Climate Change and Arctic Fisheries

Abstract

Climate change will have a variety of consequences for marine capture fisheries within the broadly defined Arctic marine area. Among these are new and expanding fisheries in the Arctic Ocean. This chapter provides an overview of current Arctic fisheries, the current international legal and policy framework with respect to Arctic fisheries and some national regulation over Arctic fisheries. This is complemented by the identification of gaps in the international legal and policy framework and national regulation and options for addressing them. Among the options are ensuring the availability of relevant scientific data; individual action by Arctic Ocean coastal states and other states in their capacities as flag, coastal, port and market states and with regard to their natural and legal persons; bilateral or subregional arrangements between the relevant Arctic Ocean coastal states on the conservation and management of shared fish stocks; a regional declaration on new fisheries in the Arctic marine area; and one or more state-of-the-art RFMOs or Arrangements.