Man on a boat pulling up a crayfish crate

Seafood Sector Adaptation Strategy, 2021–2030

The national adaptation plan looks at the impacts of climate change  happening now and, in the future, and sets out how New Zealand can adapt. This story gives us an idea of what the adaptation plan looks like in real life. It’s a great example of how we can do things differently to thrive in a different climate to the one we’ve had in the past. 

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More than 20 organisations in the seafood sector are pulling together to make sure the threat climate change poses to their industry is minimised.  

New Zealand seafood contributes around $2 billion in export earnings and employs more than 13,000 people but climate change-related effects such as ocean acidification and warming, as well as species migration, have huge implications for its future.   

For the seafood sector, there is only one way forward:  

“Only a collaborative, sector-wide adaptation strategy can address the impacts of climate-related risk in the seafood sector,” – the Aotearoa Circle Seafood Sector Adaptation Strategy: Climate Adaptation Strategy 2021–2030. 

Climate risk to fisheries is one of the 43 risks identified in the National Climate Change Risk Assessment 2020. In 2020, the Aotearoa Circle brought together 23 organisations in the seafood sector to assess climate risks and opportunities. This group included industry players, government, iwi and community stakeholders. It adopted the Seafood Sector Adaptation Strategy, with comprehensive actions to be brought in from 2021 to 2027. 

The strategy is one of the actions in the national adaptation plan: 

“As kaitiaki we work together to adapt to climate change and ensure a resilient future.” 

The group is already working to better understand the sector’s climate-related risks. It’s also identifying the most effective options to reduce emissions and build resilience across the sector, the communities in which we operate and the marine environment 

Goals for the strategy include:  

  • Bold leadership to ensure stakeholders can better understand their risks and opportunities and drive the actions. 
  • Resilient prosperity to develop adaptative capacity (e.g., funding and research opportunities to diversify markets). It will also progress actions that enhance the resilience of the marine environment. 
  • Practical knowledge to enable the development and sharing of all kinds of relevant information and knowledge across the sector. This will inform the assessment of adaptation options. 
  • Values-based governance that will see stakeholders from across the seafood community collaborate with policymakers as climate change is mainstreamed into regulatory and management-level decision-making. 

This is an early example of a sector working together with the Government, iwi and stakeholders to produce an adaptation strategy including an implementation roadmap. It is an opportunity to adapt in ways that bring lasting co-benefits to habitats, ecosystems, communities and businesses. 

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