Social-ecological impacts of climate change on small-scale fisheries in Palau

Climate change threatens the livelihoods, food security and well-being of millions globally who depend on small-scale fisheries.Understanding potential ecological changes alongside fishers' experiences, anticipated responses, and capacity to adapt to changing resources is key to informing sustainable and equitable management strategies.Here, we use an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach to assess social-ecological impacts of climate change on small-scale fisheries in Palau, a Pacific Island nation with deep traditional and local ecological knowledge.We combined questionnaire data from a national natural-resource assessment (2020) and two community-based fisher surveys (2021, 2022) with species distribution models for 66 culturally and ecologically important marine species.We assessed fisher-reported changes in fishing activity over the preceding decade, projected changes in habitat suitability for the key species, explored fisher perceptions of climate change and intended responses to a hypothetical 50% decline in catch, and evaluated adaptive capacity across gender, age, and community.Under a high-emissions scenario, models projected declining average habitat suitability of key focal species for reef fish by mid-century, little average change for invertebrates, and contrasting changes among pelagic groups.Fishers reported species-level changes in fishing effort and catch volume over the preceding decade that were generally consistent with an overall decline in catch per unit effort.Fishers also perceived climate change as a major threat that will continue to negatively impact their fishing, with most respondents to the hypothetical scenario indicating an intention to adapt their behavior in some way to remain within the fishery.However, adaptive capacity varied across social dimensions of gender, age, and community.