About

John “Jack” Kittinger, Ph.D. is the inaugural Director of the Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures at Arizona State University. A globally recognized conservation scientist and leader, he brings more than two decades of experience advancing biodiversity protection, climate resilience, and regenerative economic solutions worldwide. Before joining ASU, Kittinger served as Senior Vice President at Conservation International, where he led international initiatives spanning sustainable fisheries, regenerative agriculture, and island resilience. In this role, he led a landmark effort to secure $107 million from the Green Climate Fund to support climate adaptation in Pacific Island communities, established the Hawaii Green Fee, which generates $100M annually for conservation and climate resilience, and helped secure over $40M from corporates to support nature-based solutions. At ASU, he is building a next-generation model for conservation education that integrates applied research, cross-sector partnerships, and hands-on training to prepare students and working professionals for impactful careers in conservation practice.

Research topics

• Business
• Economics
• Fishery
• Geography
• Political Science
• Economic growth
• Finance
• Ecology
• Law
• Public economics
• Biology
• Environmental science
• Environmental resource management

Selected publications

• 16. A conservation practitioner’s guide to using a human-rights-based approach: applications in small scale fisheries

  Open Book Publishers · 2025-01-30 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  Elena M. Finkbeiner, Juno Fitzpatrick, Lily Z. Zhao, Gabrielle Lout, Marissa Anne S. Miller, Juan Carlos Jeri, and John N. Kittinger’s chapter focuses on small-scale fisheries and the intricacies of engaging local communities in effective conservation planning and interventions. The authors of this piece are practitioners in the communities with which they work and focus on the importance of considering the human rights of local resource users as a critical element in framing plans that are appropriate and ethical. Individuals who are treated with respect are much more likely to engage creatively in planning, but also much more likely to act on the plan they created.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Balancing protection and production in ocean conservation

  npj Ocean Sustainability · 2024-04-15 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract With the acceleration of the global biodiversity and climate crises, the need to protect and sustainably manage ocean resources has never been greater. However, the science needed to integrate ocean protection (through marine protected areas and OECMs) and sustainable production in the blue economy (particularly pelagic fisheries) remains underdeveloped and contested. The scientific divide and the knowledge gaps still remaining have created serious real-world challenges for practitioners seeking to reconcile protection and production approaches, and is hindering progress in achieving global conservation targets. Here, we identify the vital science necessary to bring together the “twin pillars” of protection and production, integrating mutually reinforcing meaningful protections at scale, while also driving management of production systems to internationally accepted sustainability standards. The research community must rapidly develop this new horizon of ocean science – particularly in pelagic ecosystems - to aid countries and practitioners in achieving global conservation and sustainable development targets.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Insights from a community of practice: Integrating human rights in fisheries improvement

  Marine Policy · 2024-03-21 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Co‐occurrence of surf breaks and carbon‐dense ecosystems suggests opportunities for coastal conservation

  Conservation Science and Practice · 2024-08-13 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Surf breaks are increasingly recognized as socio‐environmental phenomena that provide opportunities for biodiversity conservation and sustained benefits for local communities. Here, we examine an additional benefit from improved conservation of the ecosystems that host and surround surf breaks—their coincidence with carbon dense coastal ecosystems. Using global spatial datasets of irrecoverable carbon (defined as carbon stocks that, if lost today, could not be recovered within 30 years' time), surf break locations, ecosystem types, protected areas, and Key Biodiversity Areas, we identified 88.3 million tonnes of irrecoverable carbon held in surf ecosystems. Of this total, 17.2 million tonnes are found in Key Biodiversity Areas without formal measures of protection. These results highlight surf conservation as a potential avenue to simultaneously mitigate climate change, protect biodiversity, and promote sustainable development in coastal communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cultural ecosystem services and the conservation challenges for an Indigenous people's aquatic protected area practice

  Conservation Biology · 2024-11-25 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Globally, protected areas associated with sacred sites and cemeteries are an emerging area of research. However, they are biased toward terrestrial systems. In Fiji, funerary protected areas (FPAs) in freshwater and marine systems are culturally protected by Indigenous Fijians following the burial of a loved one on clan land. First documented in the 1800s, FPAs in Fiji have not been researched despite more than 30 years of conservation efforts and countrywide comanagement of natural resources. We sought to bridge this knowledge gap by elucidating 8 socioecological attributes of Indigenous FPAs through stratified, purposive, semistructured interviews of 201 key informants across Fiji's 189 districts. Seventy-three districts actively implemented FPAs; another 34 were not being implemented because of low FPA awareness, FPA exclusion from comanagement plans, and conflicts in chief selection. Thirty-three percent of districts established FPAs for chiefs only, and 20% established FPAs for any clan member, resulting in the establishment of numerous FPAs annually. From the 1960s to 2019, 188 FPAs were established. Forty-four percent of FPAs were protected for 100 nights, and 47% protected all resources and associated ecosystems in the FPA. Only 25% of districts harvested edible fish and invertebrates; another 22% harvested edible fish only. For some chiefs' funeral rites, only turtles were harvested, which are protected by law, thereby requiring government exemption for traditional use. The FPA harvest provisions varied from engaging whole communities to engaging specific clans, such as traditional fishers or those who performed the burial. Our results showed that practices associated with FPAs in Fiji are diverse, organically evolving, and more socially nuanced and complex than the fisheries and food provisioning focus they are known for. Erosion of Indigenous knowledge and practices associated with FPAs and FPA exclusion from conservation planning will negatively affect social and ecological resilience, resulting in vulnerable communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Elevating labor concerns in small-scale fisheries: challenges to decent work in Peru’s jumbo flying squid fishery

