Fishing and the future of coral reefs

New fishery regulations based on science are needed in the Caribbean to give coral reefs a fighting chance against climate change, according to an international study published today. The study, led by University of Queensland researchers, reveals that Caribbean coral reefs are experiencing mounting pressure from global warming, local pollution and over-fishing of herbivorous fish. Study author Dr Yves-Marie Bozec, from UQ's School of Biological Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said herbivorous parrotfish were needed because they eat seaweed, which can smother coral and prevent corals from recovering. "While several countries in the Caribbean have taken the bold step of banning the fishing of parrotfish (including Belize, Bonaire, Turks and Caicos Islands), parrotfish fisheries remain in much of the region," Dr Bozec said. The research team analysed the effects of fishing on parrotfish and combined this with an analysis of the role of parrotfish on coral reefs. "We conclude that unregulated fisheries will seriously reduce the resilience of coral reefs," Dr Bozec said. "However, implementation of size limits and catch limits to less than 10 per cent of the fishable stock provide a far better outlook for reefs, while also allowing the fishery to persist." Study co-author Professor Peter Mumby from UQ's School of Biological Sciences said a number of countries wanted to modify their fisheries to reduce impacts on reefs. "What we've done is identify fisheries' policies that might help achieve this," Professor Mumby said. The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, argues that science should be used to revise current fisheries practices for herbivorous fish. The authors have provided tools to help fisheries managers make such changes. "Ultimately, the more we do to maintain healthy coral reefs, the more likely it is that fishers' livelihoods will be sustained into the future," Professor Mumby said. "We already know that failure to maintain coral habitats will lead to at least a threefold reduction in future fish catches." Explore further: Coral Reefs: Ever Closer to Cliff's Edge More information: Tradeoffs between fisheries harvest and the resilience of coral reefs, PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1601529113  Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences   Provided by: University of Queensland   http://phys.org/news/2016-04-fishing-future-coral-reefs.html

LAC Countries Take Action Towards Ending Hunger by 2025

3 March 2016: The 34th Session of the Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) adopted a number of measures to achieve the region's goal to eradicate hunger by 2025, five years ahead of the deadline agreed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Goal 2 is End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture, and the Goal's first target calls to, "by 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round."

The LAC conference focused on three priorities: consolidating regional efforts towards eradicating hunger and malnutrition; promoting family farming, inclusive food systems and sustainable rural development; and the sustainable use of natural resources in the context of adaptation to climate change and disaster risk management.

In his address to the Conference, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva commended the region's advances in combating hunger, and said LAC countries have an opportunity to be the first region to achieve SDG 2. He said FAO will continue supporting key activities such as the Hunger Free Latin America and the Caribbean initiative, and the Food Security, Nutrition and Hunger Eradication Plan of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

Conference delegates decided to develop a priority regional initiative on the sustainable use of natural resources in the context of climate change adaptation and disaster risk management, which will focus on climate change adaptation in Latin America's Dry Corridor, a region experiencing more frequent and erratic droughts caused by climate change. Other outcomes include: agreement with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to support implementation of the second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), which took place in 2014; agreement with Consumers International on strengthening action to reduce obesity in the region; and a new initiative to support family agriculture, inclusive food systems and sustainable rural development.

The FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean takes place every two years to coordinate efforts in eradicating hunger and establishing FAO's regional priorities. The 34th session took place from 29 February to 3 March 2016, in Mexico City, Mexico. [FAO Press Release, 25 Feb] [FAO Press Release, 1 Mar] [FAO Press Release, 3 Mar] [Conference Website] [Video Coverage (in Spanish)] [Hunger Free LAC Initiative] [CELAC Plan for Food and Nutrition Security and Eradication of Hunger 2025] [IISD RS Story on 2016 CELAC Summit]

related meetings:34th Session of FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and Caribbean

read more: http://larc.iisd.org/news/lac-countries-take-action-towards-ending-hunger-by-2025/

---

 

© Climate War Room

FAO Reports Address Disaster Risk Management in Fisheries and Aquaculture

March 2015: The Fisheries and Aquaculture Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has published a number of reports addressing climate change vulnerability in fisheries and aquaculture based on six regional studies, and disaster risk management (DRM) in fisheries and aquaculture in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the wider Caribbean region.

