Full spectrum sustainability and a theory of access: Integrating social benefits into fisheries governance

The United Nations has identified access to and benefits from fisheries resources as key sustainable development challenges. The business-as-usual management approach focusing on a limited set of biological and economic considerations has not adequately addressed widespread global calls for governing the distribution of access and benefits effectively and equitably. Our paper develops a novel approach for incorporating social science analysis of the generation, distribution and maintenance of benefits into integrated full spectrum sustainability frameworks. To do so, our paper puts a full spectrum sustainability framework into conversation with Ribot and Peluso’s influential Theory of Access framework, a political ecology framework which allows for a comprehensive understanding of who benefits from resources, and through what processes they are able to do so. Our paper proposes five immediate uses of these combined frameworks: (i) to facilitate the development of indicators around access and benefits; (ii) to help identify, organize and analyze social benefit data; (iii) to guide the development of cross-disciplinary representations of a system; (iv) to lay out potential trade-offs, cumulative impacts and changes to oceans governance; (v) and to help users respond to national and international objectives around the generation and distribution of benefits. In proposing novel ways of analyzing sustainable resource use in fisheries, our paper thus responds to management challenges associated with an expanding agenda and set of priorities, and growing policy interest in governance and management of the ocean for the benefit of coastal peoples and their communities.