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To promote the resilience and sustainability of coastal social-ecological systems (SES), it is necessary to implement adaptive and participatory management schemes. Successful examples of adaptation to the rapid change in coastal SES exist, but the question of whether these cases may be scalable to other regions and contexts remains. To this end, the present study aimed to identify how successful management strategies implemented in a fishing cooperative in Baja California, Mexico, can be adapted to other coastal SES. In particular, this study aimed to understand whether adaptive co-management of Isla Natividad (IN) could be replicated in Isla Todos Santos (ITS), a biophysically similar coastal SES to IN but with different results with regard to fisheries management. We found that the resource systems and resources in both SESs were similar. However, there were substantial differences with regard to governance and resource users. In Isla Natividad, the level of organization orchestrated by the resource users has contributed to establishing rules and sanctions that have supported the sustainable use of fishery resources. On the contrary, in ITS, the number of resource users and their socioeconomic attributes have impeded the establishment of effective rules or sanctions. The results of this study suggest that the ITS governance system needs to be improved in order to adapt some of the IN management strategies to increase its adaptive capacity. To promote successful adaptive management, it is necessary to develop context-specific adaptive pathways that contribute to greater resilience in the SESs of this region and in other regions that face similar conditions. 

As a member of the “High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy”, Mexico has committed to expand community-based marine conservation. We draw from more than two decades of experience to outline how existing resources may be leveraged to help inform the country’s ambitious conservation plans. A total of 514.12 km 2 have already been protected under community-based marine reserves. 14 years of ecological survey data, more than 130 community surveyors, more than one hundred publications, and an entire digital infrastructure provide a solid platform on which to continue building the community-based marine conservation movement. Parallel and complimentary efforts have advanced regulation, action, data access and transparency, and coordination. Future interventions should innovate, but leverage existing resources and continue to involve communities. 

Declining oxygen is one of the most drastic changes in the ocean, and this trend is expected to worsen under future climate change scenarios. Spatial variability in dissolved oxygen dynamics and hypoxia exposures can drive differences in vulnerabilities of coastal ecosystems and resources, but documentation of variability at regional scales is rare in open-coast systems. Using a regional collaborative network of dissolved oxygen and temperature sensors maintained by scientists and fishing cooperatives from California, USA, and Baja California, Mexico, we characterize spatial and temporal variability in dissolved oxygen and seawater temperature dynamics in kelp forest ecosystems across 13° of latitude in the productive California Current upwelling system. We find distinct latitudinal patterns of hypoxia exposure and evidence for upwelling and respiration as regional drivers of oxygen dynamics, as well as more localized effects. This regional and small-scale spatial variability in dissolved oxygen dynamics supports the use of adaptive management at local scales, and highlights the value of collaborative, large-scale coastal monitoring networks for informing effective adaptation strategies for coastal communities and fisheries in a changing climate.