Marine fisheries provide protein for more than 3 billion people worldwide, provide employment opportunities for more than 200 million people, and make significant contributions to people’s livelihoods, food security and well-being. However, due to climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, marine environmental pollution and eutrophication, global fishery resources — including Chinese fisheries — are facing a serious decline. Read More
With a record drought depleting rivers and reservoirs, wildfires burning across the Western U.S., historic floods in Germany and China, landslides in Japan, and my own notoriously wet and dreary hometown of Portland, Oregon hitting 115 degrees recently, it’s hard to avoid thinking about climate change. But while the terrestrial impacts are wide-ranging and obvious, impacts to our oceans — no less disruptive — are generally less visible. Yet, healthy oceans are critical for sustainable fisheries and other vital ecosystem services. Fisheries provide jobs for hundreds of millions of people globally, and billions rely on seafood as an important source of protein and micronutrients.
Today, we’re introducing readers to the concept of climate resilience in marine fisheries through a new, three-part video series called “Fishing for Resilience.” As Environmental Defense Fund’s Senior Director for Resilient Fisheries, I played a central role in the creation of this short series — even “starring” in the videos as narrator.
Producing and narrating these videos was a bit of a personal journey for me, and not just because I had to listen to my own voice. It’s because I tried to bring this concept home, and found myself asking what climate change means to friends and family that ply the seas, what it means for my community, and what it means for the wildlife and ecosystems that I hold dear. That got me right into thinking about how to help the people, wildlife and broader ocean ecosystems that I care about in practical ways.
In all the years I’ve been studying the ocean, whales have provided some of my fondest memories. I remember those humpbacks singing to each other off Maui; the baby gray whale I saw rolling around in the surf near Bodega Bay; and the blue whales that left me awestruck during trips to the Channel Islands.
Lately, I’ve been studying natural ocean processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, searching for ways to restore or accelerate them so that we can safely slow down the rate of global warming. Whales might be part of the solution.
Credit: EDF/H.Plenge
By Cayetana Aljovín and Erica Cunningham
Evidence abounds showing that our world — and especially our seas — are changing. This is particularly notable in the Humboldt Current Large Marine Ecosystem, where we have seen changes in the distribution of fish stocks, temperature anomalies, wave surges, harmful algal blooms and much more. Yet, the Humboldt Current continues to be a source of fisheries productivity, livelihoods, economic development and food security for the two most important fishing nations in South America: Peru and Chile. The Humboldt Current unites these two countries, which is especially important as climate change impacts require a united front to combat them and a new way to manage fisheries.
In response to growing alarm regarding the effects of climate change on fisheries, the government of Canada demonstrated valuable global leadership recently.
In partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans hosted an international expert workshop to document practices that can be taken to help fisheries adapt to climate effects, with the intention of sharing these examples for the benefit of global society. Read More
