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3.4 Climate Change Adaptation
Key issues and Progress to Date
Climate change impacts present additional challenges for fisheries management — to the ecosystem, coastal communities and fisheries infrastructure. Studies of the WAMER predict that
changes in climate will drive changes in the migration and abundance of commercially important fish species, and affect fishing communities, landing sites, and critical estuarine ecosystems.
Consideration of climate change is part of the underpinning of an ecosystems-based approach to fisheries management. In Year 2, the project with WWF-WAMER convened a regional
workshop in Senegal with a focus on building awareness of climate change issues in fisheries and MPAs and strategies for incorporating these issues into fisheries and marine conservation
decision-making. The workshop will be held in Senegal in both French and English, and invite several representatives from each of the seven countries of the Commission Sous-Régionale des
Pêches CSRP that includes Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
In November 2010, Dr. Arona Soumare of WWF-WAMER, Dr. Jim Tobey of CRCURI and the Project Manager Ba-Nafaa held a workshop planning meeting in Dakar, Senegal. A similar
meeting was held in Banjul with Mat Dia, WWF Country Director. It was agreed that the workshop will be held in March 22-25, 2011 in Senegal. CRCURI will help in producing
background information documents, and WWF-WAMER is responsible for the organization of the workshop.
A four day workshop was convened by the Project and held in Senegal from March 22-25, 2011. Participants about 40 came from government agencies from each of the 7 member countries of
the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission Mauritania, Senegal, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bisau, and Sierra Leone and from regional initiatives. Government agencies
represented included 1 Fisheries, 2 Park and Wildlife, and 3 Environment. Objectives of the workshop included:
•
Consolidate information on regional climate change initiatives in coastal areas and marine ecosystems
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Assess climate change issues in fishing communities and marine ecosystems and actions taken to date across each of the CSRP countries. Identify similarities of key issues and
responses across the countries.
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Identify needs and opportunities for mainstreaming adaptation considerations and actions into national, sub-national and local level strategies and initiatives
•
Define a plan of action for follow-up to the workshop A field trip to the communities of Djifere, Palmarin, and Joal showed fishing communities
severely affected by erosion, coastal change, salt water intrusion, and over exploitation of fish resources. A recent MPA and reforestation efforts were also viewed and highlighted the
importance of participatory approaches. The take home message was that coastal and marine areas are already affected by multiple stressors with climate change becoming a more serious
threat when coupled with these other anthropogenic impacts. Coastal erosion, deforestation and habitat fragmentation become even more serious problems in coastal locations and fishing
28 communities when coupled with the projected impacts of climate change. Non-sustainable
resource use, including over fishing, reduces the adaptive capacity of natural systems and thus decreases the resilience to respond to climatic changes. Sand mining, alteration of waterways,
population pressure and improper siting of infrastructure leave both the communities and the environment with increased vulnerability to climate change. It was concluded that anticipatory
adaptation to accelerated negative environmental changes does not need to wait for specific climate scenarios, but is more reliant on the examination of current vulnerabilities and the range
of possible no-regret strategies. Across all the member counties common issues are destruction of habitat, coastal erosion,
inundation, salinization, and overfishing. All use MPAs as a key strategy for strengthening fisheries and protecting marine habitat. All have been involved in the UNFCCC process and
many have completed National Adaptation Plans of Action NAPA and formed national climate change committees. However, common needs identified include improved understanding and
data on coastal and marine climate change impacts, outreach and awareness raising on climate change negative impacts, mainstreaming climate change in fisheries policies and management
plans, capacity building, and more integrated and coordinated efforts. The primary outcome of the meeting was a recommendation for a process to create a proposal for
a regional scale activity that would be submitted to the Adaptation Fund or other donors. Break out groups defined priority areas of focus for a regional activity and they included strengthening
MPA networks, mangrove protection and reforestation, training and capacity building in climate change adaptation, stock assessment and sustainable fisheries, building awareness of fisheries
stakeholders, and climate change observation systems. A Workshop Proceedings is being prepared that will elaborate in detail the findings and
recommendations emanating from the workshop. A CD of all presentations is also available on request.
4. Project Management