Vulnerability of coastal fishing communities to climate variability and change: implications for fisheries livelihoods and management in Peru

The warm phase of El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is characterized in Peru by positive sea surface temperatures and negative sea level pressure anomalies. Biotic responses to this event range from changes in species composition, abundance and biomass, changes in reproductive success, larval dispersal and recruitment, as well as changes in food availability, competition and predation. The thesis characterized fishermen livelihoods and how they responded to El Nino events in two sites in the North (Sechura) and South (Pisco) of Peru. Additionally, it explored how institutions enable or constrain fishermen livelihoods andresponses to El Nino. While both sites have different histories of ENSO related impacts, they share the fact that the artisanal fishing sector plays an important role in the local economy.Livelihood assets exhibit mixed patterns with Pisco possessing a stronger livelihood platform in terms of assets but lower incomes than in Sechura. This finding highlights the fact that income is not an accurate measure of resilient livelihoods and needs to be contextualized. Seasonal migration is a livelihood option practiced by fishermen in both sites depending on seasonality, the de facto open access facilitating fishermen mobility. The thesis also identified that fishermen are largely dependent on marine resources for their livelihoods, occupational pluralism being low at both sites. Diversification being considered a risk-reduction mechanism and a building block towards resilient livelihoods, the findings suggest that fishermen are vulnerable to external shocks due to their high reliance on fishing activities. Moreover, disturbances do not only include climate variability, but also market changes to which fishermen must adapt. El Nià ±o events engender negative livelihood outcomes in the North, where floods have a significant impact on households and the collapse of the scallop fishery considerably decreases incomes. Conversely, in Pisco the increase in scallop landings provides an economic bonanza for fishermen. An array of coping strategies can be observed in both sites, mainly prey-switching and migration. However, in Sechura, exiting the fisheries sector is also a favored strategy. Additionally, the damages of the devastating floods in the North poses considerable strain on livelihoods and disaster risk reduction initiatives in thesecommunities are needed. Current institutional arrangements in the artisanal fishery, with the de facto open access, enable migration, an important livelihood option and coping strategy during El Nià ±o in both communities. With the current chorus of dissatisfaction and trend towards regionalization of the fishery, changes in this property right regime should be carefully evaluated before being implemented. Finally, the thesis revealed that formal institutions negatively affect livelihood outcomes in both sites, the failure of decentralization, hence institutional interplay, hamperingfisheries management. With El Nino being a recurrent phenomenon on the Peruvian shores, expected to increase in frequency due to global climate change, adaptive managementstrategies focusing on diversification of livelihoods, migration and property rights are imperative. The livelihood framework combined with institutional analysis and the resilience perspective provided a useful insight into the complex range of assets and activities affected by climatic events as well as the responses of fishermen. This work is, hitherto, one of the few empirical studies exploring fishermen livelihoods in Peru and further research is warranted as well as the incorporation of the findings into ecological and biological studies looking at the dynamics of the artisanal fisheries, especially in the context of El Nino