[OANNES Foro] Estudio indica que pesqueria peruana es una de las mas vulnerables al cambio climatico

[Milthon Lujan]

Estimados Amigos
Estoy adjuntando una nota en ingles, sobre un estudio que ha realizado la
The World Fish Center y otras instituciones,  con respecto a 132 paises. En
esta investigación se presentan los paises cuyas pesquerias serán mas
impactados por el cambio climatico.

Uno de los paises, identificado por el estudio, en Sudamerica es Peru (el
otro es Colombia). En este sentido, debemos preguntarnos que estamos
haciendo en terminos de politicas de gobierno, politicas de investigación,
prevención para adaptarnos al cambio climatico, esta es una realidad que si
no tomamos medidas de inmediato nos va a afectar perjudicando a una de las
principales actividades economicas.

Asimismo, adjunto un enlace en donde se puede solicitar el articulo en
extenso, seria conveniente que nuestros colegas que se dedican a las
investigación pesquera (universidades, IMARPE, Ministerio de la Producción)
le den una revisada y nos comenten sus impresiones.

Este es la nota informativa:

New Study First To Identify National Economies That Are Likely To Suffer
Most As Climate Change Imperils Fisheries

Research on Fisheries Worldwide Warns Climate Change Combined with Fisheries
Dependency and Limited Capacity to Adapt Pose Dangerous Triple Threat to
Countries in Africa, South America, and Asia

Penang, Malaysia (6 February 2009)—With climate change threatening to
destroy coral reefs, push salt water into freshwater habitats and produce
more coastal storms, millions of struggling people in fishery-dependent
nations of Africa, Asia and South America could face unprecedented hardship,
according to a new study published today in the February issue of the
peer-reviewed journal Fish and Fisheries. The study, by a team of scientists
at the WorldFish Center, the University of East Anglia, Simon Fraser
University, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science,
the University of Bremen, and the Mekong River Commission, is the first to
identify individual nations that are "highly vulnerable" to the impact of
climate change on fisheries.

The authors of the report examined 132 national economies to determine which
are the most vulnerable, based on environmental, fisheries, dietary and
economic factors. Countries that need the most attention, they said, are not
necessarily the places that will experience the greatest environmental
impacts on their fisheries. Rather, they are countries where fish play a
large role in diet, income and trade yet there is a lack of capacity to
adapt to problems caused by climate change—such as loss of coral reef
habitats to the bleaching effects of warmer waters and lakes parched by an
increase in heat and a decrease in precipitation. For example, fish accounts
for 27 percent or more of daily protein intake in vulnerable
countries—compared to 13 percent in non-vulnerable nations—and there are
scant resources for alternative sources of protein.

Both coastal and landlocked countries in Africa, including Malawi, Guinea,
Senegal and Uganda, four Asian tropical countries—Bangladesh, Cambodia,
Pakistan and Yemen—and two countries in South America, Peru and Colombia,
were identified as the most economically vulnerable to the effects of global
warming on fisheries. Overall, of the 33 countries that were considered
highly vulnerable, 19 are already classified by the United Nations as "least
developed" due to their particularly poor socioeconomic conditions.

The world's fisheries provide more than 2.6 billion people with at least 20
percent of their average annual per capita protein intake, according to the
United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The "highly
vulnerable" countries identified in the WorldFish study, which was funded by
the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID),
produce 20 percent of the world's fish exports (by value). The researchers
note that these countries should be a priority for adaptation efforts that
will allow them to endure the effects of climate change and maintain or
enhance the contribution that fisheries can make to poverty reduction.

"From a strictly environmental perspective, countries in the higher
latitudes will see the most pronounced impact from climate change on
fishing," said Edward Allison, director of policy, economics and social
science at WorldFish and the paper's lead author. "But economically, people
in the tropics and subtropics likely will suffer most, because fish are so
important in their diets and because they have limited capacity to develop
other sources of income and food."

