Climate change poses a growing risk to small scale fisheries as oceans warm, storms become more intense, and sea levels rise. Some important fishery species are seeing declines in productivity, and some species are moving away from traditional fishing grounds. It is important to understand which fishery species are vulnerable to climate change to help us plan more resilient fisheries systems. For example, we can guide fishing efforts away from fishing the most vulnerable species, strengthen management to buffer moderately vulnerable species, and invest in robust supply chains, sustainable fishing gear and emerging markets for the least vulnerable species. EDF has developed a new Climate Vulnerability Assessment (CVA) tool that scientists, managers, and the fishing community can use to help understand vulnerability in data-limited and small-scale fisheries. EDF recently talked about this tool and our plans to conduct a series of participatory workshops to score climate vulnerability in Caribbean fisheries at the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI) meeting in late 2021. You can listen to that recording online here. For more information about the CVA tool and about integrating climate change into small-scale fisheries management planning, please see EDF's FISHE website or contact me at gcarroll@edf.org
Thank you for sharing your presentation Gemma Carroll, the CVA seems like a great approach for SSFs in the Caribbean to plan for and manage around climate-driven changes.
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