BANGKOK (AlertNet) - Climate change could lead to livelihood loss, increased poverty and malnutrition, and conflict over fish stocks in the Asia Pacific region's fisheries and aquaculture sector, which employ at least 32 million people, the United Nations said on Friday.
According to the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the Asia Pacific region is the world's largest producer of aquatic products. The region accounts for some 51 percent of global fisheries production and close to 90 percent of global aquaculture.
Fishing households already under stress from overfishing, habitat degradation and pollution are expected to face added pressure from climate change, said Simon Funge-Smith, the FAO regional senior officer and secretary of the Asia-Pacific Fisheries Commission.
"Many fishing households rely on the fish they produce for basic income and typically have few options for alternatives," he said, noting that the Asia Pacific region employs 85 percent of world's total fishers and aquaculture farmers.
"Any loss or disruption places their already precarious livelihoods in further danger," he said.
A loss of fishing livelihoods could also have a knock-on effect on the nutritional value of people's diets, he said. Cambodians, for example, are heavily reliant on freshwater fish, and get 95 percent of their daily protein intake from them.
Altogether, more than one billion people around the world depend on fish as their primary source of animal protein, Asian Development Bank figures show.
And other protein sources, even if available, do not provide all the benefits of eating fish, Funge-Smith warned.
DIETS AT RISK TOO
"It's not simply a case of replacing fish with some other protein source," he said. "We rely on (fish) protein and oils for brain development, healthy, intelligent children and disease prevention."
The fishing sector in the Asia Pacific region is largely unprepared for the impacts climate change could bring, even though the region potentially faces bigger threats to livelihoods than any other part of the world, people gathered at a meeting of the Asia Pacific Fishery Commission (APFIC) in the South Korean city of Jeju were told on Wednesday.
That is in part because much of the initial focus on climate change impacts looked at land, crops, deforestation and freshwater supplies rather than oceans, which are carbon sinks, Funge-Smith said.
But as already fast depleting fish stocks decline further as a result of climate change, the growing problem may spur conflict between countries or fishing communities as fishermen follow the remaining fish, he said.
Coastal communities that rely on fishing as a livelihood are also under the threat from more frequent and severe weather events, including storms and droughts, as well as declining stocks of fresh water.
Those pressure could bring about a variety of unwanted consequences for fishing families, Funge-Smith said.
"Rising vulnerability and poverty can force these families into more desperate coping strategies, such as high risk fishing or migration or child labour to compensate for lost incomes, either short term or permanently," he said.
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