Abstract
East African marine waters, particularly those impacted by the East African Coastal Current, have a reputation for data sparsity that presents significant challenges to efforts to develop, implement, and operate effective management and governance structures to sustainably manage fisheries and the marine environment. As many coastal communities are dependent upon the ocean for livelihoods and sustenance marine resources are a central component of regional food security. However, the growing challenge of increased food insecurity in response to growing human populations, increased pressures on marine resources and the impacts of climate change is significant and improved knowledge about the marine environment is urgently required to better support decision making efforts to address this challenge. In this introductory paper we present the key findings from a series of observational, numerical and socioeconomic studies addressing issues facing marine food security in the coastal regions of Tanzania and Kenya.
Highlights
East African marine waters, those impacted by the East African Coastal Current, have a reputation for data sparsity that presents significant challenges to efforts to develop, implement, and operate effective management and governance structures to sustainably manage fisheries and the marine environment
Whilst natural ma rine ecosystem variability is largely driven by the changing monsoon seasons - which induce productive coastal upwellings and significantly impact local circulation, environmental conditions and fisheries catch (Jebri et al, 2020; Jacobs et al, 2020a) - climatic forcing by the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles generate important longer-term inter-annual variability in these waters (Jacobs et al, 2020b)
With more than 16 million people currently living in the coastal zone along the path of the East African Coastal Current, and with this number expected to double by 2030 due to migration towards the coast and rapid population growth rates of 2.2% yr− 1 in Kenya and 2.9% yr− 1 in Tanzania (World Bank 2020), there is an urgent need to understand the economic and social factors affecting the dependence of coastal populations on marine resources
Summary
Coastal communities along the tropical coastlines of Tanzania and Kenya experience rates of poverty which are amongst the highest in the world (UNDP-OPHI 2020). Set against the background of a rapidly growing coastal population significantly dependent upon the ocean for food security, changes in regional marine productivity appear likely to present substantial socioeconomic challenges into the future This is not just a local problem for East Africa as across the wider Western Indian Ocean over 60 million people live within the coastal zone with many dependent upon marine ecosystems and marine resources for food security and livelihoods (UNEP-Nairobi Convention and WIOMSA, 2015; Obura et al, 2017). As the Western Indian Ocean already exhibits some of the fastest rates of environmental change in the world (Dalpa dado et al, 2021), changes to key regional fisheries, in response to rapidly warming ocean waters, are going to have significant implications over coming years
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