Fisheries management approaches as platforms for climate change adaptation: comparing theory and practice in Australian fisheries

This study examines the extent to which the choice of management approach is a critical factor in enabling climate change adaptation in marine fisheries. Climate change is expected to compound many pressing issues affecting fisheries management. Good governance of fisheries, which is critical to building their adaptive capacity and social-ecological resilience, is seen as ever more important in the context of climate change. A range of fisheries management approaches have been developed and, to varying degrees, applied. Each has been described in the literature as a promising way to manage marine resources. Through literature reviews and a survey of practitioners, this study explores how theoretical properties of selected major management approaches (i.e., ecosystem-based management, adaptive management, co-management, adaptive co-management, and active adaptive management) enable climate change adaptation, and how such properties are perceived by practitioners to manifest in practice using an Australian marine fisheries context. Overall, the selected management approaches have the potential to enable climate change adaptation to varying degrees. Ecosystem-based management, in combination with adaptive management and co-management as nested management approaches, possesses the full array of adaptation capacities and attributes required for adaptation in fisheries. Distinctions between theory and practice observed in this study highlight the importance of practitioner perceptions and enabling institutional arrangements in adapting management to climate change.