Conclusion
Our analysis shows that changes are needed in the way we pursue more sustainable ocean futures if we are to improve equitable outcomes. For example, rights-based approaches to sharing access and resources will need to be broadened to consider more fully who or what warrants rights and how they will be achieved. These changes will include institutional modification but will also need a progressive approach in developing decision making processes and procedures to enable more equitable outcomes, for example, active measures may be required to ensure disenfranchised minority communities have a voice in these processes. These changes will need to accommodate multiple moral and ethical world views for relating to our oceans and the communities of concern.
In the context of the Future Seas project, we recognise that science and knowledge production are immediate areas where we have agency and can work to improve equity. This includes improvements in terms of building capacity to understand and include equity issues and develop mechanisms to be more inclusive and diverse. It necessitates a challenge to some fundamental values, at every level (e.g. formal education, research training, project design, metrics of success, resourcing, power hierarchies). Only by challenging ourselves (and others) in ways that feel uncomfortable can we start to create this positive change. As members of the marine research community we commit to taking onboard this responsibility within our own lives and our research collaborations. More broadly this effort needs to be taken on by the majority of researchers engaged in science and knowledge production, to contribute to improving processes in terms of engaging with and scrutinising concepts of, and relating to, equity. If such scrutiny becomes common practise, then processes and outcomes of equity will better reflect responsibility and inclusion of diversity in futures ocean science and in our shared future sea for generations to come.