Africa, Changing Lives: Making Research Real, Climate Change, Environment, Headlines

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change Threatens Livelihoods Along Africa's Coast

Miriam Mannak

CAPE TOWN, Feb 19 2009 (IPS) - Environmental experts warn that climate change will lead to oceanic acidification and increase surface water temperatures, especially around the African continent.

This will affect fish stocks and, as a result, threaten the livelihoods of small-scale fishing communities.

"Acidity levels of our oceans predominantly affect fish larvae, which depend on calcium carbonate in the seawater to build their shells, skeletons and cell coverings," explained professor Geoff Brundritt, chairperson of the Global Ocean Observing System in Africa (GOOS Africa). "A higher acidity level hampers this process."

"Fish larvae thus have a slimmer chance of reaching adulthood, which hampers the fish from reproducing and keeping the stocks in shape," he added. "This not only threatens the future of fish stocks, it also poses a threat to communities that depend on fishing for their survival."

Fishing communities in the developing world, including southern Africa, are already among the most vulnerable population groups in the world. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), their living conditions are characterised by overcrowding, low levels of education as well as lack of access to schools, health care facilities and infrastructure, such as roads or markets to sell their ware.

Operating like enormous "vacuum cleaners", oceans naturally absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, said Brundritt. But because levels of this acidic gas in the air have increased due to climate change, oceans have been sucking up more CO2 than previously, which has contributed to oceanic acidification.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in 2007 that the oceans' pH – currently between 7.9 and 8.2 – will fall by a further 0.14 to 0.35 units before the turn of the century. The lower the pH, the more acidic the water; the ideal pH level in saltwater systems should lie between 7.6 and 8.4.

Rising temperatures

To make matters worse, rising temperatures of sea surface waters also negatively affect fish stocks.

"Higher sea surface temperatures do not kill fish as such, but they do seem to chase them away from their grounds, which has an impact on the communities who rely on these stocks," said Larry Hutchings, marine and coastal management researcher for the City of Cape Town in South Africa.

As a result, small-scale fishermen will have to go further and further out to sea to cast their nets, but most of them cannot afford to invest in the necessary boats and technology to do so.

Already in 2007, South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism deputy general, Monde Mayekiso, publicly warned about the averse effects climate change is likely to have in fishermen's livelihoods.

"Scientists have not categorically stated that migration of sardines, for example, is caused by climate change but we do note that the reduction of fish along the West Coast has been associated with extraordinarily warmer water," he told The Citizen newspaper. "This suggests that it could be [related to] climate change."

Mafaniso Hara, senior researcher at the South African Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) agrees: "We suspect that the migration of sardines to the South Coast, in the area of Mossel Bay, indeed has to do with rising sea surface temperatures. The catches have declined from 300,000 tons a few years ago to 100,000 tons per year."

As a result, fishing communities along South Africa's West Coast are feeling the pinch, even though schools of another fish species, horse mackerel, have moved closer to shore. But these fish are less valuable on the market and harder to catch than sardines.

"Horse mackerels live at greater depths, where the water is cooler," Hutchings said. "As a result, these fish can only be caught with big trawlers and are therefore out of reach of small-scale fishermen."

The migration of the sardines has already had a negative impact on employment along the West Coast, Hara said: "There is not enough fish for processing, so jobs have been cut and people retrenched. This has a big impact on communities along the West Coast, which already struggle with poverty."

Job cuts

According to PLAAS, many fishing communities along the West Coast fully depend on the fishing industry and government grants, like child support grants, for their survival. With the fishing industry declining, communities will rely more and more on being supported by the grant system.

"In Hondeklipbaai, a small fishing community on the West Coast, for instance, people are fully dependent on government grants for their survival, as the fishing industry there has almost vanished," said PLAAS researcher Moeniba Issacs. "If these grants would be pulled out for one reason or another, this community would be doomed."

Fishing communities on the country's West Coast are also taking strain because rock lobsters, another major source of income, have started to migrate southwards.

Figures by the South African department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) show that 30 years ago, 70 percent of rock lobster was caught along the West Coast. Today, 90 percent is caught about 300 kilometres further south, close to Cape Point.

But, Hutchings said, both the sardine and rock lobster migration are a two-edged sword: "While fishermen along the West Coast are struggling as a result of migrating fish and rock lobster, communities along the South Coast and around Mossel Bay have gained employment and are better off."

Theoretically, one could suggest that fishing communities along the West Coast should move with the fish, but this is easier said than done, explains Hutchings, as the distance between for instance Hondeklipbaai and Mossel Bay is approximately 800 kilometres.

"As I pointed out, most West Coast fishermen are very poor," agreed Isaacs. "They can't pack their bags and leave, because they don't have the financial means to do so."

Sustained livelihoods for more than 30,000 who live in fishing communities along South Africa's coast are also limited by quotas, which allocate the majority of allowable catches to the commercial fishing industry.