Abstract
Planned adaptation to climate impacts and subsequent vulnerabilities will necessarily interact with autonomous responses enabled within existing fisheries management processes and initiated by the harvest and post-harvest components of fishing industries. Optimal adaptation options are those which enable negative effects to be mitigated and opportunities that arise to be maximised, both in relation to specific climate-driven changes and the broader fisheries system. We developed a two-step participatory approach to evaluating adaption options for key fisheries in the fast-warming hotspot of south-eastern Australia. Four fisheries (southern rock lobster, abalone, snapper and blue grenadier) were selected as case studies on the basis of their high to moderate vulnerability to climatic effects on species distribution and abundance. Involved stakeholders undertook a “first pass” screening assessment of options, by characterising and then evaluating options. In the characterisation step potential adaptation options for each fishery, contextualised by prior knowledge of each species’ climate change exposure and sensitivity, were described using a characterisation matrix. This matrix included: the specific climate vulnerability/challenges, the implications of each option on the fishery system as a whole, the temporal and spatial scales of implementation processes, and realised benefits and costs. In the evaluation step, semi-quantitative evaluation of options was undertaken by stakeholders scoring the anticipated performance of an option against a pre-determined set of criteria relating to perceived feasibility, risk (inclusive of potential costs) and benefit. Our screening assessment represents a pragmatic approach to evaluate and compare support for and the effects of alternative adaptation options prior to committing to more detailed formal and resource intensive evaluation or implementation.
Highlights
Climate-driven changes in the productivity and distribution of marine fish stocks targeted for commercial use are being observed and predicted globally (Cheung et al, 2009, 2010; Hiddink et al, 2015; Weatherdon et al, 2016)
Planned responses to reduce the vulnerability of commercially important fish stocks and associated fisheries include increasing the resilience of fish stocks to the ecological effects of climatedriven changes and to fishing pressures (Szuwalski and Hollowed, 2016; Pratchett et al, 2017; Le Bris et al, 2018), as well as increasing the adaptive capacity of fishing industries and management systems to adjust to secondary effects of changing productivity and distribution (Aguilera et al, 2015)
Across the four fisheries 100 adaptation options were identified to address the vulnerability arising from the following broad climate challenges: changed productivity; changed availability; disease expression; changed product quality; altered habitats; altered weather patterns; acidification; and indirect effects arising from changed availability of co-occurring target species (Table 3)
Summary
Climate-driven changes in the productivity and distribution of marine fish stocks targeted for commercial use are being observed and predicted globally (Cheung et al, 2009, 2010; Hiddink et al, 2015; Weatherdon et al, 2016). Planned responses to reduce the vulnerability of commercially important fish stocks and associated fisheries include increasing the resilience of fish stocks to the ecological effects of climatedriven changes and to fishing pressures (Szuwalski and Hollowed, 2016; Pratchett et al, 2017; Le Bris et al, 2018), as well as increasing the adaptive capacity of fishing industries and management systems to adjust to secondary effects of changing productivity and distribution (Aguilera et al, 2015) Such responses may vary in timeframe, spatial extent, degrees of change, and level of state agency or private actor involvement (Miller et al, 2018; Pecl et al, 2019). Responses span both public domains (i.e., public agency management of fisheries) and private interest domains (i.e., recreational and commercial fishery industries) and highlight the complex system properties of fisheries (Lehuta et al, 2016; Selim et al, 2016) and the need to apply a broader governance framework in order to optimize outcomes of adaptation responses (Dutra et al, 2019)
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