Fishers around the Pacific are bracing for a potentially huge El Niño, which would pile pressure on an industry already struggling with surging fuel prices due to the conflict in the Gulf.
El Niño is a naturally occurring weather pattern which leads to higher surface water temperatures in much of the Pacific and disrupts fishing as animals move to find more comfortable waters.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is an 82% chance of El Niño emerging between May and July. Other scientists have raised the possibility it could be an extra-strong super El Niño.
World Meteorological Society secretary-general Celeste Saulo warned this month that a strong El Niño would “exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean”.
El Niño is a climate pattern in which the surface water of the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean warms to significantly above average. This affects rainfall patterns and weather across the world, raising temperatures globally for its duration.
It is part of a phenomenon called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (Enso). El Niño events do not occur on a regular schedule, but on average appear every two to seven years. The opposite, cooler phase is called La Niña.
During La Niña, cooler-than-average sea temperatures are experienced in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Like El Niño, it affects patterns of rainfall and atmospheric pressure worldwide.
The pending weather will exacerbate the issue of oil prices, which have risen by more than 25% since disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, following United States and Israeli attacks on Iran. This has been particularly damaging for those fishers who use large amounts of fuel to get their boats to and from fishing grounds.
In Peru and the Philippines, Dialogue Earth found that these issues are exacerbating deep-seated existing issues for some of the world’s most economically precarious people.
Peru: Fuelling problems
In Tumbes, close to Peru’s border with Ecuador, Miguel Martínez has kept his vessel stranded on the beach for a year. “It is not profitable to go out fishing,” says the president of the Regional Federation of Selective Artisanal Fishing Organizations.
When local fishers do head out to sea, he says, their nets often return filled with purple swimming crabs (Euphylax dovii) which are attracted by warming waters but have no commercial value. He says he used to haul in 100 to 150 kilos of fish on a trip but now catches only half that on average.
“We don’t know who to turn to,” he says. “With the scarcity of species on our coast, we don’t want to invest in fuel because we barely cover costs as it is.”
War between Iran, Israel and the US triggered a huge spike in fuel prices in his country. For the nearly 96,000 artisanal fishers in Peru, the impact has been worse because they do not buy at gas stations. They buy from chatas (supply barges) which do not receive government subsidies.
Fuel used to cost 14 soles (USD 4) a gallon, says Elsa Vega, a fisher, shipowner, and president of the National Society of Artisanal Fishing. Now, she tells Dialogue Earth, the cost is between 21 and 25 soles. “Nobody controls [the supply barges],” she says.
A vessel heading out into the open sea in search of mahi-mahi can use between 1,000 to 1,500 gallons, Vega says, with no increase in fish prices to counteract the soaring fuel costs. Many fishers have seen profits fall by 40%, she says.
In February, Peru’s Commission for the National Study of the El Niño Phenomenon (Enfen) raised the alarm over a coastal El Niño, projected to extend until February 2027 and reach moderate intensity between May and August of this year.
Luis Vásquez Espinoza, spokesperson for Enfen and expert on oceanography and climate change at the Peruvian Sea Institute, says when the sea warms, commercially important fish such as anchovies seek more temperate parts of the ocean either nearer the coast or deeper. But Peruvian regulations prohibit catches in shallow waters while deeper waters are far more challenging and expensive to fish, making fishing less viable.
Despite these hardships, the number of artisanal vessels in Peru grew from nearly 18,000 in 2015 to over 23,000 in 2023 – a 29% increase in a decade, according to the NGO Oceana, squeezing incomes.
“We have a serious problem with the size of the fleet,” warns Juan Carlos Sueiro, fisheries director for Oceana in Peru. “With more and more vessels, average incomes are lower.” Many fishers are barely breaking even, he adds.
The Philippines: ‘It was better during Covid’
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, more than 50% of Philippine fishers have stopped working since the Gulf conflict as diesel prices have doubled, says Fernando Hicap, chairperson of Pamalakaya National Federation of Small Fisherfolk Organisations in the Philippines.
“It was better during Covid, because at least during Covid we could go to sea. The problem then was that consumers couldn’t buy fish because of the quarantine, but at least we had a catch,” says Hicap.
Some have sold their boats to pay off debts, he says. The rest are bracing for the coming of El Niño.
In the Philippines, El Niño can weaken the north-east monsoon. This prevailing wind drives an ocean process called upwelling which brings cold, nutrient-rich deep water to the surface, stimulating plankton growth.
Less upwelling can reduce food for small pelagic fish such as sardines and anchovies, decreasing productivity in fishing grounds, says Charina Lyn Amedo-Repollo, a researcher at the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute. This can mean less fish for fishers, longer fishing trips, and higher fuel costs.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority show that total fisheries production between April and June 2024, during the previous El Niño, declined 6.2% year-on-year, while seaweed production, a big part of the blue economy in the Philippines, declined by 26%.
“The core issue is how many fishers would experience income instability,” says conservationist Candeze Mongaya, who previously worked with the NGOs Rare and Oceana Philippines. “We have numerical data in terms of how much the fishers have lost, but there are also indirect losses in the context of their day-to-day expenses.”
Small-scale fishers have been offered a 3,000 peso (USD 49) subsidy as a response to the rising fuel prices. But several told Dialogue Earth they need long-term solutions, not short-term, sticking plaster fixes.
This could include government help for fishers to diversify their work, so they have other sources of income, says Mongaya.
Hicap would like to see wider efforts to restore marine environments and stop the destruction of fish habitats like mangroves and reefs to sustain the catches of the future.
Keeping ecosystems healthier makes them more resilient to climate change and extreme events, and good management can increase fisheries catches, say scientists, helping to mitigate the impact of shocks like El Niño on those who rely on them.
“We shouldn’t be constructing more coastal roads; they ruin mangroves and coral reefs, and they cause erosion,” he says. “As long as those destructive projects continue, small fishers will be experiencing the effects of El Niño.”
In Peru too, there is a feeling that these latest crises show the importance of building more resilience in the fishing sector.
“We talk about sustainability,” says Vega. “But this activity also has to be sustainable for those of us who depend on it. The sea cannot turn into a graveyard of ships.”
Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources spokesperson Nazario Briguera said the agency will educate fishers and has activated a special El Niño Task Force to work on safeguarding food production.
Peru’s Ministry of Production did not respond to requests for comment.
