New study identifies economies that will suffer most as climate change imperils

Research on fisheries worldwide warns climate change combined with fisheries dependency and limited capacity to adapt pose dangerous triple threat to countries in Africa, South America and Asia

…The world’s fisheries provide more than 2.6 billion people with at least 20 percent of their average annual per capita protein intake, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The “highly vulnerable” countries identified in the WorldFish study, which was funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), produce 20 percent of the world’s fish exports (by value). The researchers note that these countries should be a priority for adaptation efforts that will allow them to endure the effects of climate change and maintain or enhance the contribution that fisheries can make to poverty reduction.

“From a strictly environmental perspective, countries in the higher latitudes will see the most pronounced impact from climate change on fishing,” said Edward Allison, director of policy, economics and social science at WorldFish and the paper’s lead author. “But economically, people in the tropics and subtropics likely will suffer most, because fish are so important in their diets and because they have limited capacity to develop other sources of income and food.”

EurekAlert