Publications

Jim Leape, Bronwen Golder, Richard Barnes, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Dawn Borg-Costanzi, Jessica L Decker Sparks, Jaeyoon Park, Robert Blasiak, Elizabeth R Selig, Shinnosuke Nakayama, Colette C.C. Wabnitz. 2025. Leveraging port state measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads1592

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing threatens the sustainability of fisheries and communities dependent on them. The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) is a key tool for combatting IUU fishing by foreign fleets, requiring standardized inspections, information sharing, and port denial. Using satellite data, we characterized how PSMA has affected high seas vessel behavior and identify opportunities to strengthen...

J.-B. Jouffray, J. Virdin, J. Bebbington, R. Blasiak, A. Dunchus, M. Lo Presti, J. Pare, D. Prosi, J. P. Quintero, R. Rosenthal, P. Tortora, D. Vermeer. 2025. Identifying and closing gaps in corporate reporting of ocean impacts. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01631-8

As ocean industrialization accelerates, corporate transparency is increasingly seen as critical to improve governance, yet little is known about how firms disclose their impacts on marine ecosystems. This study addresses that gap through a content analysis of sustainability and annual reports from 75 of the largest companies across 8 sectors of the ocean economy. We examine which impacts are reported, how they are measured and...

Elizabeth R. Selig, Colette C. C. Wabnitz, Shinnosuke Nakayama, Jaeyoon Park, Richard Barnes, Robert Blasiak, Dawn Borg-Costanzi, Bronwen Golder, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Jim Leape, Jessica L. Decker Sparks. 2025. Leveraging port state measures to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads1592

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing threatens the sustainability of fisheries and communities dependent on them. The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) is a key tool for combatting IUU fishing by foreign fleets, requiring standardized inspections, information sharing, and port denial. Using satellite data, we characterized how PSMA has affected high seas vessel behavior and identify opportunities to strengthen...

Torres, A., Jouffray, J.-B., Van Lancker, V., Velpen, A.V., Liu, J.. 2025. Reducing sand mining's growing toll on marine biodiversity. One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101202

Pereira, K., Wabnitz, C.C.C., Schildt, L., Kuiper, J.J., Schmitt, R.J.P., Barbour, F., Jouffray, J.-B.. 2025. Rethinking sand circularity through sufficiency. One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101207

Erik Zhivkoplias, Jessica M. da Silva, Robert Blasiak. 2025. How transdisciplinarity can help biotech-driven biodiversity research. Trends in Biotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2025.04.008

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework marks a significant step toward conserving genetic diversity on a global scale. Sequencing advancements have broadened biodiversity studies by enabling the mapping of species distributions, increasing understanding of ecological interactions, and monitoring genetic diversity. However, these tools are hindered by inequalities and biases, particularly in biodiversity-rich develo...

Frida Bengtsson, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Shinnosuke Nakayama, Erik Zhivkoplias, Colette C. C. Wabnitz, Robert Blasiak, Elizabeth R. Selig, Henrik Österblom. 2024. Who owns reefer vessels? Uncovering the ecosystem of transshipment in fisheries. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn3874

A central barrier to effective governance and accountability in fisheries is the limited transparency of corporate ownership. Transshipment—the transfer of catches, fuel, parts, or crew between fishing and cargo vessels known as reefers—is often criticized for its opacity and poor governance. Better insight into the beneficial ownership of vessels involved in transshipment and their operational patterns could lead to more effe...

Erik Zhivkoplias, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Paul Dunshirn, Agnes Pranindita, Robert Blasiak. 2024. Growing prominence of deep-sea life in marine bioprospecting. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01392-w

Marine bioprospecting, which involves the exploration of genetic and biochemical material from marine organisms, can be used towards addressing a broad range of public and environmental health applications such as disease treatment, diagnostics and bioremediation. Marine genetic resources are important reservoirs for such bioprospecting efforts; however, the extent to which they are used commercially for natural product discov...

Jan Bebbington, Robert Blasiak, Carlos Larrinaga, Shona Russell, Madlen Sobkowiak, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Henrik Österblom. 2024. Shaping nature outcomes in corporate settings. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0325

Transnational companies have substantive impacts on nature: a hallmark of living in the Anthropocene. Understanding these impacts through company provision of information is a precursor to holding them accountable for nature outcomes. The effect of increasing disclosures (of varying quality) is predicated on ‘information governance’, an approach that uses disclosure requirements to drive company behaviour. However, its efficac...

Jerneja Penca, Andrea Barbanti, Christopher Cvitanovic, Amel Hamza-Chaffai, Ahmed Elshazly, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Nezha Mejjad, Melita Mokos. 2024. Building competences for researchers working towards ocean sustainability. Marine Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2024.106132

The challenges of achieving just, equitable and sustainable ocean futures require a new type of transdisciplinary and action-oriented science that integrates across disciplines and knowledge systems. Scientists and researchers in academia, industry or government, who contribute to knowledge creation, innovation, and policy development for the ocean, must be empowered with a fresh set of competences. This paper maps the knowled...