Scenarios for coastal First Nations' fisheries under climate change : impacts, resilience and adaptation potential ...

• Main Author: Weatherdon, Lauren Vanessa
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2014
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0167585; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0167585

Recent studies have demonstrated ways in which climate-related shifts in the distribution and relative abundance of marine species are expected to alter the dynamics and catch potential of global fisheries. While these studies focus on assessing impacts to commercial fisheries, few efforts have been made to quantitatively project impacts to small-scale fisheries that are economically, socially and culturally important to many coastal communities. This study uses a dynamic bioclimate envelope model to project scenarios of climate-related changes in the relative abundance, distribution and richness of 98 exploited marine fishes and invertebrates that are of commercial and cultural importance to First Nations in coastal British Columbia, Canada. Declines in relative abundance are projected for most of the sampled species (n = 84 to 95; x̅ = -15.0% to -20.8%) under both the lower and upper scenarios of climate change, with poleward range shifts occurring at a mean rate of 2.9 and 4.5 kilometres decade-1 for ...