Climate change solutions
We deliver game-changing environmental solutions that have a real impact for people around the globe.
By: Samantha Johnstone, Ocean Data Communications & Storytelling Intern, and Aubrey Taylor, High Meadows Fellow, Ocean Data
When Fishing Vessel Ocean Observing Network fishers head out on the water, they are not just fishing. They are helping scientists better understand the ocean that sustains their livelihoods and protects their communities. By just attaching a sensor to their fishing gear, fishers can collect data that is shared directly with scientists who use it to improve forecasts and monitor changing ocean conditions.
That’s why David Gatt in Scotland, Osbourne Stewart in The Bahamas, Nana Kweigyah in Ghana, and over 800 other fishers around the world participate in the Fishing Vessel Ocean Observing Network, or FVON. Participating in ocean science and filling in data gaps that exist beneath the surface of coastal waters is a way to give back to their communities, who rely on healthy oceans and accurate weather predictions.
The data collected from FVON fishing vessels are just one piece of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), the United Nations coordinating body responsible for facilitating the collection of ocean data around the world. Each GOOS network provides its own set of ocean data complementary to other networks. When taken together, these create a more complete picture of the ocean and provide critical information for scientists, policymakers and industry to make sustainable, data-driven decisions.
In May, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) – one of the organizations that co-sponsors GOOS – released three Statements of Guidance (SoGs) for Atmospheric Applications, Cryospheric Applications and Oceanic Applications. The SoGs each give an overview of current data systems and recommend a roadmap for how they could be improved and expanded according to the needs of national meteorological and hydrological services.
In the Atmospheric Applications Statement of Guidance, FVON was specifically mentioned as an exemplary and critical contributor of subsurface temperature data. The statement commended FVON’s strategy of employing sensors on fishing equipment to fill in subsurface ocean data gaps, thus creating more comprehensive coverage of the three-dimensional ocean and helping to better inform atmospheric models.
The Oceanic Applications Statement of Guidance identified several areas of growth, including the need to improve ocean, coastal and climate forecasting. Across all identified areas, temperature was continually recognized as a crucial contributor. The statement also recognized that despite its importance, large gaps remain for temperature data across the ocean. The document listed several existing observing networks already working to expand temperature observations, noting that FVON was helping to collect data in coastal and marginal sea regions, thus changing the landscape of ocean observing in difficult-to-reach regions. With additional investment and growth in observing systems like FVON, GOOS will be able to fill in gaps across the globe and create a more complete picture of our oceans.
By filling in coastal and shelf sea data gaps, FVON is revolutionizing the way scientists, fishers and policymakers understand the ocean, prepare for climate change and extreme weather events and engage in the blue economy.
By recognizing this contribution, the WMO not only shifts the paradigm for what ocean scientists are capable of achieving – but also for David, Osbourne, Nana and the global coastal communities who will benefit from more accurate weather forecasts, safer seas and a healthier ocean.
For more information, check out the FVON website or follow its social channels below:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides critical services to everyday Americans, but the Trump Administration has proposed a 26 percent cut to its budget.
By: Olivia Stevens, Project Manager, Federal Legislative Campaigns
Before a hurricane makes landfall, NOAA helps communities prepare for impact. Before fishermen head out to sea, NOAA provides information and data to ensure their catch is productive, sustainable, and safe. Before farmers plant crops, NOAA helps them make informed decisions based on weather and climate forecasts.
For more than fifty years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has served as the nation’s trusted source of weather, climate, ocean, and fisheries science. The agency’s role cannot be understated—underpinning weather safety, coastal economies, and the conservation of marine resources. As Congress and the Administration negotiate federal spending levels for fiscal year 2027, which begins October 1st, critical NOAA programs are at risk. Understanding its function and why it matters has never been more important.
