Climate Change Shifts What Ocean Recovery Requires

Scientists argue that ocean recovery efforts are failing because they treat recovery goals as fixed targets, when in reality marine ecosystems and human societies are constantly changing due to climate change and other factors. The review synthesized existing research on marine recovery efforts, analyzed case studies like North Atlantic right whale recovery, and developed a new framework for thinking about recovery as dynamic rather than static targets. Recovery efforts often fail because they don't account for the dynamic nature of marine ecosystems and changing environmental conditions. There should be multiple acceptable recovery outcomes between minimum population viability and maximum carrying capacity, rather than a single fixed target. Future recovery frameworks need institutional flexibility to respond rapidly to changing conditions and integrate governance from local to regional scales. Research advances are improving our ability to predict environmental change effects on ocean productivity and calibrate recovery targets to changing conditions. The research challenges the traditional approach to marine conservation by showing that fixed recovery targets don't work in a changing ocean. It provides a roadmap for more flexible, adaptive conservation strategies that could be important as climate change accelerates.

Citation

Ingeman, Kurt E.; Samhouri, Jameal F.; Stier, Adrian C. (2019). Ocean recoveries for tomorrow’s Earth: Hitting a moving target. Science.

"It provides a roadmap for more flexible, adaptive conservation strategies that could be important as climate change accelerates."

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