BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

[Abstract] Small-cale fisheries are important for livelihoods, food security, jobs and income worldwide. However, they face major challenges, including the increasing effects of climate change that pose serious risks to coastal ecosystems and fishing communities. Although scientific research on climate change impacts has increased in recent years, few studies have explored the social impacts on small-scale fisheries. Using Galicia (Spain) as a case study, we investigated individual and household-level adaptive responses to climate change among fishers in three fishing guilds (Cambados, Campelo, and Redondela). Specifically, we estimated the economic vulnerability of shellfishers and assessed the diversity of social adaptive responses used to deal with climate change. Although fishers’ income strongly depends on shellfishing in all studied areas, our findings show that less fishing experience and lower engagement in fisher associations tend to increase the economic vulnerability of the fishers. The fishers’ vulnerability decreases as the size of households increases, while fishers who pay a mortgage and who live in households with fewer active members tend to be more vulnerable. The findings also show that Galician shellfishers have developed a wide range of adaptation strategies to anticipate and respond to climate change impacts, namely harvesting pricier and more abundant species, reducing household expenses and increasing social involvement in shellfishery associations. Although the adaptive strategies have helped Galician fishers to deal with climate change impacts, several threats to the sustainability of shellfisheries remain, such as a decrease in the abundance of key native shellfish species, and a high dependence on public and private aid to ensure reasonable incomes for shellfisheries. These findings are of interest and relevance to other similar small-scale fisheries around the world facing similar climate change challenges., This research was supported by grants CTM2014- 51935-R from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad to the project MARISCO and the Autonomous government Xunta de Galicia-FEDER (projects GRC2013-004, ED431C 2017/46). SV and PP acknowledge funding from the Xunta de Galicia (RECREGES II project under Grant 1400 ED481B2018/017, and Grupo de Referencia Competitiva GI-2060 AEMI, under Grant 1401 ED431C2019/11), the H2020–European Commission project Atlantic ECOsystems assessment, forecasting & sustainability (AtlantECO, ref. 2019-PI022). SV thanks the financial support for the EQUALSEA project ERC Consolidator, under Grant Agreement n°101002784 funded by the European Research Council. GM was supported by post-doctoral contracts from projects MARISCO and PERCEBES (BiodivERsA COFUND & Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación; PCIN-2016-063), Xunta de Galicia; GRC2013-004, Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2017/46, Xunta de Galicia; ED481B2018/017, Xunta de Galicia; ED431C2019/11

In January 2020, a stakeholder workshop was organized as a knowledge sharing strategy among European stalked barnacle fisheries. Management of this fishery differs greatly among regions and ranges from less organized and governed at large scales (>100 km, coasts of SW Portugal and Brittany in France) to highly participatory systems which are co-managed at small spatial scales (10′s km and less, Galicia and Asturias). Discussions revealed that poaching is ubiquitous, hard to eradicate, and adapts to all types of management. The stakeholders identified some key management initiatives in the fight against poaching: granting professional harvesters with exclusive access to the resource, increasing social capital among harvesters through tenure systems (e.g. Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries) that empower them as stewards of their resource and intensification of surveillance with the active participation of the harvesters. Furthermore, increased cooperation between fishers associations and regional fisheries authorities, improved legal frameworks, adoption of new technologies and the implementation of market-based solutions can also help coping with this systemic problem, Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PCIN-2016-120, Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PCIN-2016-063, Agence Nationale de la Recherche | Ref. ANR-16-EBI3-0006-01, Agence Nationale de la Recherche | Ref. ANR-16-EBI3-0006-02, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. UIDB/04292/2020, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. UIDP/50017/2020, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades | Ref. FPU2016- 04258, Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A-2020/199, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. CTM2014-51935-R