Good Practices in the Governance of Small-Scale Fisheries, with a Focus on Rights-Based Approaches

Oct 01, 2010 | by
  • Description

Climate change, operating through related physical changes (e.g. sea level, ocean temperature) has biological implications (e.g. changes in primary productivity) which in turn produce direct impacts on human uses of the ocean (e.g., fishing, tourism, ports) and broader induced impacts on human society (e.g., social, economic, community). In fisheries, the effects of climate change are bound to interact with the effects of fishing, in their cumulative impacts on fish stocks, and on human aspects of the fishery system. It is important to recognize that the overall approach to, and the specific components of, fisheries management will have major effects on this interaction. Accordingly, this paper explores two main considerations. First, socioeconomic and behavioural aspects of fisheries need to be monitored in the face of climate change, as these will likely have strong management and assessment implications. Second, the need to address the combination of climate change and fishing as forcing factors in fisheries reinforces the necessity for adopting a broad-based precautionaryapproach to management decision making, and for re-designing management systems so that their structure and methods are more robust and adaptive.