Policy options for climate-resilient transboundary fisheries governance

• In Event: Developing Collaborative Environmental Policy Solutions in a Warming World

Abstract

Many aspects of fisheries management are strongly dependent on where fish are located. If climate change impacts suitable fish habitat, these management strategies may be vulnerable to shifts in fish distribution. For instance, many policies are based on static geographic boundaries that can become ineffective if fish populations substantially cross borders. Additionally, infrastructure (e.g. fishing gear, ports, and processing facilities) are based on historical fish patterns, and may not be adaptable to ecosystem changes. Evaluating if existing policy will be resilient to climate change requires understanding the extent and pace of shifts in fish distributions for specific species and regions. We conducted statistical spatial analysis of fish catch data and ocean temperature and oxygen to identify risks and policy options for managing fisheries under a changing climate. We evaluated over twenty bottom-dwelling fish species of commercial, cultural, and ecological importance (e.g. halibut, sablefish, pollock) in the northeastern Pacific Coast (Bering Sea through southern California). We evaluate historical sensitivities of fish distribution to environmental conditions by combining data from multiple jurisdictions (from Canada, the U.S., and international organizations) from the 1990s—2024 from fishery-independent fish catch data and co-collected observations of temperature and oxygen. Our research identifies several ongoing challenges and policy options. Overlapping jurisdictions of national, international, U.S. state agencies, and Tribal treaty rights will require sustained international collaborations to continue efforts to coordinate monitoring, surveys, and data availability that allow transboundary analysis. We also highlight sources of uncertainty that are hindering scientists’ ability to predict the effects of climate change on fish. We propose several research priorities to address these gaps: expanding laboratory measurements of fish physiology to more species, increasing the spatial and temporal coverage of ocean oxygen measurements, and testing advanced causal analysis and artificial intelligence methods for predicting fish distribution and region-specific ocean climate predictions. There are several ways fisheries managers can strengthen climate resiliency in the region, such as new transboundary agreements, changes to the harvest rules, and adaptations in the fishing industry. However, because of the extent of uncertainty in climate effects that we identified, we recommend focusing on policies that will be flexible and robust to a range of future climate scenarios.

Author

• Julia Indivero, University of Washington
  Presenting Author