climate change

“Fish is the perfect protein” says Oceana Chief Policy Officer, Jacqueline Savitz. We couldn’t agree more. And nothing makes us happier than seeing this, and the rationale for why, shared in a recent article in Forbes — a publication primarily focused on business, finance, and investment. It’s not your typical environmental magazine. And that’s because empowering sustainable fisheries is as much an effort to address food security and livelihoods as it is about environmental protection.

In our last blog post, we looked at five ways that climate change threatens fish and the people that rely on them for their livelihoods. Since then, the IPCC released its Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, which paints an alarming picture for our ocean. The flipside is that it’s not too late to make systemic, meaningful change to limit greenhouse gas emissions and contain the negative impacts of climate change. In fact, given the gravity of the situation, systemic approaches are more needed than ever to tackle this challenge. This week we look at innovations and initiatives that mitigate and reduce climate impacts to oceans, fisheries, and coastal communities.

In our mission to end overfishing, we focus on creating solutions that can benefit both the environment and the communities that depend on fisheries for food and trade. Increasingly, we find ourselves faced with the question: how can we design solutions that can endure the onslaught of climate change? And even more importantly, can we design in ways that can reduce the carbon footprint of fisheries, to help tackle both overfishing and the climate crisis? Fish and fisheries are already feeling the effects of climate change, and these effects will only increase. This week, we kick off a series of blogs that will explore these questions, with the first installment highlighting five ways climate change impacts fish and fisheries.