The Response of Fishermen to Climate Change in a Connected Market

Climate change combined with a range of other anthropogenic stressors can lead to abrupt changes in marine populations and ecosystems. These often catastrophic changes can erode the resilience and can have dramatic repercussions for the full social-ecological system. The spectacular increase of North-East Arctic cod due to favorable climatic conditions (i.e. increase of temperature) and well applied management measures has resulted in increasing quotas and decreasing prices of cod. Due to the connectivity of the global market, these changes can influence not only fishermen in that area, but also in other potentially very distant areas. Here we analyzed ecological and economic data for cod stocks all over the North Atlantic with the aim to understand the effects of North-East Arctic cod dynamics on the international cod market. Our hypothesis is that the abundant supply of North-East Arctic cod affects fishing effort in other areas, and thus results in changed fishermen behavior. We address this hypothesis using a mixed effects model, modelling catches of cod depending on local quotas and prices of North-East Arctic cod over global and local scales. Preliminary results show that catches in some areas were recently lower than quotas, suggesting a possible change in fishermen behavior. This study is a first attempt to understand how climate variability may cause teleconnections in the international fish market. Such knowledge is fundamental to adjust management measures in an adaptive management that is able to deal with consequences of climate change.