Aalborg University's Centre for Blue Governance has published an article on the most significant climate-change-related impacts and adaptation from the perspective of stakeholders in Greenlandic fisheries (south−north/offshore−inshore), where interviews and workshops with Greenlandic fishers and stakeholders have communicated their observations of fishery changes associated with changes in the marine environment within the last decade.

Key observations include:

• Changes in sea ice cover
• Increased abundance of known species in North Greenland
• Fish species relocation and periodic absences in coastal systems
• A northward movement of the shrimp fishery
• New and unprecedented bycatch issues
• New fisheries

Stakeholder knowledge acknowledges the capacity of both offshore and coastal fisheries to adapt to changing seasonality and distribution. Factory capacity and decision-making as well as bycatch legislation have been identified as the most critical bottlenecks for (re)diversifying fisheries and increasing the value of the locally available resources. Read the article here. 

This study was conducted for ECOTIP and funded by Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation funding programme. Recommendations to Greenlandic policymakers based on this study have been made at Greenland Science Week 2023 during the first Greenland Marine Research Seminar.