The report titled ‘Climate Change Vulnerability in Fisheries and Aquaculture: A Synthesis of Six Regional Studies' came about due to the scarcity of information on climate impacts on the sector, with FAO launching six regional case studies to fill the information gaps and provide guidance towards adaptation planning. The case studies, which were undertaken in the Lake Chad Basin, the Caribbean, the Mekong Delta, the Benguela Current, the Pacific Island countries and territories, and Latin America, aimed to: define vulnerability to climate change by understanding potential impacts, sensitivities to such changes and adaptive capacity; identify knowledge gaps in assessing vulnerability; and identify strategies for, and provide policy guidance in reducing vulnerability to climate change.

The other publications focus specifically on DRM and adaptation in the Caribbean. A regional report from a workshop held in Kingston, Jamaica, from 10-12 December 2012, on formulating a strategy, action plan and programme for fisheries and aquaculture, addresses: resilience building and the reduction of vulnerabilities; the regional trend towards adaptation; the development of a regional DRM framework; and regional initiatives in advancing DRM and adaptation. The workshop recommended finalizing and implementing a strategy, action plan and programme proposal in order to strengthen regional and national cooperation, and develop capacity in addressing climate change impacts and disasters in fisheries and aquaculture.

Another document describes a series of local, national and regional programme proposals for the Caribbean. The strategy and action plan publication discusses: mainstreaming climate change adaptation strategies into sustainable development; promoting the implementation of specific adaptation measures to address regional vulnerabilities; promoting actions to reduce emissions through fossil fuel reduction and conservation, and transitioning to renewable and cleaner energy sources; promoting actions to reduce the vulnerability to the impacts of climate change in CARICOM countries; and promoting efforts to gain social, economic and environmental benefits from managing forests in the Caribbean. More

[Publication: Climate Change Vulnerability in Fisheries and Aquaculture: A Synthesis of Six Regional Studies] [Publication: DRM and Climate Change Adaptation in the CARICOM and Wider Caribbean Region: Formulating a Strategy, Action Plan and Programme for Fisheries and Aquaculture] [Publication: DRM and Climate Change Adaptation in the CARICOM and Wider Caribbean Region: Programme Proposals] [Publication: DRM and Climate Change Adaptation in the CARICOM and Wider Caribbean Region: Strategy and Action Plan]

 

©

Threat to food security

Warming sea temperatures and ocean acidification put the millions around the world who rely on the sea, at risk.

He sat shirtless on his thin bamboo floor in a home built on posts rising out of the Banda Sea. Tadi had just returned in his dugout canoe from scanning crevices in a nearby reef for octopus. He and his neighbours spend every day this way – scouring the ocean for something to eat or sell. Fishing, here, is about survival.

Their stilt village on Hoga Island, Indonesia, has no industry, no land, no running water. They dive without oxygen, wearing hand-carved wooden goggles, and carry spearguns hacked from logs with their machetes. They eat what they catch and sell the rest, using the money to buy everything else they need: boat fuel, root vegetables, rice and wood.

Without fishing, “how would I feed my family?” asked Tadi, who like many Indonesians has only one name.

Now Tadi’s community, like countless others across the globe, is on a collision course with the industrialised world’s fossil fuel emissions. Hundreds of millions of people around the world rely on marine life susceptible to warming temperatures and ocean acidification, the souring of seas from carbon dioxide emitted by burning coal, oil and natural gas. That includes US Pacific Northwest oyster growers and crabbers in the frigid Bering Sea, who now face great uncertainty from shifts in marine chemistry.

But from Africa to Alaska, many coastal communities face a substantially greater risk. These cultures are so thoroughly dependent on marine life threatened by carbon dioxide that a growing body of research suggests their children or grandchildren could struggle to find enough food. The science of deciphering precisely who might see seafood shortages remains embryonic, but with many of the most at-risk coastal communities already facing poverty, marine pollution, over-fishing and rising seas, the potential for calamity is high.

“I can’t tell you how many people will be affected,” said Sarah Cooley, at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who studies links between acidification and food security. “But it’s going to be a very big number.”

Said Andreas Andersson, an acidification and coral reef expert with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego: “These people are literally going to be fighting for their lives.” More