NOAA was established in 1970 under President Richard Nixon as part of a government reorganization effort, consolidating several existing organizations—such as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the U.S. Weather Bureau, and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries—into one. The creation of NOAA reflected bipartisan recognition that US citizens benefit from federal investment in understanding and managing our natural resources. From the seafood we eat to the weather alerts that protect our families, NOAA provides services that Americans rely on every day—even if many never realize it.
NOAA’s services are woven into daily life.
The agency’s National Weather Service provides daily forecasts and severe storm warnings that help families, businesses, and emergency responders prepare for storms, floods, heatwaves, and more. Its predictions protect lives and reduce damages to homes, infrastructure, and local economies.
For coastal communities, NOAA provides critical information to respond to sea level rise, flooding, and changing ocean conditions. Through coastal management programs, ocean observation, and habitat restoration, NOAA helps communities make informed decisions that can mean the difference between resilient homes, roads, or power grids and leaving them vulnerable to destruction.
For the millions of people who make a living on the water, NOAA is a critical part of daily life. Commercial fishermen use NOAA data to know where fish populations are healthy, what they can legally catch, and how to plan successful seasons without depleting fish stocks they rely on. In 2023 alone, US fisheries provided nearly two million jobs and generated hundreds of billions of dollars in sales impacts—these are economies that NOAA helps sustain. The agency supports coastal businesses while keeping fisheries productive, ensuring that you and I can put sustainable seafood on the dinner table for years to come.
Perhaps most crucially, NOAA helps us understand how and why the climate is changing, and what steps communities and decision-makers can take to mitigate the worst impacts.
If you’re interested in how NOAA works for your community, check out EDF’s NOAA Footprint map.
In April, the Trump Administration released its Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request to Congress, a preliminary blueprint that is often used as a starting point for Congressional negotiations. The proposal calls for a devastating 26 percent reduction to NOAA’s budget and the elimination of 35 programs and institutes—more than $1 billion in cuts. These cuts include:
Combined, these budget and staff cuts would weaken NOAA’s ability to help keep people safe, protect communities, and support industries that depend on accurate weather forecasts and healthy oceans, making it nearly impossible for the agency to carry out its vital mission.
As the climate continues to change, we’ll be forced to contend with its consequences: rising seas, stronger storms, worsening floods, and changing ocean conditions. Agencies like NOAA are needed more than ever to help us understand how and why the climate is changing and deliver innovative solutions to protect people and the resources we depend on.
There are reasons to remain hopeful. Last year, the administration proposed similarly steep reductions to NOAA’s budget, which Congress ultimately rejected. As they draft this year’s budget bills, Congress faces the same choice: enact cuts that weaken one of the nation’s most valuable scientific agencies or set commonsense funding levels that allow NOAA to operate as it was intended, investing in a more fruitful and resilient future.
How solar technology is transforming India’s small-scale fisheries
By: Jacob Eurich, EDF’s Small-Scale Fisheries Solutions Scientist
In fishing villages along the coast of Tamil Nadu, India, dried fish, known locally as karuvadu, is an important dietary staple and source of income. Traditionally, women dry fish on open beaches under the sun, spending long, strenuous hours monitoring the catch. The resulting product is high in salt, contaminated by sand, dust, and insects, and because of this, there is a reduced shelf life and sales are limited to local markets where it fetches low prices. But a simple, portable technology is beginning to change that.
Portable mini solar dryers installed near fisherwomen’s homes in a Tamil Nadu fishing village allow hygienic fish drying without the need for constant supervision. Photo credit: MSSRF.
New research on solar drying and women’s livelihoods
In a new paper published in Environmental Research: Food Systems, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Environmental Defense India Foundation (EDIF), and the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) examined the introduction of portable mini solar dryers to fisherwomen in two Tamil Nadu villages: Madathukuppam and Vanagiri. The study documents how this low-cost technology, designed by MSSRF, is reshaping post-harvest fish processing while supporting the women who do the work.
