Written by Nereus Research Associate Ryan Swanson,
Nereus Program’s Malin Pinsky (Rutgers University), Daniel Pauly (UBC) and Rashid Sumaila (UBC) all appear in a recent New York Times article about Iceland’s fisheries adapting to shifting fish distributions due to climate change. With global ocean waters warming, Iceland’s fisheries are seeing their valuable harvests, such as capelin, moving poleward and being replaced by different species from the south, such as monkfish and mackerel. As Kendra Pierre-Louis writes, “For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted.” These shifts are impacting Iceland’s lucrative fishing industry, with “the country’s largest bank, Landsbankinn, valuing the [capelin] fishery at roughly $143 million.” As fish continue to migrate further north in search of colder waters, Kendra focuses on the concerns of the fishing community in Isafjordur, in the Westfjords, as well as discussing the reality of resulting conflicts due to fish migrations (e.g. the Cod Wars between Iceland and Britain). You can read the article and everyone’s contributions to it here.
