Actions to Promote and Achieve Climate-Ready Fisheries: Summary of Current Practice

Abstract

Climate change impacts to ocean ecosystems are altering the distribution and abundance of fish populations and impacting the people whose health, well-being, and livelihoods depend on them. Thousands of published papers make it very clear that fish are on the move, alterations in productivity are occurring, and natural and human ecosystems are responding to climate variability and change. Across the globe, numerous high-level strategies have been developed to provide guidance for managing fisheries in the face of climate change, but specific examples of implementation and actionable decision making in real-world situations to address climate change impacts are generally lacking. Here we present a review of tangible actions that have been undertaken to reduce, mitigate, and confront climate change impacts to fisheries at a range of levels from individual choice to federal governance. Actions fall into seven general categories covering conservation of natural marine resources, emerging fisheries, reference points, future planning, integrated monitoring and management, and increasing adaptive capacity across all levels. We found that diverse fishery actors around the globe, including managers, scientists, and industry, are taking actions to address climate impacts, but given the scale of the problem there are relatively few intentional, well-documented examples of tactical responses.