Adaptation Solutions for Fisheries in Small Island Developing States
Fisheries significantly contribute to SIDS’ food security, livelihoods, and culture. The sector is essential for their economies, which often rely on marine territories far larger than their land areas. SIDS leverage their aquatic domains to produce food for their own population, for trade, or generate revenue through access fees from vessels of other countries using their fishing grounds.
Climate change has already had, and will continue to have, profound effects on the state and distribution of coastal and ocean habitats, the fish resources that they sustain and, as a result, the productivity of fisheries and aquaculture in SIDS. The socio-economic risks to the aquatic food sector include food security; livelihoods; economic development; and government revenue.
SIDS’ communities are already highly susceptible to environmental and economic shocks. It is estimated that 75% of PIC coastal fisheries-dependent communities will not meet their food security needs by 2030 due to the combined effects of, a forecast 50% growth in population, limited productivity of coastal fisheries because of climate change (exacerbated by overfishing), and inadequate national distribution networks.
What is the current state of fisheries in SIDS?
In 2021, it was estimated that nearly 680,000 people were engaged in fishing or fish farming in SIDS, with 40% engaged in the sector for subsistence. The Pacific accounted for 70% of this total, the Caribbean 20%, and AIS the remaining 10%. Sex disaggregated data indicated that nearly 18% were women.
SIDS’ marine capture fisheries are highly concentrated among a small number of producers. The top five (Papua New Guinea, Belize, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Maldives) accounted for 50% of total marine captures in 2022. Pacific countries are the main fish producers in SIDS, with over 1 million tonnes produced in 2022, representing 60% of total SIDS production. They are followed by Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea (AIS) SIDS whose production reached over 420,000 tonnes in 2022. In contrast, production in Caribbean SIDS decreased by 18% from the 2010s, down to 383,000 tonnes in 2022.
Vulnerability to climate change
Climate change already has and will continue to have an impact on aquatic ecosystems, with effects on the life cycle, productivity, spatial distribution, and species composition of fish resources. As a result, fishing and fish farming communities, as well as local and national economies that depend on these resources, will continue to be affected by changes along the entire value chain.
Projections for SIDS indicate that by the end of the century, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and Sao Tome and Principe are expected to experience the largest reductions in maximum fisheries catch potential. By 2100, Nine out of 17 Pacific Island entities could experience over 50% declines in maximum catch potential .
In the Caribbean, the negative impacts from climate change that are already obvious include coral bleaching, more frequent and intense storms and hurricanes, increased sea levels, and the influx of sargassum, all of which are disrupting fishing operations, fish landings, and fisher livelihoods.
Available adaptation solutions and good practice
The FAO Adaptation Toolbox for fisheries and aquaculture categorizes nearly 90 adaptation options into three broad areas of interventions: institutional adaptation, livelihood adaptation, and measures for risk reduction and management.
Institutional adaptation includes actions taken to adjust governance arrangements to cope with new, expected, or projected climate conditions, to moderate adverse impacts on humans, infrastructure, sectors, and ecosystems. For fisheries and aquaculture, designing a pathway for change may require a change in existing public policies, legal and institutional frameworks, as well as management and planning systems.
Livelihood diversification is an adaptive strategy that enables fishers or an actors in the aquatic food value chain to offset climate-related income losses by: changing the strategy while remaining within the aquatic food sector; adopting an additional but different strategy to create a second stream of income; or adopting a livelihood strategy in different sector.
Risk reduction and resilience building tools include activities to pool and transfer risk, promote early warning and information systems, improve risk reduction and preparedness, and enhance response to shocks from climate change impacts. For example, the Caribbean Oceans and Aquatic Sustainability Facility fisheries’ parametric insurance policy offers swift payouts to fishers and other members of the fisheries industry in Grenada and Saint Lucia within 14 days of extreme weather events. The policy covers damages to fishing vessels, equipment, and infrastructure, with compensation based on predefined thresholds for wave height, rainfall, wind, and storm surge.
The policy requirements for implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions in the aquatic food sector will vary based on the unique social, economic, environmental, and political contexts of each SIDS. However, several common elements and approaches are likely to apply across many cases. A common challenge in developing and implementing these solutions will be securing adequate funding. Mainstreaming climate change and disaster risk management into fisheries and aquaculture sector policies and practices can unlock climate finance and attract targeted funding by developing internationally, regionally, and nationally aligned plans that clearly convey the adaptation ambitions, needs, and priorities of the SIDS fisheries sector.
Box 2. Spotlight on the Pacific Tuna Fishery Vessel Day Scheme
The eight Pacific Island countries that are Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), along with Tokelau, manage the world’s largest multispecies tuna fishery. These SIDS use the Vessel Day Scheme (VDS) to manage fishing efforts, effectively adapting to climate variability such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which impacts tuna distribution. The VDS limits purse seine fishing by setting an annual Total Allowable Effort (TAE), allocated among the eight PNA members as Party Allowable Effort (PAE) limits, based largely on recent effort histories. Parties can trade PAE days to adapt to ENSO-driven changes in tuna distribution.
Based on chapter ‘Fisheries’ by Tarûb Bahri, Xuechan Ma, Diana Fernandez Reguera, Iris Monnereau (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO])
The ideas presented in this article aim to inspire adaptation action – they are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Global Center on Adaptation.
