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Many small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) operate in ecologically sensitive areas, where balancing conservation and resource use is challenging. 'Multiple-use' marine protected areas (MPAs) have been implemented to accommodate SSFs (among other uses) within areas designated for conservation, creating opportunities and challenges for SSF governance. We analyzed eleven case studies from LAC to explore: (1) how different MPA institutional designs affect key aspects of SSF governance and (2) the links between these effects and the type of initiative that promoted MPA establishment (origin). Results indicate that the existence of an MPA benefited SSF governance in many ways, with more pronounced positive effects in MPAs with mixed to bottom-up origin supported by well-organized fishing groups. In addition, the presence of supportive MPA authorities that leveraged local capacities and initiatives and adopted flexible and collaborative governance systems made a difference in several cases. Lessons for integrating MPA and SSF governance are drawn.

In Chile, a Territorial User Rights for Fisheries system was developed to manage benthic fisheries. This system is referred to as Management Areas for the Exploitation of Benthic Resources. Management areas involved a shift from top-down control by governments to comanagement. We have analyzed the effects of a highly variable fishery, characterized by boom-and-bust cycles, on the governance of local institutions designed for resource management. We focused on a case study in north central Chile, in which the surf clam fishery experienced high levels of variability when the fishery was in an open access system. The management areas were established for the fishery in 1999. As a result, a set of rules for the fishery were created and enforced by fishers and local fishery authorities. Despite intense efforts on the part of all stakeholders, the fishery collapsed after three years of management area policy. This approach has been shown to be an effective management option for other species; however, for resources with boom-and-bust cycles, it is important to understand the response pattern of users confronting this spatial and temporal variability before the establishment of territorial user rights. Defining the appropriate spatial scale of the territorial rights could allow fishers to switch among different surf clam beds to maintain their livelihood and support the sustainability of local institutions for resource management.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are key tools for mitigating the impacts of human activities on marine biodiversity and addressing climate change. Consequently, nations worldwide have committed to international targets to expand MPA coverage, leading to a rapid increase in protected areas and generating significant challenges for financing and effective management, particularly in developing countries. Under this scenario, multiple stakeholders, including local communities, academia, governments, and national and international organizations, are joining efforts to reduce financial gaps and strengthen MPA governance and management. In this study, we present the case of the Juan Fernández Archipelago in Chile, where multiple organizations collaborated to develop a socially robust and locally grounded governance system for a network of MPAs through a comprehensive community engagement process conducted on Robinson Crusoe Island between 2022 and 2024. As a result, a Functional Community Organization was established to co-manage the MPAs with the Chilean government, and three MPA management plans encompassing ~580,000 km2 were approved. Among them, the management plan of the Multiple-Use MPA “Mar de Juan Fernández” was the first approved under the new Chilean Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (Law 21,600), setting a national precedent for co-management. Our findings show that effective MPA governance depends not only on institutional design but also on the extent to which governance arrangements are socially embedded and locally legitimate. In this context, community-grounded and context-sensitive engagement processes facilitated high levels of participation, strengthened representation, and supported the co-production of knowledge, providing a strong foundation for the long-term implementation of conservation objectives.

Small-scale aquaculture (SSA) has been promoted as a “blue transformation” strategy to achieve sustainable development. However, it remains unclear how these initiatives contribute to transforming gender relations in coastal communities. This study examines the case of Caleta Buena (Chile), where an SSA project is being implemented with the technical support of researchers. A qualitative methodology was employed using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and photographic records, combined with content analysis and Structural Topic Modeling (STM), to analyze the differences between men’s and women’s narratives around the adoption of SSA. The findings highlight that SSA fulfills a dual role: materially, by diversifying production and income, and symbolically, by redefining community and gender roles. The women’s narratives emphasize quality of life and collective well-being, whereas the men’s discourse focuses on organizational strengthening and market integration. Although women gain autonomy and visibility through their participation in the aquaculture project, their empowerment remains partial and ambivalent, rooted in tasks historically associated with femininity. The study’s implications reveal an incipient agency that challenges the symbolic boundaries between masculine and feminine, opening a window of opportunity for more equitable institutional initiatives. The case study demonstrates the need to translate Chilean regulations on gender equality in artisanal fisheries into effective practices within these communities.

The increasing scale and interconnection of many environmental challenges - from climate change to land use - has resulted in the need to collaborate across borders and boundaries of all types. Traditional centralized, top-down and sectoral approaches to governance of single-issue areas or species within social-ecological systems often have limited potential to alleviate issues that go beyond their jurisdiction. As a result, collaborative governance approaches have come to the forefront. A great deal of past research has examined the conditions under which collaborative efforts are likely to achieve desired outcomes. However, few studies have analyzed how the means to achieve successful collaborative outcomes differ based on context when examined across multiple studies. In this research, we begin to chart a means for doing this. Building onto a Context-Mechanism-Outcome (CMO) Framework, we provide a coding manual to analyse how contextual variables mediate the effects of mechanism variables on outcomes of the collaborative governance of social-ecological systems. Through the examination of four cases, we provide a proof-of-concept assessment and show the utility of the CMO framework and coding manual to draw comparisons across cases for understanding how collaborative outcomes are contingent on the social-ecological context in which they occur.

