Proposed business rules to incorporate climate-induced changes in fisheries management

Abstract

Changing oceanic conditions are having impacts on living marine resources (LMRs) and their management, often in ways beyond what we have ever seen before. This is largely manifested as changes in production or location of these LMRs. The challenge has been not only to disentangle the possible causes of these changes to LMR stocks, but then even if clear changes are detected, it has been unclear what we can actually do about them. Here, we propose a set of recommended actions or "business rules"to better address climate-induced changes to LMR production and location. These emphasize a series of diagnostics which can be used to demarcate significance of whether action is necessary, and then if action is deemed necessary, we propose a set of insertion points or "on-ramps"to address the nuances of locational or production changes at every step in the science to management process. These proposed "business rules"for dealing with climate-induced changes to fisheries can always be debated, can always be updated with new information, and can always be adjusted under a given set of circumstances. But, we also assert that it would be wise to start acting on them, as a proposed set of options, given the urgency and exigency of the situation.