Longer-term strategies

In the second half of the UN Decade of Ocean Science, we propose a greater focus on two strategies that we collectively called ‘incentives’ and ‘rules and regulations’. These two strategies directly guide individual, community and business behaviours that impact ocean and human health; for example, through modification of industry practices. Successful implementation of the large number of actions aimed at building marine citizenship in the first half of the UN Decade of Ocean Science, will be necessary to prepare us for implementing the next set of actions focused on guiding behaviours in a more structured way.
Some lead time may be needed to achieve behaviour change of resource users, whether individuals or industry, especially if there are regulatory changes or actions that need to filter through other systems like the consumer market. To enable behaviour change, both a ‘stick’ and ‘carrot’ approach are likely to be needed (Box 3). Examples of carrots are economic incentives which have a clear role alongside regulations (sticks). Incentives can be provided by government, such as tax incentives to provide food to the domestic rather than the export market, or NGO-driven, such as promoting low ‘food miles’ as a way of guiding food choice. Similarly, incentives could be entirely driven by industry and the demand and preferences of their consumers, such as extending product shelf life to increase the accessibility and safety of products. Regulations can affect the behaviour of resource users very directly through economic, social and fiscal policy and a variety of other rules. For instance, stronger regulation around recycling, reuse and reduction of waste are an important example on how we can aim towards “Living & Connecting’. Many possible actions were identified for ‘Incentives’ (23% of all actions identified) and ‘Rules and regulations’ (21%) (Extended Data 1).
It is worth noting that actions implemented under the ‘rules & regulations’ strategy may fail to achieve intrinsic attitudinal and behavioural change which is required for long-term positive change if they were undertaken in isolation (Cohen et al. 1994). This is why positive reinforcement (incentives) where people are more likely to internalise the motivation are required in parallel. Moreover, the early to midterm ‘science and health communication’ and ‘knowledge exchange’ strategies will also help build intrinsic motivation which leads to sustained engagement in desired behaviours beyond the provision of initial incentives (Bardi and Schwartz 2003).