Warming Seas Menace Fish and Communities

“We’ve been looking at impacts (of climate change), but now we also need to look at solutions, for both the short term and the long term,” she said.

Mayrah Shaltout of Morocco’s National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries said coastal communities in Africa are already seeing declines in fish catches, and not just because of competition from industrial trawlers. Two thirds of the countries most vulnerable to fishing declines are in Africa, she said.

In other parts of the world, Atlantic cod are moving north toward the Arctic, seeking cooler waters, while young barnacles off the British coast are gradually moving north as well, Queirós said. “The species will go if they can,” she warned. “Science tells us the changes are going to happen, and they’re going to be much more prevalent than what we’re seeing now.”