Climate change: Social adaptation strategies for fishermen

Thursday, 25 May 2017 Read 941 times Written by TCCN

Climate change: Social adaptation strategies for fishermen

Hayrol Azril Mohamed Shaffrila,* Asnarulkhadi Abu Samaha ,b, Jeffrey Lawrence D'Silvaa

^aInstitute for Social Science Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Putra Infoport, 43400 Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

^b Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

Abstract

As climate change continues to pose a major threat to the well-being of both people and the environment, adaptation to its negative effects has moved to the forefront among occupations that rely on natural resources for their livelihood. As one of the main occupational groups who are dependent on nature, ﬁshermen are expected to experience many new challenges from the changing climate. Though an adequate amount of scientiﬁc research on climate change has been carried out, few studies have explored the social circumstances of the issue, particularly in the context of small scale ﬁshermen. This paper aims to address this gap. Aspects such as risks reduction, social relationships, climate change knowledge, alternative skills, involvement in adaptation planning and access to credit are recommended to be considered as these are found to provide synergy for social adaptation, and it is hoped that such recommendation strategies will assist stakeholders in generating and engendering effective adaptation strategies for small-scale ﬁshermen.