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Ensuring that harvest strategies are robust to climate change is a top priority for many fisheries jurisdictions globally. This is because climate change is altering ecosystem structure and the productivity of marine species. We outline a range of approaches for incorporating climate change impacts within harvest strategies, including how a harvest strategy is specified and changes to monitoring requirements. Approaches evaluated include the use of extended stock assessments, multi-species and ecosystem models, revised management reference points, implementing regime shifts in model parameters, the provision of climate-sensitive catch advice, projections under alternative climate change scenarios and expanded use of management strategy evaluation. We evaluate the utility of these approaches against cost, data needs and uncertainty criteria; highlight key learnings from a range of global jurisdictions and demonstrate the broad array of options available outside of direct incorporation of climate variables within stock assessments. We identify approaches that have been successfully implemented and show that the most complex responses are not always the most successful. While there is no one-size-fits-all way to incorporate climate change within harvest strategies, we outline the need for flexible management arrangements. We also provide examples of approaches that have been successfully implemented, demonstrating that many of the most data-intensive responses will only be applicable in a few cases, necessitating the application of cheaper, less data-intensive approaches that are associated with greater uncertainty.

Plastic production and plastic pollution negatively affect our environment, environmental justice, and climate change. Using detailed global and regional plastics datasets coupled with socio-economic data, we employ machine learning to predict that, without intervention, annual mismanaged plastic waste will nearly double to 121 Mt (100 - 139 Mt 95% CI) by 2050. Annual greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic system are projected to grow by 37% to 3.35 Gt CO2 equivalent (3.09 - 3.54 CO2e) over the same period. The United Nations plastic pollution treaty presents a unique opportunity to reshape these outcomes. We simulate eight candidate treaty policies and find that just four could together reduce mismanaged plastic waste by 91% (86% - 98%) and gross plastic-related greenhouse gas emissions by one third.

On 13 April 2023, Cyclone Ilsa crossed Bedout Island in the Timor Sea off Western Australia’s remote north coast. Extensive damage was done to the entire island, with all coastal vegetation stripped clear from the island’s surface

Addressing climate change and biodiversity loss together will more effectively address these crises. Although policymakers are starting to think about climate change mitigation initiatives that have co-benefits for biodiversity, the role of biodiversity itself in promoting carbon storage is often overlooked, with much focus simply on biomass or ecosystem extent. On one hand, this may mean that the scientific community is underestimating future carbon emissions by not accounting for biodiversity-driven carbon losses, thus increasing the urgency for mitigating climate and land-use impacts. On the other hand, this highlights the important role that ecosystem restoration, focusing on the composition of these ecosystems, can play in climate change mitigation. In other words, there is potential to link the restoration target (T2) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework with that for climate-change mitigation (T8) and enhancing nature’s contributions to people (T11), emphasizing a need to reconsider the functional value of biodiversity rather than focusing only on area-based measures for conservation (e.g., so-called 30 by 30; T3)62. At a national and local level, this could mean that a focus on maintaining and restoring diverse ecosystems can increase the return-on-investment for carbon storage over the same land area. This may be particularly important for those ecoregions that are projected to have high levels of biodiversity-driven carbon loss.

Given the importance of hatchling survival for sea turtles, we assessed the relative importance of nest predation for green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nesting at a major rookery on an isolated island where harvesting or poaching of eggs is zero but where there are a range of potential predators, both natural and introduced. In this way, our work helps identify the importance of managing and / or removing invasive predators that may have several negative ecosystem consequences.

Seabird eggs, chicks and adults have significant value for many cultures, but delayed maturation, low reproductive rates and ease of exploitation at breeding colonies make these species especially vulnerable to over harvest.

A global survey if coral reefs reveals that over fishing is driving resident shark species toward extinction, causing diversity deficits in reef elasmobranch ( shark and ray) assemblages. Our species-level analysis analysis revealed global declines of 60 to 73% for five common resident reef shark species and that individual shark species were not detetced at 34 to 47% of surveyed reefs.

Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world's ocean. Likewise marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion are entanglement have even distributions.

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development requires that all of the Actions it endorses have concrete plans to involve stakeholders in the co-creation of ocean science. As a result, we have a unique opportunity to test different approaches to stakeholder engagement to see what works and what does not.

Hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) from the Hawaiian archipelago form a small and genetically isolated population, consisting of only a few tens of individuals breeding annually. Most females nest on the island of Hawai’i, but little is known about the demographics of this rookery. This study used genetic relatedness, inferred from 135 microhaplotype markers, to determine breeding sex-ratios, estimate female nesting frequency and assess relationships between individuals nesting on different beaches.