A glimpse of the future can curb clashes at sea

FUTURE FISH FIGHTS: “It is 2045. After a deadly confrontation between small-scale fishers and massive international trawlers, fishers across West Africa have banded together to take back control of their fisheries and infrastructure.”

This is a quote from a study published in the journal One Earth which uses a narrative scenario approach to explore potential future fishery conflicts around the world.

The article concludes that fisheries conflicts are projected to increase dramatically due to factors like climate change, overfishing and habitat destruction.

The study was done together with centre colleagues Andrew Merrie and Örjan Bodin, as well as a team of international experts from University of British Columbia, Stanford University, Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, University of Denver, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Colorado State University.

What drives a conflict?

The future conflict scenarios were built for four regions in which fisheries conflict is either a current or a pending threat. They can be used to support decision making by building capacity for better anticipatory governance of an unpredictable future.

The scenarios take place between the years 2030 to 2060 in:

The North-East Atlantic (“Scramble for the Atlantic ”)

The East China Sea (“The Remodeled Empire”)

The coast of West Africa (“Oceanic Decolonization”)

The Arctic (“Polar Renaissance”)

In total, 22 drivers and conditions linked to the onset of fisheries conflict were identified. Among them were low quality governance, ethnic tensions and unequal distribution of benefits.

Future ocean security

The four regions were not equally vulnerable to fisheries conflict in the scenarios. For example, the West Africa scenario displayed twice as many “magnified drivers and conditions” as the North East Atlantic scenario.

However, this does not imply that West Africa alone requires immediate attention. Climate change and increased demand for seafood are some of the many global trends that can cause systemic failures all over our increasingly hyper-connected world.

An important point is that two of the scenarios result in situations where rising conflict actually leads to transformative conflict resolution, one scenario ends at a point of intense conflict and the final scenario leads to a difficult stalemate.

As such, the increased likelihood of fisheries conflict in the future does not necessarily mean worse outcomes for people and planet.

“Global society cannot rise to the challenge of preventing regional crises by solely acting on local scales; the response required must be consistent with our knowledge of complex, globally interdependent systems,” they write.