Line of action:

Drivers of biodiversity loss

Status:

Finalizado

Execution date:

2023

End date:

2025

Total budget:

€162,891.00

Amount of aid from the Biodiversity Foundation:

€129,278.57

This initiative gives continuity to the work carried out in the previous VADAPES project, which has studied the vulnerability to climate change of the fishing sector and its associated ecosystems. The research served as a scientific basis for the development of climate change adaptation measures at the subregional scale, capable of strengthening the resilience of the sector and the marine ecosystems exploited.

With VADAPES II, the IEO-CSIC addresses the prevention of maladaptation with the participation of the fishing sector. Considering that the main cause of maladaptation is lack of planning, this project contributes to its prevention by designing concrete adaptation measures.

With the aim of increasing socio-ecological resilience, the attributes to be reinforced at local and regional level will be determined. The risks of maladaptation of measures, such as the decarbonisation of the sector, will be assessed.

Governance will be strengthened and progress will be made towards the definition of climate change adaptation measures at the local level in a consensual way, connecting the different agents involved in the fisheries value chain. The learnings from this project can be extended to other fishing communities to move towards a sectoral adaptation plan.

The main objective of the project is to assess the socio-ecological resilience of the fisheries sector with different case studies representative of geographical diversity, taking into account the spatial scale at which management measures to prevent maladaptation must be implemented, thus providing, together with the agents involved, concrete priority adaptation and mitigation actions that guarantee the food security provided by fisheries.

Specific goals include:

• To determine and reinforce through participatory processes the attributes of adaptation and resilience to climate change of fishing communities in the Cantabrian Sea and the Balearic Sea.
• Assessment of risks of maladaptation in the implementation of mitigation measures linked to the decarbonisation of the fisheries sector: compensation processes through time scales.

• Identification and calculation of ecological, socio-economic and governance resilience attributes in fishing communities. Based on the attributes defined in the “Climate Resilient Fisheries Planning Tool”, it is established which ones apply to specific case studies in consultation with key actors.
• Participatory evaluation through workshops of the attributes, determination of concrete actions to strengthen the attributes of resilience and identification of risks of maladaptation in their implementation. Participatory dynamics are established to obtain a validation of the attributes calculated in the previous point, as well as the co-creation of concrete measures to improve these attributes.
• Trade-off processes between profits-carbon footprint and biodiversity indicators. It is calculated spatially and temporally how the relationship between ‘gains-carbon footprint-biodiversity indicators’ has changed by evaluating the four possibilities of interactions between these three components.
• Scenarios of spatiotemporal closures as mitigation tools. Using the results of the previous activity, different scenarios of spatial and temporal closures of different scales in Atlantic and Mediterranean areas with high fishing pressure are simulated.
• Dissemination and communication of the project. Among the different communication actions, a final online event/workshop is included to present and discuss the results with all the agents involved: the fisheries sector, local, regional and national administration, NGOs and the scientific community.

 

• It has contributed to assessing the climate resilience of fishing communities through an integrated approach that combines technical analysis, sectoral participation and spatial assessment of socio-ecological indicators.
• 22 attributes of ecological, socio-economic and governance resilience have been identified and characterised, obtained from the Climate Resilient Fisheries Planning Tool in the context of Mallorca and the Avilés Canyon.
• Through workshops with some thirty experts, the most vulnerable and urgent attributes have been prioritised, especially those associated with socio-economic and governance capacities, and a preliminary assessment of the state of the relevant fisheries in both territories has been carried out.
• Through participatory workshops with fishing communities, these results have been deepened. These spaces have made it possible to identify structural barriers, emerging problems and vulnerabilities, as well as to define adaptation measures and detect risks of maladaptation.
• The results show the need to strengthen the capacity for action, operational adaptation, generational renewal, science-sector communication and local governance.
• A spatial analysis of the trade-offs between economic benefits, carbon footprint and biodiversity indicators has also been developed in the North Atlantic and Levantine-Balearic demarcations.
• The maps and indicators generated make it possible to identify areas of high concentration of fishing effort, sensitive areas for biodiversity and points of conflict between ecological and economic objectives. On this basis, scenarios of spatiotemporal closures were evaluated, showing that their effectiveness depends strongly on the scale and territorial context, and can produce environmental benefits or, in some cases, risks of maladaptation if they generate displacements of the activity to more sensitive areas.