FINDING SOLUTIONS FOR CLIMATE-ADAPTIVE FISHERIES

Attending the online forum from the United States of America (US) there was Mrs. Kendra Karr, senior advisor of the US Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Kendra's presentation focused on solutions to make fisheries more resilient to changing climate.

According to EDP's representative, fish play an important role in food and nutritional security, and fisheries and aquaculture provide livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people around the world. However, climate change is posing the threat to the safety of the marine environment, coastal communities, and fisheries.

"The most important action we can take to help the oceans adapt to climate change is sustainable aquaculture development," said Kendra.

According to U.S scientist, five principles supposed to make fisheries adaptive to climate change includes effective management and administration, making future plans,  strengthening cross-border cooperation, restoring ecosystem health and fairness and equality.

In which, to achieve effective management and administration, the expert of EDF said it must be based on sciences to improve the efficiency of fisheries

"Scientific achievements help us easily realize the signs of climate change and at the same time create favorable conditions to adapt to these changes, Kendra added.

Besides, the US scientist emphasized the role of cross-border cooperation. She said: "We cooperate with each other to predict and prevent overfishing and unfair practices"

Regarding restoring ecosystem health, she mentioned the solution of increasing marine protected areas, adopting region-based management measures, evaluating and inspecting all marine species caught.

"Unfair practices usually lead to conflicts and non-compliance driving depletion of natural resources and spoiling adaptive capacity of fisheries, "said Kendra adding that stakeholder involvement, participation, and engagement are needed.