Nearly Half of Countries’ Shared Fish Stocks Are on the Move Due to Climate Change, Prompting Dispute Concerns

Climate change will force 45 per cent of the fish stocks that cross through two or more exclusive economic zones to shift significantly from their historical habitats and migration paths by 2100, a challenge that may lead to international conflict, according to a new UBC study.

By 2030, when United Nations Sustainable Development Goals should be met, 23 per cent of these ‘transboundary’ fish stocks will have changed their historical habitat range. The modeling study also projected 78 per cent of exclusive economic zones (EEZs)—where most fishing occurs—will see at least one shifting fish stock. By 2100, this climbs to 45 per cent of stocks, with 81 per cent of EEZs seeing at least one stock shift if nothing is done to halt greenhouse gas emissions

“This is not only an issue of stocks leaving or arriving to new EEZs, but of stocks that are shared between countries, completely changing their dynamics,” said lead author Dr. Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, who conducted the study while at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). Now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he said the study provides a timeline suggesting these shifts had already been underway since the beginning of the 21st century. “We will see even more dramatic changes by 2030 and onwards, given current emissions rates. Many of the fisheries management agreements made to regulate shared stocks were established in past decades, with rules that apply to a world situation that is not the same as today.”

The study tracked the shifting ranges of 9,132 transboundary fish stocks, which account for 80 per cent of catch taken from the world’s EEZs, starting in 2006 and projecting to the year 2100.

Read more at: University of British Columbia

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