The solar dryers, which are small structures that can be set up beside a fisherwoman’s home, use solar energy to dry fish in a controlled and enclosed environment. Compared to traditional open-air methods, the dryers produce fish with a longer shelf life and improved hygiene. The result is a product that appeals to a broader consumer base, including inland and urban buyers who had previously avoided traditionally dried fish due to concerns about quality.
But the project found that the benefits extend well beyond product quality. Women using the solar dryers reported significant time savings, freeing hours previously spent guarding fish from birds on open beaches. That time was redirected toward family, rest, and other economic activities. The dryers also reduced women’s exposure to extreme heat and the physical toll of traditional drying. In a sector where women’s contributions are often undervalued, the technology created a pathway to improved wellbeing and economic independence.
The portable solar fish dryers use the sun’s energy to dry fish in a controlled and enclosed environment. Credit: MSSRF.
Why it matters for blue food systems
India is one of the world’s largest fish-producing nations, and dried fish is a critical source of affordable protein and micronutrients. Yet post-harvest loss remains high across India’s small-scale fisheries. This work demonstrates that relatively simple, locally appropriate innovations can reduce those losses while strengthening the role of women in fisheries value chains.
The solar dryer model also speaks to a broader challenge in small-scale fisheries worldwide: how to improve livelihoods and nutrition outcomes without requiring large-scale infrastructure investments. By meeting fisherwomen where they are and building on existing practices, the approach offers a scalable template for other coastal communities facing similar issues.
Connecting research to action
This research is part of EDF and EDIF’s growing engagement with India’s fisheries sector, working alongside partners in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to develop climate-resilient, community-centered approaches to fisheries management. The goal is ambitious: demonstrate scalable models that benefit 50,000 fishers by 2030, and support all nine of India’s coastal states in adopting sustainable fisheries management by 2040.
Scaling innovations like the solar dryer will require supportive policy. A recent policy brief by EDIF’s Dr. Vijai Dharmamony shows how fragmented governance across India’s coastal states, with varying regulations on gear and licensing, can complicate efforts to adopt and scale good approaches. Coordinating fisheries governance while being flexible for local contexts will be key to ensuring that innovations for fisherwomen in Tamil Nadu can eventually benefit coastal communities across the country.
###
Eurich, J. G., Turner, C., Simaachana, S., Shwetha Tony, A., Anbuvahini, N. A., Thamizhazhagan, E., Selvarasu, T., Bhogte, A., Dharmamony, V., Kelso, K., Velvizhi, S. (2026). Solar drying blue foods supports women and strengthens value chains, equity, and climate resilience in India. Environmental Research: Food Systems. 3: 023002. https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/ae708b
Insurance that Builds Resilience for the Ocean & Coastal Communities
By: EDF’s Sepp Haukebo, Director of Ocean Resilience Initiatives
INSURANCE. What emotions stir when you hear that one word? For some, it might evoke memories of rebuilding a home or a life thanks to the coverage provided. Others might feel abandonment. After years of paying monthly premiums, you learn that your insurer and many others pulled out of your community, like after wildfires or hurricanes/cyclones. And for too many around the world, insurance feels like a far-off dream, impossible to obtain or afford…but perhaps, available one day through an innovative approach or public-private intervention.
EDF recently embarked on a global landscape analysis to identify how such interventions and insurance products are driving adaptation and resilience (A&R). The full results will be shared through a report and webinar this summer – you can sign up here to receive updates. In our first blog about this work, we outlined how insurers can engage across the entire climate risk lifecycle. Now, let’s look at how governments, insurers, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are partnering to drive A&R specifically within ocean and coastal communities.
Why explore the intersection of insurance and the ocean?
The ocean covers three-fourths of the planet and plays a critical role in regulating the climate, absorbing a lot of the world’s heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Hundreds of millions of people directly depend on the oceans for their livelihoods, and 3 billion people rely on seafood as a primary source of protein and vital micronutrients that are not easily replaced. In short, a vibrant ocean is essential to life on earth.
