Climate change is altering the productivity, distribution, abundance and behaviour of fished species at a pace that current management systems were not designed to respond to. Adapting effectively requires management systems capable of acting on new information, including scientific evidence, Indigenous ecological knowledges and fishers' tacit knowledge, and of responding constructively when industry members and other fishers experiment with new gear, target species or operating practices. Yet this capacity appears to be unevenly distributed and our understanding of what adaptive capacity is actually required is still developing.
This paper presents preliminary findings from a national learning network of over 30 fisheries managers from Australian state, Commonwealth and New Zealand agencies, coordinated by Sea Change Australia. This network was established in response to industry members concerns about the management systems, and to surface where adaptive capacity for climate change already exists within current management systems, and where further adaptive capacity is needed. We identify a number of existing sources of flexibility including in-season adjustments, delegated decision-making, and harvest strategies designed to incorporate environmental signals, alongside persistent constraints, such as legislative rigidity, fragmented cross-agency governance, and limited formal mechanisms for fisher knowledge to inform decisions.
We propose a tiered framework distinguishing where adaptation can be advanced through better use of existing instruments, and where new powers, instruments or interpretations of existing settings may be required. We also situate the Australian experience in the broader international literature on climate adaptation governance in fisheries, with a view to identifying approaches from other jurisdictions that could be learnt from, adopted, or modified for the Australian context.