Fish Fisheries doi:10.1111/j.1467-2979.2008.00310.x (2009)

Credit: DNDAVIS/123RF

The world's poorest nations will bear the brunt of climate change impacts on fisheries, suggests new research. Despite the large body of evidence that warming and related impacts will alter the distribution and productivity of individual fisheries, how this will affect national economies has remained unclear.

Now, an international team of scientists led by Edward Allison of the WorldFish Center in Penang, Malaysia, has carried out the first systematic global assessment of the economic impacts of climate change on fisheries. Allison and colleagues used an indicator-based approach to identify which of 132 nations are most vulnerable to projected climate impacts on capture fisheries — those harvested from the wild. Countries' vulnerability was assessed on the basis of three factors: exposure to climate change, the relative importance of fisheries to the national economy and diet, and the societal capacity to adapt to change — for example, through alternative employment opportunities. Of the 33 nations identified as being most vulnerable, 22 were least-developed countries.

These least-developed nations rely on fish for 27 per cent of their dietary protein and produce 20 per cent of global fishery exports, say the authors, who warn that climate-related changes in fisheries could exacerbate hunger and poverty.