Despite international enthusiasm, private-sector finance for sustainable development and the blue economy still makes up a very small percentage of global investment. Repurposed bonds and debt-for-nature swaps have gained support with policymakers, international organizations, and investors keen to align their investment with global goals and borrowing countries with large ocean domains seeking new sources of finance.

Fishing fleets and effort have grown throughout the waters of lower-income coastal countries in recent decades, much of which is carried out by vessels registered in higher-income countries. Fisheries access arrangements underpin this key trend in ocean fisheries and have their origins in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea's (UNCLOS’s) goal to establish resource ownership as a mechanism to increase benefits to newly independent coastal and island states.

This document has been adapted from the research protocol used to compile country case study data and to produce the results summarized in the 2023 report Illuminating Hidden Harvests: The Contributions of Small-Scale Fisheries to Sustainable Development, coproduced by FAO, Duke University, and WorldFish.

Global sustainability challenges, such as climate change and the plastics crisis, converge across disciplines and involve diverse stakeholders. Given the magnitude and interconnected nature of sustainability challenges, problem-solvers must be trained across disciplines.

Fishing for subsistence constitutes a livelihood safety net for poverty, malnutrition, and gender inequality for populations dependent upon aquatic foods around the world. Here, the authors provide global estimates showing that almost the same amount of small-scale fishers (52.8 million people) engage in subsistence fishing at some point during the year as in commercial employment (60.2 million people). The authors also use subsistence estimates from 14 country cases studies conducted as part of the Illuminating Hidden Harvests study to measure small-scale fisheries’ livelihood safety net function.

Globally, women are disproportionately burdened and impacted by the harmful effects of plastic across the life cycle of products. These burdens vary across cultural, socioeconomic, and political contexts, and based on how women engage with plastic, but broadly include health and safety impacts, access to opportunities in the waste sector, and exposures to harmful plastic-associated chemicals. This initial assessment considers how women, people who are assigned female at birth and have been socialized as females, and/or female-identified people are considered in plastics policy scope and implementation.

In the first annual update of Annual Trends in Plastics Policy, Nicholas Institute researchers find that plastics policy enactment continues to surge and was not negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To better gauge policy implementation, researchers established a new effectiveness policy library to accompany the 2022 update. These studies indicate that, while underused in existing policy, greater governmental use of economic instruments (e.g., taxes, fees, levies) and information instruments (e.g., awareness campaigns to communicate other instruments to the public, education initiatives, etc.) would aid in enacting effective policies in the future.

To make the case for mainstreaming ocean sustainability and add to the existing literature, Citigroup carried out an original analysis consisting of two parts: (1) an assessment of impact materiality and revenue exposure for industries and a (2) geospatial analysis to identify potential hotspots of marine natural capital loss.

John Virdin of the Nicholas Institute was one of the expert contributors to this report.

In a special issue of Frontiers in Marine Science, “Emerging Challenges and Solutions for Plastic Pollution,” these authors and others provide a transdisciplinary collection of articles exploring plastic pollution issues and hypothesizing solutions. The topic is broad to include diverse approaches as contributions from all stakeholders are needed to provide a full perspective on the plastic waste problem.

The global Illuminating Hidden Harvests study contributes to a more holistic understanding of what small-scale fisheries are, their importance, and why they are essential to efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By using this knowledge wisely within a human rights-based approach in line with the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines, and by empowering small-scale fishers and fishworkers, a more inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and resilient small-scale scale fisheries subsector can be achieved.