Reeling in uncertainty: adapting marine fisheries management to cope with climate effects on ocean ecosystems.

AuthorGourlie, Don
PositionARTICLES

Physical, chemical, and biological parameters of ocean ecosystems are constantly changing. A variety of scientific research methods demonstrate this unequivocally. To ensure adequate management of resources, fisheries management in the United States is designed to adapt to these ecosystem changes. However, increased uncertainty and unprecedented unidirectional change as a result of climate change are testing our capacity to manage. In light of this challenge, all interested and involved parties must cooperate and play a proactive role in an adaptation effort. Scientists and fishing communities must work together to identify changing conditions and predict future scenarios. Managers must implement flexible regulations that incorporate emerging information. As a society, we must shift our habits to adapt, as humankind has done throughout existence.

Climate change presents a challenge, but also a unique opportunity to revolutionize the U.S. fisheries with dynamic and flexible approaches to management. By exploring the predicted effects of climate change on marine fisheries and the current statutory and regulatory framework, this Article establishes that U.S. fisheries management is well designed to adapt to changing circumstances if involved parties are proactive. The Article proceeds to suggest several emerging methods for managing both fishery resources and the humans that use them that fit well within the current legal framework. The methods analyzed in this Article are no doubt a small sampling of innovations that fishing communities, scientists, and managers are developing. Ultimately, this Article aims to provide a framework for adapting current fisheries management to the environmental changes our planet is currently experiencing.

  1. INTRODUCTION 181 II. EFFECTS OF A CHANGING CLIMATE ON MARINE CAPTURE FISHERIES 184 III. THE REGULATORY STRUCTURE OF U.S. FEDERAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENT 189 A. Utilizing Information: Best A vailable Science and Essential Fisheries Information 191 B. Managing the Target Stock Annual Catch Limits Rebuilding Plans, and the Evolution of the First National Standard 192 C. Protecting Ecosystem Components: Bycatch and Habitat 195 D. Considering the Human Element: Allocation and the Social and Economic Costs of Regulation 197 E. Mitigating Uncertainty: Facilitating Flexibility and Contingency Planning 198 IV. EXPLORING ADAPTATION MECHANISMS TO MINIMIZE ADVERSE EFFECTS ON MARINE CAPTURE FISHERIES 199 A. Gather and Analyze Information to Assess Potential Effects of Climate Change 201 B. Incorporate Climate Effects into Stock Assessments Catch Limits, and Rebuilding Plans 205 C. Protect Ecosystem Components Vulnerable to Environmental Change 208 1. Reduce Multiple Stressors on Vulnerable Biogenic Habitats 209 2. Embrace Mobile Spatial Management to Minimize By catch 210 D. Minimize Adverse Effects on Fishing Communities from Emerging and Disappearing Fisheries and Reallocation 213 E. Increase Adaptive Capacity of Management Regimes to Mitigate Uncertainty 217 1. Contingency Planning 218 2. Management Strategy Evaluation 220 3 Adaptive Management 221 V. CONCLUSION 222 I. INTRODUCTION

    A quick Internet search for "climate change canary in the coal mine" yields no fewer than twenty different metaphorical canaries. (1) These early warning indicators include frogs, Syria, Australian grape growers, the Marshall Islands, coral reefs, the Arctic, the Purple Finch, national parks, the Pika, and fish. While the idiom is overused, the comparisons are instructive. The long-term averages that compose our global climate are nearly impossible to perceive on a daily basis and the amount of carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) and heat already absorbed by terrestrial and marine environments is invisible to the naked eye. But those absorbed molecules and shifting averages are changing our environment in subtle yet impactful ways, and we rely on certain "canaries" to tell us that something is amiss. This Article focuses on managing the changes that have allowed experts to characterize marine fish as a "climate canary."