Small-scale fisheries, which are often associated with low levels of income and poor infrastructure, receive substantial funding from governmental institutions worldwide. Very few empirical studies have explored the outcomes of these investments for people and ecosystems. This paper presents the findings of a study aimed at assessing the social and ecological outcomes of government subsidies for small-scale fisheries through an analysis of 32 fishing villages, referred to as caletas, in Chile over a 12-year period. Findings suggest that the funding appears to be higher for those caletas with the highest value landings and is unrelated to socioeconomic need or poverty; that caletas in rural areas receive less investment than their urban counterparts; that funding did not lead to a positive improvement in either the landings or income for fishers; and, finally, that funding appears to be a consequence of, rather than a reason for, the ecological and productive history of fisheries. These findings challenge two assumptions informing the debate about subsidization in small-scale fisheries: first, that subsidization will lead to over-exploitation, and second, that subsidies are supplied to alleviate poverty.

Territorial User Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) have spread in Chile, since the late 1990s, in the form of commons institutions. TURFs are presented by some scholars as a social-ecological success; by others as showing economic and compliance problems. Studies looking at the material conditions in which fishers produce and reproduce their livelihoods, and in which TURFs emerge, are scarcer. Ostrom’s theory on the commons claims that certain collective action conditions have to be met to become thriving commons institutions. Our hypothesis is that while institutions are moulded by local material conditions, such as geographical location and social embeddedness, these impose challenges and constraints upon fishers influencing TURFs’ long-term viability. How are collective action conditions influenced when the new TURFs commons do not emerge in tabula rasa contexts but in occupied spaces? Do material conditions influence TURFs’ sustainability? This paper set out to explore these conditions. Huentelauquén’s and Guayacán’s TURFs (central-northern Chile) were chosen, as they represent two extremes (rural-urban; on private property-on State/municipal property; mainly diver – mainly fisher) contexts in which TURFs have emerged. We mainly used Participatory Rural Approach (PRA) tools triangulated with other qualitative methods. This study shows that both social embeddedness (private/State lands), and geographical location (rural/urban) matter, resulting in different access to the coast for different TURFs, thus determining some important differences between our cases in at least three relevant areas: entrance, social relations between the fishers’ organization (entitled the TURFs) and the landowner (private or municipal/State) and the existence or absence of fishing and general infrastructure. Competition for space among key actors seems to affect the process of acquiring a TURF as well as the conditions conductive to collective action. TURFs’ assessments should therefore consider both, the local particularities of specific fishing communities and the larger structural context in which they emerge, that if not paid attention to, can weakens TURFs’ viability for sustainable fisheries.

The concept of biodiversity hotspots has long guided spatial conservation planning. Although many marine‐protected areas (MPAs) overlap with ecological hotspots, they often face resistance when they overlook existing livelihoods. Non‐extractive economies in many coastal regions, such as dive tourism, already thrive but lack formal protection, leaving both ecosystems and local income vulnerable to degradation. We coined the concept of blue spots: spatial areas where socio‐economic conditions already favor conservation. Using Cabo Pulmo National Park as a benchmark, we applied a national‐scale spatial model across 392,000 km2 territorial sea and identified 300 blue spots, including 30 high‐priority sites. Bioeconomic simulations show that protecting these areas could increase tourism revenues by more than 70% over a decade while avoiding the opportunity costs of business‐as‐usual degradation. These findings suggest that blue spots can accelerate conservation outcomes, reduce socio‐economic conflict, and deliver faster economic returns than conventional conservation strategies. Rather than requiring communities to transition away from extractive activities, blue spots offer a pragmatic pathway to scale fully protected MPAs by reinforcing existing ecotourism, community support, and infrastructure. Protecting what is already working today may be one of the most effective strategies to meet both ecological and socio‐economic goals.

Castilleja tenuiflora (Orobanchaceae) has been used in Mexican traditional medicine as a treatment for cough, dysentery, anxiety, nausea and vomiting as well as hepatic and gastrointestinal diseases. The ethanolic extract of the aerial parts of Castilleja tenuiflora was separated by silica gel column chromatography. The fractions were evaluated using the induced edema acetate 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol (TPA) anti-inflammatory activity model. The most active fraction was subjected to medium-pressure liquid chromatography (MPLC) with UV detection at 206 and 240 nm. The following iridoids were isolated: geniposidic acid, aucubin, bartioside, 8-epi-loganin, mussaenoside, and the phenylpropanoid verbascoside. The most active iridoid was geniposidic acid, which was more active than the control (indomethacin), and the least active iridoid was mussaenoside. 8-epi-Loganin, and mussaenoside have not been previously reported to be anti-inflammatory compounds. The results of these investigations confirm the potential of Mexican plants for the production of bioactive compounds and validate the ethnomedical use of Castilleja tenuiflora-like anti-inflammatory plants.