Abstract
Recent studies suggest that the pervasive impacts on global fishery resources caused by stressors such as overfishing and climate change could dramatically increase the likelihood of fishery conflict. However, existing projections do not consider wider economic, social, or political trends when assessing the likelihood of, and influences on, future conflict trajectories. In this paper, we build four future fishery conflict scenarios by considering multiple fishery conflict drivers derived from an expert workshop, a longitudinal database of international fishery conflict, secondary data on conflict driver trends, and regional expert reviews. The scenarios take place between the years 2030 and 2060 in the North-East Atlantic (“scramble for the Atlantic”), the East China Sea (“the remodeled empire”), the coast of West Africa (“oceanic decolonization”), and the Arctic (“polar renaissance”). The scenarios explore the implications of ongoing trends in conflict-prone regions of the world and function as accessible, science-based communication tools that can help foster anticipatory governance capacity in the pursuit of future ocean security.
Highlights
Increased human activity in our oceans and global climate change are projected to spark, or exacerbate, fishery conflict
Arctic no major fishery conflicts have erupted yet; severe climate change impacts are expected to trigger conflict some specific Arctic events (2016); tensions over northern shrimp quotas between Canada, Denmark, and Faroe Islands (2010); identified at workshop
We explored potential pathways for future fishery conflicts through the creation of four distinct evidence-based scenarios that consider the implications of ongoing trends in conflict-prone regions of the world
Summary
Increased human activity in our oceans and global climate change are projected to spark, or exacerbate, fishery conflict. Article ll marine systems, which in turn alters the distribution and potential yields of marine species.[4,5,6,7] Shifts in species’ abundance and distribution, and their catch potential, can compromise ocean security, for example, through disrupting the management of fish stocks.[2,8] Other stressors such as habitat destruction, pollution, and overfishing can exacerbate these negative impacts.[7] Overfishing, for example, has resulted in declining catches, species collapse, and even extinction.[9,10,11] In 2017, the percentage of stocks fished at biologically unsustainable levels was 34.2%, up from 10% in 1974.12 Aside from reducing fish catches and inciting competition over fish, overfishing can directly increase instances of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing,[13] which has led to an increasing array of conflicts ranging from diplomatic spats to violent clashes.[3,14] the seafood industry is only one of many sectors increasing its activities in the ocean, where conflict over food, material, and space could potentially escalate among diverse ocean actors.[15]
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