EDFish

By Ming Sun, Stony Brook University, and Adityo Setiawan, Environmental Defense Fund From warming ocean waters to increased acidification and rising sea levels, it’s no wonder that fish are on the move to find suitable habitat! Climate change is creating dramatic shifts in species’ distributions and affecting their productivity. Fisheries managers who try to ensure […]

The impacts of climate change are already apparent in U. S. offshore waters, creating challenges for fisheries, fishing communities and fisheries management. Examples of climate impacts are prevalent across all regions of the coastal U.S. As ocean temperatures warm, species distributions are shifting. For instance, market squid moving up the West Coast from Baja California […]

By Nathan Willse, Stony Brook University, and Harlisa Harlisa, Environmental Defense Fund Crustacean fisheries offer enormous opportunities as high-value and potentially resilient alternatives to over-exploited finfish stocks. However, rising global demand for crustacean products and rapid environmental change call for an increased focus on the sustainable management of crustacean stocks. While landings, the catch received […]

As global populations grow and fish populations shift or even shrink, one thing is clear: offshore aquaculture in the United States is a matter of when not if. But it’s also a matter of how. Because as demand for safe, delicious, low-carbon seafood grows, we must also ensure that offshore seafood farming in United States […]

By Jeff Young, Kristin Kleisner and Yong Chen As climate change and overfishing continue to impact coastal communities worldwide, crustacean fisheries provide an opportunity for hope. Crustacean fisheries, consisting of species such as crabs, shrimps, prawns and lobster, provide a critical source of food, jobs, and income for coastal communities worldwide. These species tend to […]

By Vrinda Suresh, Julia Mason and Doug Rader  During the last two weeks of August 2022, delegates from across the globe gathered in New York City for the Fifth Session of the Intergovernmental Conference, or IGC5, to develop a new treaty to protect biodiversity in offshore waters, called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement, or […]

Three new reports examine the potential of blue carbon pathways to act as natural climate solutions. By Kristin Kleisner, Monica Moritsch and Jamie Collins To address the climate crisis we need to explore every avenue possible, investigate innovative solutions, and even look to the oceans for answers. The oceans already serve the planet as a […]

By Janelle Hangen and Huff McGonigal Climate change will continue to have serious impacts on oceans, fish stocks and fishing communities. If we continue to emit carbon at the current rate, landings of sustainably caught fish will decline by as much as a 25% by the end of the century due to shifting stocks and […]

By Jeff Young Climate change and overfishing are increasingly straining fisheries and marine ecosystems, putting marine biodiversity, the nutrition of people in coastal communities and global food supply at greater risk. Fishers, community leaders and practitioners worldwide are poised to take action, but often grapple with uncertainty, limited data or insufficient resources. Meanwhile, the journey of […]

By Christopher Free and Willow Battista Earlier this spring, 1.5 million livestock died in the Horn of Africa. The immediate culprit was a severe, prolonged drought spurred by the growing effects of climate change. It’s a sign of weakening food systems in a warming world. But while land-based food systems are carbon-intensive and increasingly unstable, […]

By: Eduardo “Lalo” Boné Morón, Senior Manager, EDF Cuba Oceans Program Juan Carlos Duque, Project Manager of the Biological Corridor in the Caribbean of UNEP José “Pepe” Gerhartz, Conservation Specialist of the CBC Secretariat “Life revolves around the climate,” says José Luis “Pepe” Gerhartz, a senior conservation specialist from the Caribbean Biological Corridor Initiative, or […]

By EDF’s Jacob Eurich and Kristin Kleisner, and Kathy Mills, Gulf of Maine Research Institute Fisheries, including the systems for harvesting, processing and marketing blue foods, are an important pillar of many economies, supporting hundreds of millions of livelihoods. Small-scale fisheries and aquaculture produce more than half of the global fish catch and two-thirds of […]

By Bavidra Mohan, Director of Acumen Academy, and Jeff Young, Senior Manager, Global Capacity Development, Environmental Defense Fund The small-scale fisheries sector is a powerful example of our interconnectedness. Small-scale fisheries employ 90% of all fishworkers globally, supplying nearly half of the world’s fish catch each year. In addition to feeding coastal communities, seafood harvested […]

By Douglas Rader, Jamie Collins and Edith Widder, CEO & Senior Scientist, Ocean Research & Conservation Association People of a certain age will recall being mesmerized—perhaps terrified!—by a television series called “The Twilight Zone,” which ran 156 episodes from 1959 to 1964. The show, which focused on people’s experiences at the edge of reality, is […]

By Eric Schwaab, Rod Fujita and Jacqui Vogel Climate change is already transforming the distribution and abundance of fish stocks around the world. Warming temperatures, lower pH levels and many other factors are causing many fish species to shift to better habitats and others to shrink in abundance. This is problematic for the communities that […]

By: Kristin M. Kleisner and Jamie Collins As we embark this year on the United Nations Ocean Decade, you may be hearing quite a bit about blue carbon. But what is it, and why is it so important for the future of our planet?  Well, the oceans play a critical role in trapping carbon, and they […]

A sustainable aquaculture industry in the United States has the potential to provide both environmental and economic benefits — and EDF is committed to supporting legislation that prioritizes strong regulations while supporting the industry’s efforts to make sure those benefits are felt broadly. That’s why EDF connected with Imani Black, founder of Minorities in Aquaculture, […]

By Karly Kelso, Director of Climate Resilient Food Systems at EDF, and Michelle Tigchelaar, Research Scientist at Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions Three billion people depend on our oceans, rivers and lakes for nutritious blue foods. By 2050, our global population is expected to reach 10 billion and global demand for blue foods is expected […]

Effective fisheries management is critical to food security, livelihoods for millions of people and vibrant marine life and biodiversity. By empowering communities to sustainably manage marine resources, we can build resilience to climate change, secure healthy oceans and better protect communities that are vulnerable to extreme weather events. This is especially true in the Philippines, […]

When it comes to slowing the warming of our planet, there is no substitute for immediate, dramatic reductions in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. But emissions reductions alone won’t be enough to limit warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement, or even to the Agreement’s upper limit of […]