Hoi An fish market in Vietnam. Image by Jean-Marie Hullot, Flickr.
Fish populations and the humans that depend on them for food will continue to feel the brunt of warming waters from climate change.
A recent study by researchers at the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, based at the University of Western Australia, the Changing Ocean Research Unit at the University of British Columbia and the University of Miami, shows that even with strong climate mitigation efforts, maximum catch potential is expected to fall by 58–92 per cent in the Pacific Islands and 65–86 per cent in Southeast Asia by the mid to end of the 21st century. These losses will likely result in fisheries failing to meet key micronutrient requirements in these regions’ coastal populations.
“We examined the connection between projected climate change impacts on fish stocks and the fisheries-derived micronutrient supply in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands,” said Dirk Zeller, director of the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean and last author of the paper in Science of the Total Environment presenting these findings. “In detail, we looked at seven micronutrients critical to human health – calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, iodine, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B12, and zinc. Our study predicts that the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia will increasingly struggle to meet nutritional demands through fisheries alone.”
For Zeller and his co-authors, urgent, adaptive fisheries management and nutrition-focused policies are needed to safeguard food security in these areas of the world and reduce the risk of hunger and malnutrition for vulnerable coastal populations.
Fisheries employ millions of people in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands so these results highlight potential threats not only to their food security but also to their way of life.
“The future looks challenging, even in the best-case scenarios where strong climate action is taken,” Zeller said.
The paper “Climate change undermines seafood micronutrient supply from wild-capture fisheries in Southeast Asia and Pacific Island countries” appeared in Science of the Total Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177024