Climate Change Adaptation Preliminary Shoreline Shellfish Sanitary Survey near Banjul, Gambia

24

4.0 Climate Change Adaptation

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 was held in Senegal from 22-25 March 2011 and was attended by 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. The objectives of the workshop included: • Consolidate information on regional climate change initiatives in coastal areas and marine ecosystems • 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. • 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 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 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. Workshop proceedings were produced and shared with participants in the 3 rd Quarter. In the 3 rd . quarter the Ba-Nafaa project received approval for a US155,440 add-on component for a bilateral fisheries vulnerability assessment of the Saloum Delta and Gambia River estuary area. The assessment will consolidate existing information and collect new data where gaps exist. An interdisciplinary science team will conduct the vulnerability assessment. The team will comprise expertise on marine and wetland ecology and conservation, GIS, fisheries biology, and community development over a 6 – 12 month period. A consolidated report will be prepared and will be the basis of discussion for a stakeholder workshop to review the findings and identify and prioritize climate change adaptation activities. The study will be led by Dr. Arona Soumare, 25 Director of Conservation WWF-WAMER. and Mr. Mat Dia WWF Country Program Coordinator, Gambia.

5.0 Biodiversity Conservation