SOLOMON Islands is a nation blessed with an abundance of marine resources. With this fish resources and tuna stocks comes to mind.
Solomon Islands is part of the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) which has a unique and many species of corals.
From our local knowledge, with coral comes an abundance with fish species.
Last week I discussed the issue of coral reefs which is slowly being affected by the climate change impact due to warming sea.
Through my education years and experience as a young boy growing and living by the coast, the coral reefs is a home to many of our fish species.
But as the changing warming condition of the sea, the coral reef which is a home to fish species are being affected.
It is undeniable that because of this, our fish stock and marine products which lived in the ocean are slowly being affected.
Environmental and scientific studies have revealed that many changes in marine commercial fish stocks have been observed over the last few decades in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Bbut it is extremely difficult to separate, in terms of changes in population densities and recruitment, regional climate effects from direct anthropogenic influences like fishing.
Geographical range extensions or changes in the geographical distribution of fish populations, however, can be more confidently linked to hydro-climatic variation and regional climate warming, studies have revealed.
Similar to the observed changes in marine ecological systems, many long-term changes in fish populations have been associated with known natural modes of climatic oscillations such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in the North Atlantic.
For example, variations in Sea Surface Temperature (SST) driven by NAO fluctuations have been linked to fluctuations in cod (one of the major North Atlantic fish resources) recruitment both off Labrador and Newfoundland and in the Barents Sea, reports have suggested.
Populations of herring, sardine, salmon and tuna have shown changes linked to fluctuations in the scientific records.
Warm events related to El Niño episodes and climate induced ecological regime shifts in the Pacific have been associated with the disruption of many commercial fisheries.
These changes highlight the sensitivity of fish populations to environmental change.
Direct evidence of biological impacts of anthropogenic climate change is, however, difficult to discern due to the background of natural variation on a variety of spatial and temporal scales and in particular natural oscillations in climate.
Northerly geographical range extensions or changes in the geographical distribution of fish populations have been recently documented for European Continental shelf seas and along the European Continental shelf edge.
These geographical movements have been related to regional climate warming and are predominantly associated with the northerly geographical movement of fish species with more southern bio-geographical affinities.
These include the movement of sardines and anchovies northward in the North Sea and red mullet and bass extending their ranges northward to western Norway, report said.
New records were also observed over the last decade for a number of Mediterranean and north-west African species on the south coast of Portugal.
The cooling and the freshening of the north-west Atlantic over the last decade has had an opposite effect, with some ground fish species moving further south in their geographical distribution.
There are certain marine species which are sensitive to regional climate warming which affected their population.
For the pacific region, the ocean is said to be warming and for the marine resources in the vast body of ocean, they may somehow affected by the warming.
But the question remains can we detect the real impact of climate change on Pacific Island coastal fisheries?
When something goes wrong, we have a natural tendency to look outside for a culprit – for something or someone responsible for the wrongdoing – to allow us to avoid questioning our own responsibility.
Is global climate change the real culprit responsible for the diminution of coastal marine resources in Oceania?
Is climate change already impacting our coastal resources, or will the effects only be felt in 20 years, by our children and grandchildren, in addition to the effects of ongoing habitat degradation, destructive fishing practices and increased demand for marine products due to rapid population growth?
Surprisingly, there are no easy answers to these questions.
The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), and in relation with an ongoing assessment of the vulnerability of coastal fisheries to climate change, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has launched a two-year project to assist Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) to design and field-test monitoring pilot projects to determine what changes are occurring in the productivity of coastal fisheries and to what extent they can be attributed to climate change as opposed to other causes.
Such project is important for the region to determine the changes that is taking place in our ocean at the same how the changing climate situation can affect our fisheries products.
By MOFFAT MAMU
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