Climate change, poverty and food security: The role of the small-scale fisheries sector

Coastal small scale fisheries and communities in the developing countries are vulnerable to global climate change. The consequences occur directly due to the impact of rising temperatures on movement of fish resources and indirectly as climate change impacts on other sectors of the economy thereby imposing increased pressure on already overexploited coastal fisheries. A stylistic two-sector dynamic bio-economic model is specified for modelling intra- and inter-sectoral impacts of climate change on fisheries. The approach is useful for design of resource management policies that secure employment, incomes and food security for coastal communities while at the same time avoiding overexploitation of fish resources. A policy and socially relevant implementation of the framework will call for detailed specification and calibrations that have not been attempted in this paper.