Adaptation - Ecosystem Approaches

So far we've looked at how the world's fisheries are likely to be affected by climate change. Today we will look at adaptation measures that can be taken. Adaptation measures involve accepting as inevitable the changes that will result from global warming and subsequently adjusting practices in order to limit the threats that these changes will pose to social and environmental systems.

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO 2014) identifies two forms of adaptation approaches. Autonomous approaches involve the 'spontaneous reaction to environmental change'. This would include the local-scale shift by fishermen from one time or location to another in with movement of species. By contrast, planned adaptation approaches involve taking 'planned action based on climate induced changes'. An example of this would be funding research to identify species that are resistant to salinity and temperature fluxes and adopting them in aquaculture schemes.

Clearly, what we see here is a distinction between 'local' environmental knowledge in the form of autonomous approaches and international-scale science as implemented by planned adaptation. As we will see later, perhaps a synthesis of the two is an option to consider in the future.

As we've seen in previous posts, one problem associated with global warming is the potential for extreme weather events (BBC 2014) which can have disruptive implications for coastal fisheries and aquaculture activities. A report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD 2014) proposes disaster risk management as a way of limiting the vulnerability of local communities and ecosystems to the effects of climate change. Traditionally this has been done through 'hard' engineering techniques, such as the construction of concrete revetments to protect coastal zones. Increasingly in recent years, however, there has been a shift to an 'ecosystems approach' to risk reduction. At the core of this is improving resilience by strengthening ecosystem stability and functioning, whilst simultaneously encouraging sustainable human activity that can maintain this ecosystem stability. This is very much a developing area of adaptation, and for more information you can enroll on this free online course run by UNEP on disasters and ecosystems which will run from January.

The FAO report (2014: 25-26) points to the Gulf of Mexico as an example of ecosystem risk management. Mexican authorities have utilised coastal restoration and wetland conservation in their ambition to bolster ecosystem functioning and thereby augment local resilience.

 

Figure 1 - Mexico's rich coastal mangrove ecosystems

Next time we'll be looking at the use of financial mechanisms and instruments in mitigation strategies.