    Despite the historical focus on climate change effects to terrestrial systems and the cryosphere, (2) effects on ocean ecosystems present a more immediate and potentially more significant risk. (3) The most significant ocean changes attributed to continued greenhouse gas emissions are the warming of ocean waters and the increased uptake of carbon dioxide by ocean waters leading to ocean acidification. Even small increases in the temperature or acidity of Earth's major water bodies can have significant and far-reaching influence on delicate ocean ecosystems. (4) Due to the complexity of the marine environment, the long-term effects of warming waters and ocean acidification are not completely understood, but current science confirms that changes in the biological, ecological, and chemical infrastructure of the oceans are already occurring. (5) For example, distribution shifts and decreased productivity of marine organisms have already been documented in the Pacific Ocean. (6)

    Few observe and understand the implications of this change more clearly than fishermen, who are encountering new species in odd places and changes to their usual catch. Much of the time, these changes present a mixture of opportunity and adversity for fishing communities. For example, black sea bass (Centropristis striata) are beginning to make an appearance in the Gulf of Maine, far north of their usual range. This new, commercially valuable species presents an opportunity for some fishermen. (8) However, the black sea bass have an appetite for lobster, another commercially important species that is already highly vulnerable to climate change. (9) For many in the region, a solution to this issue is to increase commercial catch of black sea bass, providing new economic revenue and reducing pressure on the already troubled lobster. (10) But the current management approach complicates matters by basing the state-by-state allocation of commercial black sea bass catch quota on historical catch (11) and lacking research surveys north of Massachusetts, where the species appears to be expanding rapidly. (12) This approach can protect fishermen who have historically targeted the species, but has the potential to harm other fishing communities and result in wasteful practices." The lack of research means the viability and stock dynamics of sea bass populations in Maine will remain a mystery until research efforts expand. In the case of the black sea bass, some fishermen's livelihoods are disappearing while others are throwing tons (literally) of dead fish overboard due to a regulatory system that has not kept pace. (14) This narrative of management not keeping up with environmental change is increasingly common in U.S. coastal waters, (15) signaling a need for change. The United States is fortunate enough to have a robust fisheries governance structure with the capacity to regulate and enforce in most situations, but incorporating adequate and timely science into the management decision process remains an issue. Changing environmental factors--the consequences of which are often difficult to predict and may not be felt until the time to act has already passed--can test the ability of management to adapt and result in unexpected declines in marine biodiversity with attendant effects on coastal communities. (16) Additionally, past and ongoing human alterations of natural systems by overfishing, pollution, and direct damage to marine habitats have undermined the resilience of some marine ecosystems. (17) The combination of impacts from past and ongoing human activities with large-scale and regional environmental climate change present significant risks to commercially important fisheries. (18) The struggle to sustainably manage fishing industries is magnified, making sound management choices in a dynamic and uncertain ocean environment a daunting challenge. (19) As a result, adaptation of U.S. fisheries management to account for these changes is necessary to protect the biodiversity and natural resources in U.S. waters.

    To determine the current capacity for adaptation in U.S. fisheries, this Article identifies the major issues that federal fisheries managers now face due to climate change, assesses the primary components of the regulatory system in place, and explores how emerging adaptation mechanisms fit within the system. Part II provides an introduction to how global climate change is associated with changing physical and chemical ocean parameters, leading to altered productivity, distribution, and species interactions in marine ecosystems. This is followed in Part III with a background of the underlying legal framework of U.S. federal fisheries management under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (20) (MSA or Magnuson-Stevens Act). Because fisheries management is a highly complex topic, this Part focuses on a limited selection of statutory and regulatory components. Finally, Part IV explores six adaptation mechanisms applicable to the federal fisheries management regime that more efficiently incorporate uncertainty and the varying effects of climate change than the status quo. The Article concludes that managers can effectively minimize the detrimental effects of climate change on both fish and human populations that utilize them by increasing the adaptive capacity of the management process and allowing traditionally static features, such as quotas and area closures, to change in response to emerging data.

  2. Effects of a Changing Climate on Marine Capture Fisheries

    The range of physical, chemical, and biological ocean changes observed and expected to occur due to past, present, and future greenhouse gas emissions is significant. At the most basic level, increased greenhouse gas emissions are correlated with global climatic changes such as increasing atmospheric C[O.sub.2] and temperature and increased...

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