Marine Social-Institutional Capacity-Building
Enablement of community or organisational adaptation to marine climate impacts. Includes: 1) Coastal adaptation community planning whereby community planning accounts for actual or expected climate and its effects, to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities; 2) Climate resilient marine protected area management via plans that incorporate spatial control of non-climate stressors and dynamics on land and in the sea to minimize climate vulnerability and increase climate resilience; 3) Climate adaptive fisheries management which introduces flexibility through property rights, licensing and lease conditions to enable managers to respond rapidly to projected changes in the dynamics of marine resources and ecosystems; 4) Climate adaptive aquaculture management which introduces flexibility through property rights, licensing and lease conditions to enable managers to respond rapidly to projected changes in the dynamics of marine areas, species and production models; 5) Marine energy transition assistance to support carbon-dependent communities as they transition to a carbon-independence, such as transition planning for offshore oil and gas workers; 6) Anticipatory marine climate science for marine decision support & adaptive management; 7) Marine disaster response programs whereby policies, initiatives and services are in place to support communities during extreme climate events; 8) Marine climate justice organisations where transdisciplinary teams are mobilised to support rights holders in navigating or resisting marine climate colonialism; and 9) Marine climate rights recognition whereby ocean climate mitigation and adaptation schemes explicitly recognise, define and secure individual and common sovereignty, property and data rights
These types of interventions pose a range of risks and challenges. Resources exist to help identify and address these.
Useful resources
Bell J. D. et al. 2021. Pathways to sustaining tuna-dependent Pacific Island economies during climate change. Nature Sustainability 4: 900-910.
Cinner, J. E. et al. 2018. Building adaptive capacity to climate change in tropical coastal communities. Nature Climate Change 8: 117-123.
Fischer, M. et al. 2022. Empowering her guardians to nurture our Ocean’s future. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 32: 271-296.
Hobday, A. J. et al. 2020. Quantitative foresighting as a means of improving anticipatory scientific capacity and strategic planning. One Earth 3: 631-644.
Morrison, T. H. et al. 2024. Overcoming lock-in of science-policy responses to reef heating. Marine Policy 170:106380.
Ogier, E. M. et al 2025. Enhance responsible governance to match the scale and pace of marine–climate interventions. Nature Climate Change 15: 356-357.
Pradhan, S. K. et al. 2024. Pathways toward Equitable Climate Resilience, Sustainable Fisheries & Tenure Security; A Brief for Funders.
UNESCO-IOC. 2021. Climate change and marine spatial planning. Policy Brief 5.