As a part of our analysis, we found innovative ways insurers are already supporting the ocean and the people that depend on it. We also found key gaps that still need to be filled. We’ve come across insurance that covers mangrove forests, coral reefs, and surf ecosystems. We learned about ocean-focused parametric insurance1, livelihood insurance2, reinsurance3, and microinsurance4. We also explored insurance for ‘debt-for-nature’ swaps, helping build ecological and economic resilience for entire nations.
While some of these concepts might seem far-fetched on paper, it’s important to remember that nature provides extensive economic services and value to communities, companies and nations. Insurance that incentivizes risk reduction for our oceans and coastal communities isn’t just smart conservation; it’s also smart business.
Key findings for advancing insurance-based solutions:
Each insurance instrument we researched was unique, but we found five common themes that may help insurers, non-profits, and governments exploring partnerships in this space.
1. Insurance covering climate-related disasters is critical, but persistent extremes need coverage too. Climate change is driving extreme conditions across many regions, from dangerous temperatures to more dangerous seas. For the latter, Rare and Willis developed a parametric livelihood insurance that pays fishers for lost fishing days when wind speed and wave height reach specific extremes. This incentivizes fisherfolk not to fish when the weather is unsafe, and it reduces the likelihood of overfishing because fishers don’t have to fish twice as hard to make up for lost wages when the weather turns fair again.
2. Gender-focused insurance programs can drive equitable resilience. In India, HERA (with support from the Howden Foundation) and the Self-Employed Women’s Association crafted a parametric insurance measure that reduces female entrepreneurs’ exposure to dangerous heat by paying out wages when heat thresholds are exceeded. (Note: Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths globally and is predicted to get worse with continued climate change.) The insurance, in conjunction with early warning systems and community education, is protecting the women from heat illness and high medical costs, while minimizing shocks to the supply chains that depend upon the self-employed women. We didn’t come across any gender-focused insurance instruments in coastal communities, but there is a significant need, given that 45 million women participate in small-scale fisheries (SSF) worldwide, contributing to 50% of post-harvest SSF activities.
3. Public-private partnerships unlock new possibilities to expand coverage. Some initiatives require a philanthropic kickstart, like the examples listed above. Another interesting example is the Miami Foundation’s funding of parametric insurance for local communities. In some regions, countries have pooled their resources and risks together to improve access to insurance tools that help mitigate financial risk and can provide post-disaster payouts. These include SEADRIF, (Southeast Asia), CCRIF (Caribbean and Central America), ARC Ltd. (Africa), and PCRIC (Pacific) which provide disaster risk financing and parametric insurance to member countries, helping countries prepare for and respond to extreme weather events.
4. Insurance can unlock capital and new projects, but the reverse is also true: without insurance, many large projects can’t move forward. World Wildlife Fund, The UNEP FI Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), and UNESCO recognized this critical link and developed a pledge for insurers to protect World Heritage Sites. The results were astounding, with over 24 major insurance companies around the world signing a commitment to “protect World Heritage Sites through risk management services, insurance products and/or investments”. Notably, a rejection from insurance ultimately stopped the development of a controversial dam project right near a World Heritage Site in Australia.
5. Every insurer in the world* uses data to assess risk, and the oceans have vast data gaps compared to the land (*note we did not interview every single insurer in the world). Data is key to calculating risk, and some insurers have created their own commercial platforms dedicated to advising and educating customers about risk, especially climate risk (e.g., AXA Altitude andAllianz’s GLORIA). EDF is helping fill data gaps through innovative partnerships like the Fishing Vessel Ocean Observation Network. Much more work is needed to fill these gaps to improve risk modeling, tropical storm forecasting, and multi-hazard early warning systems.
Perhaps most importantly, we learned that leadership and partnerships matter. Across our research, we heard how leaders from a company, government, or community came to the table to find solutions and form a collaboration that helped people become more resilient to specific risks. Partnerships are critical to customize solutions based on local needs and to scale via operational efficiencies. We heard, and took to heart, that insurance and collaboration can mean the difference between a short-term crisis and a catastrophe with long-term harm. For our oceans and the communities that depend on them, let’s make sure we get this right.
