Socioeconomic impacts of changes to marine fisheries and aquaculture that are brought about through climate change

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Stoeckl, Natalie;Larson, Silva;Thomas, Joseph;Hicks, Christina;Pascoe, Sean;Marsh, Helene
Abstract

Human societies and economies are inextricably linked to oceans and seas. Eight of the world’s ten largest cities lie adjacent to the ocean (UN Atlas of the Oceans, 2010) and about half of the world’s population lives within 200 km of a coast – a quarter within 100 km (IPCC, 2007). Oceans and seas provide a range of ecosystem services (including regulating, provisioning and cultural services) that enhance human well‐being in numerous ways (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2003, 2005; Hicks, 2011). To the extent that climate change affects ecosystems, it will affect fisheries (as discussed in the preceding chapters of this book) and, by extension, human well‐being. In this chapter, we focus on provisioning and cultural services associated with fisheries. Although important, the ocean’s regulating and supporting services, including the fixation of atmospheric carbon, are not further discussed here (for further details, see UNEP‐WCMC, 2011). We describe the numerous contributions of marine‐based ecosystems to human well‐being and the ways in which climate change and other confounding factors are likely to disrupt relationships between fishers, fisheries and fishing communities. Our three case‐studies: small‐scale, artisanal and subsistence‐based fisheries of the western Indian Ocean (WIO), fishing of cultural keystone species in the Torres Strait, and commercial fishing in Australia, serve to highlight the various changes to fisheries likely to be brought about by climate change in three markedly different contexts.

Journal

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Publication Name

Climate Change Impacts on Fisheries and Aquaculture: A Global Analysis

Volume

1

ISBN/ISSN

978-1-119-15407-5

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Pages Count

34

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Publisher

Wiley Blackwell

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Publisher Location

Chichester, UK

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Date

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EISSN

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DOI

10.1002/9781119154051.ch28