A telecoupling analysis for the Patagonian Shelf seascape: a suggested template on how to study the wider seabirds‐fisheries interactions worldwide for sustainability

Abstract

The Southwest Atlantic Ocean and the extended Patagonian shelf in particular, is a highly productive seascape. It is a very complex ecosystem of global relevance and maintains a great diversity and abundance of seabirds and marine mammals, too. Fisheries have been identified as a main stressor for the marine ecosystems and as the main cause of seabird population declines. Using the framework of telecoupling - the sophisticated natural and socioeconomic interactions over wider distances - we present a fresh look at the dynamic fisheries and (endangered) seabird interactions for the Patagonian Shelf seascape. We found that these waters are affected by many nations and players, inside and outside. Here we show how the input, output and spill-over of the Patagonian shelf ecosystem are distributed almost globally. In addition, we also show ?losers? (=nations that are left out entirely from this global resource and its governance). Our findings are based on best available public trade and harvest analysis for this region, linked with predictive modeling (machine learning and some open source geographic information systems GIS) for nine seabird species. We extend this analysis with a perspective from the financial sector and ethical banking policy that support the Patagonian fisheries as international investment projects. As increasingly recognized elsewhere, we believe that telecoupling can serve as a new but rather sophisticated study template for an improved more holistic conservation research on oceans and global sustainability questions.