To receive updates and our final report, sign up here: https://mailchi.mp/edf/8nfccjwe8s
International trade shapes access to blue nutrients in Pacific Island Countries
By: Keiko Nomura, University of Colorado Boulder, and EDF’s Jacob Eurich
Blue foods like fish, shellfish, and algae are central for diets around the world. Beyond calories, they deliver “blue nutrients” important to people’s health, like protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and essential vitamins and minerals that are hard to replace with land-based foods. Yet the future of blue food faces growing pressure from climate change, shifting consumer demand, and the ongoing challenge of sustainable fisheries management. Among these pressures, international trade stands out as a powerful force shaping who gets access to these resources and where they end up. While seafood is among the world’s most traded commodities, a large proportion is sourced from developing countries.
In Pacific Island Countries, blue foods play a central role in diets, culture, and livelihoods. Fishing remains a cornerstone of local economies, with most of the world’s tuna harvested from the Western Pacific. However, global trade patterns often redistribute seafood – and thus blue nutrients – away from where they are caught and toward high-income countries. When so much of the Pacific’s catch flows abroad via trade, what does that mean for blue nutrient retention within Pacific Island communities?
New Science on Blue Nutrient Flows
In a recent paper in Fish and Fisheries, researchers examined how Pacific Island Countries fit into the global seafood system, and how trade redistributes blue nutrients across borders. Using nutrient information and new high-resolution global datasets that track seafood production and trade by species, the researchers were able to trace how nutrients move through international supply chains in ways that weren’t feasible before.
The study found that Pacific Island Countries are major sources of blue nutrients, driven largely by tuna fisheries, but much of that value leaves the region. On average, Pacific Island Countries export about 54% of the total blue nutrient production from fisheries. These exports lead to substantial nutrient losses that may otherwise contribute to local diets. The study also showed that the trade network itself is fragmented and dominated by a handful of central countries. Within this system, Papua New Guinea and Fiji act as key hubs in the trade network, connecting Pacific nations to distant markets and influencing how blue nutrients circulate.
Balancing Trade & Local Nutrition Needs
This research offers a novel, data-driven look at how blue nutrients move through international trade, showing that seafood exchanges are not just about economics but also about nutrition and equity. By leveraging large global datasets, the study reveals both the dependencies and vulnerabilities that define the global seafood system.
For fisheries policy and management, the findings highlight the need to better integrate nutrition goals into fisheries governance and trade planning. For instance, strengthening local supply chains, designing equitable trade agreements to better serve producing countries, and prioritizing nutrition in blue food policies could help Pacific Island Countries capture more of the benefits from their own marine resources. Investing more in local coastal fisheries capacity could also enhance the nutrition these systems already provide. These efforts are increasingly recognized across the region and internationally, and this new science adds evidence to ongoing conversations about where change is most needed.
As the world becomes more interconnected, the challenge is clear: how to balance the economic opportunities of trade with the nutritional needs of communities. Getting that balance right will be key to building food systems that are not only sustainable and resilient but also fair and nourishing as blue foods play a growing role in feeding the world.
Connecting Research to Action
EDF is a joint secretariat of the Aquatic Blue Food Coalition, which brings together partners to champion aquatic foods for healthy diets, resilient livelihoods, and a changing climate. The coalition started with the UN Food Systems Summit to help unlock the potential of blue foods for food security, climate resilience, and biodiversity. Visit aquaticbluefood.org to explore the coalition’s work and see how blue foods can play a bigger role in shaping sustainable food systems.
By: Kristin Kleisner and Sarah Swain
The mesopelagic zone, one of the most important parts of the ocean’s most important climate-regulating system, is under threat just as we’re beginning to understand its true value. With IUCN members preparing to vote on Motion 035 this October, we have a narrow window to protect this climate-critical ecosystem before industrial exploitation of the mesopelagic zone begins. (more…)
