Climate change is causing fish stocks to shift and is altering their productivity and availability. This is already creating issues with access to stocks and the allocation of harvest opportunity to fishers. The changing access to fishery resources creates problems at the social and economic level, such as issues of fairness and equity among fishermen. These problems feed back into management systems which are often already strained, and can adversely impact fishery participants, processors and related communities.
This report by Northern Economics, Inc. was contracted by Environmental Defense Fund with funding from the Walton Family Foundation's Environment Program, to work with stakeholders to develop a shared set of principles for allocating fisheries under climate change.