"We believe it is urgent to start identifying these vulnerable countries,
because the damage will be greatly compounded unless national governments
and international institutions like the World Bank act now to include the
fish sector in plans for helping the poor cope with climate change," he
added.

Two-thirds of the most vulnerable nations are in tropical Africa, where in
many countries fish account for more than half of daily animal protein
consumption and where research indicates that fish production in both
coastal and inland waters is highly sensitive to climate variations.

In coastal regions, climate variations can significantly alter the flow of
nutrient-rich waters—known as upwellings—which sustain fish populations that
feed millions in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, in eastern and southern
Africa, rising temperatures in freshwater lakes over the last century have
already reduced fish stocks. Future climate change is expected to worsen
this trend, while also leading to lower water levels due to decreased rain
and increased evaporation.

In the vulnerable countries of South Asia, the potential problems include
increased bleaching of coral reefs, caused by a rise in ocean temperatures.
In addition, changes in river flows, resulting from reduced snowfall, and
melting glaciers, present dangers to freshwater habitats. Scientists predict
up to a two-thirds reduction in the summer flows of the Ganges River, which
could diminish what are now highly productive river and floodplain
fisheries. In addition, fish-dependent people of Bangladesh could see their
coastal catch reduced, as a result of predicted increases in the frequency
and intensity of tropical storms. Meanwhile, across Southeast Asia, inland
freshwater habitats could be damaged by intrusions of salt water as sea
levels rise.

In northern South America, the concern is that climate change will alter
coastal upwellings, which sustain huge catches of anchovies, sardines and
other varieties of small, "pelagic" fish. Evidence on changes induced by the
warming effects of El Niño indicates that a rise in ocean temperatures can
cause a decline in Peruvian anchovy populations (though sardines may tend to
increase), according to the study.

"The problems driven by climate change are bad enough by themselves; what
will make them much worse are the economic and institutional weaknesses of
the vulnerable countries identified in this study and their fishing
communities," said Steve Hall, director general of WorldFish. "Fisheries are
already under tremendous pressure from overfishing, habitat loss, pollution
and a range of other factors. Climate adaptation measures must go hand in
hand with efforts to confront other threats if these countries are to
succeed in building sustainable livelihoods for fish-dependent people."

Adding weight to the report's findings is the fact that its co-authors
include Neil Adger, who played a major role in drafting the 2007 UN report
on climate change that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and Ashley
Halls, the fisheries advisor to the Mekong River Commission, which focuses
on the health of one of the largest freshwater fisheries in the world.

The authors of the study see their research as a "useful starting point" for
future initiatives aimed at predicting with greater precision the impact of
climate change on fish-dependent populations. One of the many lessons
learned, according to Allison, is that work in this area needs to consider
both coastal and freshwater fisheries. Uganda, for example, though
landlocked, depends greatly on freshwater fish, making it highly vulnerable
to climate change impacts.

Allison added that he and his colleagues will continue to refine their
ability to link climate change to fish productivity and to social and
economic conditions. One of the shortcomings of this study, he said, is that
there were not enough data on such variables as the social and economic
impacts of fisheries at the country level. The scarcity of data was
particularly evident for subsistence fishing and small island states,
particularly in the Pacific Ocean. In fact, researchers were unable to
calculate all the vulnerability components for 60 nations, so these could
not be included among the study's list of potentially vulnerable countries.
Nevertheless, many of these excluded nations - like Kiribati, Myanmar,
Somalia, and the Solomon Islands—most likely have a mix of economic, social
and environmental conditions that make them highly vulnerable to the effects
of climate change on their fisheries.


Para revisar mas información:

http://www.worldfishcenter.org/wfcms/HQ/article.aspx?ID=223
<http://www.worldfishcenter.org/wfcms/HQ/article.aspx?ID=223>

Saludos
-- 
Blgo. Acui. Milthon B. Lujan Monja
AQUA CENTER SRL
Urb. Santa Cristina C4-16, Nuevo Chimbote
Chimbote - Peru
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