Resilience of a giant clam subsistence fishery in Kiribati to climate change

Changes in sea surface temperature have historically impacted the coral reef habitats of giant clams in Kiribati. However, across many islands of Kiribati, the four species of giant clam have largely withstood these environmental changes. We adopted and applied a comprehensive resilience framework to assess attributes conferring and limiting resilience in the Kiribati giant clam data-limited fishery and used knowledge co-production and the precautionary principle approach to better understand resilience. We found that the resilience of the fishery to climate and anthropogenic impacts, as highlighted by local stake- and rightholders, will depend on the ability of fishery actors to act collectively to implement adaptive governance. We used a gradient of human pressure to identify approaches and pathways for improving and operationalising climate resilience. Climate change, coupled with human impacts, have reduced ecological resilience in the urbanised island of South Tarawa. In South Tarawa, governance and social processes are less flexible, leading to declines in the local subsistence clam fishery. Conversely, on several remote outer islands, where the social-ecological system has shown promise in combating these anthropogenic influences, the ecological resilience has improved through adaptive community-based fisheries management, and the subsistence clam fishery has persisted. Our case study demonstrates the importance of a participatory approach and local knowledge when assessing climate resilience and identifies a pathway of resilience in a data-limited small-scale fishery.