Abstract
Abstract At first glance, large-scale fisheries may seem adaptable to climate change. Adaptation takes place from the governance to the individual level of fishers. At the individual level, skippers make day-to-day decisions on where to fish and are at the forefront of the response to changes at sea. We seek to understand such individual adaptation in large-scale fisheries, using the case of the Spanish tropical tuna fishery. We surveyed 22% of Spanish freezer purse seine skippers operating in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. In the last 10 years, more than half of skippers used new technology to search for tunas and expanded their fishing area as adaptation actions. Using cluster analysis, we identified two skipper groups—based on stated behaviours to confront different hypothetical scenarios of catch decline—that would follow adaptation or transformation strategies. The majority of skippers would follow adaptation strategies until a hypothetical 30% catch decrease and then choices diverge. Skipper characteristics, such as importance given to intergenerational knowledge, perceptions of change in tropical tuna abundance, and years working in the current job, can explain the adaptation and transformation choices. These findings help understand the potential for adaptation behaviour by skippers involved in fisheries confronting catch declines.
Highlights
The marine environment is currently and will continue to face profound transformations triggered by climate change (IPCC, 2019a)
The two most commonly reported adaptation actions were using new technology to search for tunas and fishing area expansion, which were nominated by 59% of skippers
About 10% of skippers did not state any change in their behaviour, while 7% of skippers had searched for new ports
Summary
The marine environment is currently and will continue to face profound transformations triggered by climate change (IPCC, 2019a). Two recent reviews on how marine systems and fisheries adapt to climate impacts highlight the lack of examples of concrete adaptation actions and measures in the marine literature (Lindegren and Brander, 2018; Miller et al, 2018). With regard to specific factors triggering human adaptation responses in recreational or commercial fisheries, only a few recent studies show key aspects explaining adaptation Frawley et al, 2019; Barnes et al, 2020), or stated adaptation behaviour (van Putten et al, 2017). Findings on stated behaviour help understand the potential for adaptation that can be incentivized through policy (van Putten et al, 2017)
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