Advancing the climate-biodiversity-fisheries nexus in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Climate-driven changes in marine ecosystem structure and function adversely impact the biodiversity and sustainability of living marine resources, food security, and the resilience of coastal communities. Understanding how climate change impacts marine ecosystem biodiversity and global fisheries, i.e. the “climate-biodiversity-fisheries nexus”, is a fundamental element of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Several Ocean Decade-endorsed Programmes within the climate-biodiversity-fisheries nexus are building global networks to transform our capacity to understand, forecast, manage, and adapt to climate-driven changes in ocean ecosystems, including sustaining blue food resources that provide essential food security and nutrition in a rapidly changing world. We compare the scope, objectives, global partnerships, and capacities of these Programmes, facilitating effective collaboration and identifying critical gaps in developing solutions to climate-driven changes in marine food webs, species assemblages, and global fisheries. This work complements the Ocean Decade Vision 2030 process by providing an assessment of actions that are underway and guidance to establish new actions needed to monitor and understand marine biodiversity and manage global fisheries within a changing climate. We provide recommendations for new and existing Ocean Decade Actions around the climate-biodiversity-fisheries nexus to help achieve the Ocean Decade outcomes of a “productive, predicted, healthy, and resilient ocean” by 2030.