The socio-economic and ecological impact of regime shifts on small-scale fisheries in northern Peru

Abstract

Species composition is known to naturally change over time; however, these fluctuations happen frequently in shoreline ecosystems where warm and cold currents meet. This study aims to understand the social and economic impacts of changes in species composition and total catch in north-western Peru. A social perception analysis coupled with available small-scale fisheries landing data of three sites: Cabo Blanco, Los Organos, and Mancora was used to identify differences in species composition and total catch between sites from years 2010 to 2020. The results suggest that fishermen have a different perception of abundance across all sites as their responses do not match with landing data. Despite the sites being adjacent to each other, they have significantly different species composition. Therefore, each local fishery sustains itself from different target species and consequently, their presence/absence might impact fisheries differently. Furthermore, these differences might also be related to an increase of frequency of ENSO events due to climate change, fishing pressures and poor management that put fisheries at risk and are predicted to increase fisheries vulnerability.