04/18/2022
Colloquium Series - Cullen Hendrix
Sources of Climate Resilience in Fisheries Governance

Why are some regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) better equipped to manage fisheries resources effectively in a changing climate? This question is not just important for the health and sustainability of marine fisheries but also for prospects for peace. Previous research highlights the ways climate change may increase the risk of militarized fisheries conflict (Pinsky et al. 2018, Mendenhall et al. 2020) and the importance of multilateral institutions like RFMOs for providing opportunities to resolve disputes nonviolently. Yet RFMOs vary widely in their assessed capacity to manage fisheries under climate change (Pentz et al. 2018). We investigate the sources of RFMO resiliency, focusing attention on 1) the attributes of member states, such as levels of democracy, scientific capacity, and diplomatic tensions between states, and 2) attributes of the fish stocks and ocean territories managed by RFMOs. We find little evidence that RFMOs with larger areas of competence or that manage high migratory and/or straddling stocks are less climate resilient. We find the scientific and technical capacity of major stakeholders to be important for climate resilience. We find also RFMOs with more democratic member states to be
more climate resilient. And perhaps most importantly, we find that levels of diplomatic tension and histories of past conflict among member states are key: when they are high, climate resilience is low.

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