Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
will depend on understanding the social and economic dynamics of fi shing
fl eets and fi shing communities and their capacity to adapt to change (Allison
et al. 2009). According to Brander (2010), it is very diffi cult to judge who
the winners and losers will be, though there are obvious advantages for
those countries that are well-informed, well-capitalized and able to shift
to alternative areas as the circumstances change.
Allison et al. (2009) compared the vulnerability of 132 national
economies to potential climate change impacts on their fi sheries. Although
warming will be most pronounced at high latitudes, the most vulnerable
countries will be the poorest, since their inhabitants are twice dependent
upon fi sh and seafood as those of other nations. Thus, the most vulnerable
regions lie in the tropics in central and western Africa (e.g., Malawi, Guinea,
Senegal, Uganda), northwestern South-America (Peru, Colombia), and Asia
(Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and Yemen), which presents different
combinations of climate exposure, fi sheries dependence and adaptive
capacity (Allison et al. 2009).
Climate change will favor some fractions of fi sh populations that may
not be favored today and thereby change the biogeography of fi sh stocks and
their abundance (Cheung et al. 2008, Cheung et al. 2009b), which highlights
the importance of conserving biodiversity (Planque et al. 2010). For example
in Peru, the increase of sea temperature has a negative infl uence in the
pelagic artisanal fi sheries, but at the same time it attracts different tropical
and subtropical species, generating new opportunities for the fi shermen
and their community (Daw et al. 2009). An extreme would be the creation
of a complete new fi shery in the open sea as a result of the infl ow of thaw
waters of the Arctic Ocean. The adaptation capacity of the local economies,
fi sheries, communities, individuals and governance systems will determine
how viable the new fi sheries will be (Daw et al. 2009).
South-American Fisheries: Between the Climate Change, the
Variability of Climate and the Fisheries Pressure
In the present section we are going to introduce three cases (as examples)
of climatically-impacted fi sheries in South-America. The fi sheries from
South America are extremely vulnerable to climate variability (Southern
Oscillation events) since they present a combination of high economical
dependence on primary production, a lack of appropriate public polices
and ecosystem-based management, weak governance and little institutional
support (e.g., Allison et al. 2009, Pitcher et al. 2009, Brander 2010).
