Adaptation of Fishing Communities in the Philippines to Climate Change

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 2007) declared that few studies have been conducted on the possible impact of climate change in Southeast Asia despite the fact that commercial and subsistence marine and freshwater fisheries and aquaculture are important for the food security and the economies of many countries in the region. In the Philippines alone, fisheries account for 4% of the gross national product (GNP). The fisheries sector employs approximately a million people, about 26% of whom are engaged in aquaculture operations, 6% in commercial fishing, and 68% in marine and freshwater municipal fishing (i.e., artisanal, small-scale, or traditional fisheries). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that: (1) in the low latitudes of the tropics, many wet areas will get wetter and many dry areas will get drier, aggravating drought and flood tendencies; (2) weather events will become more extreme, creating more variability in water supplies that drive agricultural and hydrological systems; (3) rising water temperatures may reduce the upwelling of food supplies that fish in the upper layers depend on, and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase the acidity of water bodies, adversely affecting shellfish and coral reefs; and (4) coastal areas and islands will be particularly hard-hit by the combination of rising sea levels and more intensive oceanic storms such as typhoons and hurricanes (IPCC 2007).