THE Penang based fisheries research organization, the WorldFish Center, is exploring the challenges to the sustainability of fisheries posed by climate change.

Researchers and policy-makers are becoming increasingly aware of the impacts climate change is having on coastal and riparian environments, and on the fisheries they support. This is bringing new challenges to the people who depend on them. Fish products provide 15% or more of the protein consumed by 3 billion people, and support the livelihoods of 520 million people worldwide.

Many fisheries have suffered in recent decades from overfishing, pollution, freshwater mismanagement, and habitat and coastal zone modification. Bringing sustainability to fisheries and meeting these challenges will inevitably become more difficult as the climate changes.

The WorldFish Center has highlighted the importance of understanding the linkages between climate change, livelihoods and food security. To address this, it is following an ambitious programme of research in the following four areas:

• diagnosing vulnerability to climate change
• understanding current coping mechanisms and adaptive responses
• contributing to mitigation, and
• building the capacity to respond and adapt.

Studies diagnosing vulnerability of 132 national economies found that those fisheries at most risk are in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Two thirds of these countries are in Africa where fish may provide more than half the total animal protein consumed.

Adaptive capacity tends to be very low in these countries. WorldFish scientists have developed a participatory diagnostic and adaptive management framework. This can be employed to look at the stresses placed upon those people whose livelihoods depend on fishing. It also seeks to identify the wider economic, social and environmental stresses on fisher-folk. WorldFish is running a number of initiatives that seek to improve adaptive responses.

For instance, the Niger River basin which has a long history of vulnerability to drought and reduced river flow has been the focus of one initiative. WorldFish, working through the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food, is looking to identify threats to fishing-dependent communities and help government partners design adaptive policy approaches that improve water productivity and strengthen livelihood resilience.

WorldFish research into the potential contribution of fisheries to mitigation strategies seeks to provide governments, communities and other partners with the knowledge to access global and market mitigation initiatives. For example, research in the Solomon Islands is looking at the potential of trading voluntary carbon credits from carbon sequestration by mangroves.

Adaptation research seeks to highlight the lessons of individual, household, enterprise and community adaptive responses around the world. The aim is to share these lessons as a means to build resilience to climate change. WorldFish is also committed to identifying the policy processes at the national, regional and global level that fishery agencies need to engage with to finance, implement and gain technical advice on adaptation. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is working with partners to refine integrated aquaculture-agriculture technologies to improve water productivity on farms, and combat the damaging effects of climate change on people's livelihoods.

WorldFish continues to play a leading role in tackling the challenges posed by climate change for fisheries, aquaculture and the people who rely on them for their livelihoods. This research could prove crucial for millions of people worldwide, and its importance must be recognised.