A framework to assess the vulnerability of California commercial sea urchin fishermen to the impact of MPAs under climate change

This paper describes the development of a Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) that estimates the relative ability of California commercial sea urchin fishermen to cope with the change associated with proposed marine protected areas. A key goal in establishing marine protected areas is to maximize conservation benefits while minimizing the potential negative impacts to local fishing communities. However, current impact analyses largely assume a linear relationship between percent of fishing area or revenue lost with the magnitude of impact to fishermen. The LVI described in this paper aims to provide an additional dimension to impact analyses in which the adaptive capacity of individual fishermen is examined to estimate the differential abilities of fishermen to cope with the loss of fishing areas or revenue. This paper advances vulnerability assessments as it develops a novel framework for identifying and measuring drivers of vulnerability for understudied fishing populations whose livelihoods depend upon marine resources. This vulnerability assessment is intended to inform the design of marine protected areas by enabling researchers to incorporate the adaptive capacity of fishermen into socioeconomic impact analyses. The LVI was developed for the California commercial sea urchin fishery in the context of proposed marine protected area networks develop through the California Marine Life Protected Act planning process. As climate change advances there is an increasing need to identify vulnerable and resilient populations and ways to bolster adaptive capacity given the environmental and economic changes ahead.