Project

SNAPP: Climate Resilient Fisheries Working Group

Identifying and operationalizing resilience in fisheries

Climate change is altering fish stocks and the flows of benefits derived from fisheries. Fishery management systems need to be designed to support fisheries resilience in the context of ecosystem change and uncertainty. This working group draws together experts from around the world to identify key features of resilience and approaches to operationalize them in a diverse range of fishery management systems.

Project Goals:

Identify key features of climate-resilient fisheries and apply them to fishery management systems.
Develop a decision-making support tool to help managers identify resilience capacity and needs.
Work with leaders of fishery management organizations to tailor results and products for global, national, and regional applications.

As climate change affects the productivity and distribution of fish stocks, it also alters the income, job opportunities, and nutritional benefits derived from fisheries. The nature of these impacts and how they affect the flows of benefits is mediated by the management context within which fisheries operate. Most fishery management systems rely on historical experiences to guide management, but effective fisheries management under climate change will require responsive, adaptive systems that confer resilience and buffer climate impacts.

This SNAPP working group will play a key role in developing guidance on management approaches, processes, and tools that can operationalize and implement resilience principles in fisheries around the world. We will bring fisheries experts and practitioners from nearly every continent together to address three questions:

What key features make fisheries inherently resilient to the effects of climate change?
What approaches and tools confer resilience for fishery systems affected by climate change?
How can practitioners diagnose system resilience and identify ways in which resilience can be supported in order to enhance sustainability, economic benefits, and human well-being and equity?

We will develop a decision-making support tool to help managers find information, examples, and recommendations relevant to a diverse range of fishery types and management approaches.

Project Team

Kathy Mills, Ph.D.

Research Scientist
[email protected]
Kanae Tokunaga, Ph.D.

Associate Research Scientist
[email protected]
Andrew Pershing, Ph.D.

Adjunct Scientist & Former Chief Scientific Officer
[email protected]
Kristin Kleisner, Ph.D.

Environmental Defense Fund
Pat Sullivan, Ph.D.

Cornell University

Project Sponsor

This project is funded by SNAPP: Science for Nature and People Partnership. SNAPP is a partnership of The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This SNAPP team is part of a cohort funded by the generosity of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to address the theme of Oceans, Climate and Equity.