020 Traceability Declaration is a non-legally binding declaration that grew out of a dialogue among governments, companies and civil society, spurred by The Ocean Conference in June 2017 at the United Nations Headquarters that will focus on implementation of SDG 14. The Declaration is endorsed by leaders of the world’s biggest retailers, tuna processors, marketers, traders and/or harvesters, with the support of influential civil society organizations, and governments. The entities endorsing the Tuna 2020 Traceability Declaration announced concrete actions and partnerships to demonstrate their commitment to implement the Declaration and Action Agenda.

Read the full Forum Agenda blog post written by Hoffmann Fellow Emily Kelly here.