  MAST. Maritime studies/Maritime studies · 2024-05-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Despite growing attention on severe labor abuses in seafood production, questions remain about the broader range of challenges to decent work in the sector. Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in particular have received relatively little attention from a labor-focused perspective. Motivated by this gap, this study elaborates a methodology to assess working conditions in SSFs across multiple dimensions of decent work, specifically through a case study of the artisanal jumbo squid fishery in Peru, a socially and economically important fishery in which working conditions are poorly understood. The findings highlight key decent work deficits in this fishery, including: inadequate coverage and lack of social protections; remuneration occasionally below the minimum wage; excessive working hours; increasingly longer trips in vessels that often lack adequate occupational safety and health features; informal employment relations and high turnover of crew, which are linked to safety issues (i.e., crew sometimes lack skills for this difficult work at sea); and fragmented fishing organizations with limited capacities for social dialogue. Many of the problems are rooted in or exacerbated by the broader governance context, especially widespread informality. The primary policy solutions being pursued are not labor-specific and are unlikely to address decent work deficits. Addressing these complex problems will require involving fishers—importantly, crew members—in efforts to drive improvements in the fishery and enhancing their capacities to lead in the development of solutions to the problems that affect them. More work is necessary to refine indicators and assess working conditions, but this work contributes towards advancing methodologies and highlighting the importance of studying labor in SSFs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Leveraging surf breaks for conservation of carbon-dense coastal ecosystems

  2023-10-24 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Surf breaks are increasingly recognized as socio-environmental phenomena that provide opportunities for biodiversity conservation and sustained benefits for local communities. Here, we examine an additional benefit from conserving surf breaks—their coincidence with carbon dense coastal ecosystems. Using global spatial datasets of irrecoverable carbon (defined as carbon stocks that, if lost today, could not be recovered within 30 years’ time), surf break locations, ecosystem types, protected areas, and priority areas for conservation (Key Biodiversity Areas), we identified 961 million Mg of irrecoverable carbon held in surf ecosystems. Of this total, 223 million Mg are found in Key Biodiversity Areas without formal measures of protection. These results highlight surf conservation as a potential avenue to simultaneously mitigate climate change, protect biodiversity, and promote sustainable development in coastal communities. Innovative and equitable conservation models that extend beyond excluding humans from nature will be critical to achieving these goals.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Five social science intervention areas for ocean sustainability initiatives

  npj Ocean Sustainability · 2023-12-09 · 38 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Ocean sustainability initiatives – in research, policy, management and development – will be more effective in delivering comprehensive benefits when they proactively engage with, invest in and use social knowledge. We synthesize five intervention areas for social engagement and collaboration with marine social scientists, and in doing so we appeal to all ocean science disciplines and non-academics working in ocean initiatives in industry, government, funding agencies and civil society. The five social intervention areas are: (1) Using ethics to guide decision-making, (2) Improving governance, (3) Aligning human behavior with goals and values, (4) Addressing impacts on people, and (5) Building transdisciplinary partnerships and co-producing sustainability transformation pathways. These focal areas can guide the four phases of most ocean sustainability initiatives (Intention, Design, Implementation, Evaluation) to improve social benefits and avoid harm. Early integration of social knowledge from the five areas during intention setting and design phases offers the deepest potential for delivering benefits. Later stage collaborations can leverage opportunities in existing projects to reflect and learn while improving impact assessments, transparency and reporting for future activities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Financing conservation at scale via visitor green fees

  Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution · 2022-12-20 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Conservation in the Anthropocene requires financing that is commensurate to the scale of threats to ecosystems and the benefits they provide humanity. To meet this challenge, new financing models are needed at a diversity of scales to help support the protection of nature. Visitor green fees – or payments made by visitors to management authorities, for the explicit purpose of funding natural resource management – are an innovative conservation financing tool. In contrast to park fees, these conservation finance systems operate at the scale of an entire jurisdiction, rather than a specific protected area, park or reserve. Despite their recent proliferation worldwide, there is little to no scholarly literature on visitor green fees. In this paper, we assess ten visitor green fee programs worldwide and evaluate their fee system, governance, and management approach. Our over-arching purpose is to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with these conservation financing models, to inform both the evaluation of existing models and to aid practitioners seeking to establish systems to enhance financing for conservation and the ecosystem services that nature provides tourism-dependent destinations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social equity is key to sustainable ocean governance

  npj Ocean Sustainability · 2022 · 89 citations

  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Political Science

  Abstract Calls to address social equity in ocean governance are expanding. Yet ‘equity’ is seldom clearly defined. Here we present a framework to support contextually-informed assessment of equity in ocean governance. Guiding questions include: (1) Where and (2) Why is equity being examined? (3) Equity for or amongst Whom ? (4) What is being distributed? (5) When is equity considered? And (6) How do governance structures impact equity? The framework supports consistent operationalization of equity, challenges oversimplification, and allows evaluation of progress. It is a step toward securing the equitable ocean governance already reflected in national and international commitments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: The futures of reef services in the Anthropocene

  NSF · $216k · 2019–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Larry B. Crowder

  Stanford University

  66 shared

• Elena M. Finkbeiner

  Conservation International

  62 shared

• Christina C. Hicks

  Lancaster University

  60 shared

• Alan M. Friedlander

  University of Hawaii System

  52 shared

• Joshua E. Cinner

  49 shared

• Nicholas A. J. Graham

  Lancaster University

  40 shared

• Stéphanie D’Agata

  Fondation Pour la Recherche Sur la Biodiversité

  39 shared

• David Mouillot

  Marine Biodiversity Exploitation and Conservation

  33 shared