Fisheries face clear challenges beyond overfishing, with climate changes increasingly reflected in sea surface temperature, sea level rise, increased storm events, ocean acidification, and large shifts in species distributions (IPCC, 2014). Fishers directly experience these impacts as, for example, decreased catch and more incidence of invasive species, increased travel requirements and more need for vessel or gear replacement (Macusi et al., 2020), global market and demographic shifts, and safety issues as a result of increased storm events (Adger et al., 2005; Armitage and Johnson, 2006; Le Cornu et al., 2018). Small-scale fisheries/fishers (SSFs) in particular have been identified as more vulnerable to larger-scale changes such as climate change compared to large-scale fisheries (Allison et al., 2009; Macusi et al., 2020; Salagrama, 2012) because SSFs are generally more dependent on their catches for subsistence, i.e. for food security and basic income needs (Kittinger et al., 2015; Le Cornu et al., 2018), and have limited mobility and resources for changing technologies or to help them recover from impacts (IPCC, 2022; Leichenko and Silva, 2014).

Although adaptation—to new places, species, and fishing practices—is inherent to SSFs, their adaptive capacity is constrained due to the current speed and scale of economic, political, social, and cultural changes. For example, increasing effort or accessing new places or species is more restricted now due to formal regulations, the loss of traditional arrangements, and the impacts of past fisheries; inter-generational transfer of knowledge and skills is also decreasing, and socio-cultural changes are making it difficult to carry out traditional coping mechanisms (Ford et al., 2007, 2008; Ford et al., 2006a, 2006; Gearheard et al., 2006; Laidler et al., 2009; Sievanen, 2014). While SSFs therefore need urgent support in finding suitable adaptation strategies, the timelines and assistance necessary for implementation must be carefully considered to avoid misleading or otherwise harming fishers and their communities.

Recent studies on SSFs have mainly focused on increasing their adaptive capacity and reducing their vulnerability, as well as increasing their resilience and improving risk management (e.g. Cinner et al., 2013; Etongo and Arrisol, 2021; Furgal and Seguin, 2006; Himes-Cornell and Kasperski, 2015; Islam and Chuenpagdee, 2022; Lee et al., 2019; Payne et al., 2021). Most of these studies address climate impacts based on the now-classical framework of vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (IPCC, 2001; Cinner et al., 2018; Dudley et al., 2021; Freduah et al., 2019; Islam and Chuenpagdee, 2022; Limuwa et al., 2018; Mamauag et al., 2013; Marshall et al., 2013). This framework is also widely used in ecological research (e.g. Bueno-Pardo et al., 2021) and there are therefore variations in usage of the terms. In practice, however, the three components of vulnerability are not easily delineated and often cannot be identified distinctly in observed adaptation strategies, particularly when individuals and communities are simultaneously responding to multiple stressors. Therefore, we focus here on the adaptation strategies themselves and their implementation process.

Despite the large number of vulnerability assessments at different scales, research into appropriate adaptation options for SSF are still scarce (Salgueiro-Otero and Ojea, 2020), and documented examples of implemented adaptation initiatives even more scarce (Miller et al., 2018). On top of that, a lot of the research so far on climate adaptation of SSFs has had an indirect approach mainly based on the internal logic of the vulnerability framework itself (e.g. Ford et al., 2006a; Hoang et al., 2020; Morzaria-Luna et al., 2014; Ruiz-Díaz et al., 2020). For instance, it is thought that, by reducing the vulnerability of SSFs, they will be more capable of withstanding potential effects of adverse climatic conditions and, therefore, will be ‘better adapted’ (Jara et al., 2020; Kalikoski et al., 2010). So, adaptations to become less vulnerable, less exposed, or to have a higher adaptive capacity, etc. can be indirectly identified as climate adaptation measures for SSFs (Adger, 2006).

Adaptation strategies of different communities will differ depending on the level of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity and are therefore place, system, and time specific (Adger, 2006; Senapati and Gupta, 2017; Smit and Wandel, 2006). For instance, to be more resilient to comparable extreme weather events, some argue that fishers in the Galapagos need a better disaster risk management toolkit, while fishers in the Philippines need to restore the health of the coral reef ecosystem, mainly by planting mangroves (Monnier et al., 2020). Moreover, whether an adaptation strategy is ‘appropriate’ depends on social contexts including values and identity that community members share. Another example is that of pescatourism as income diversification for fishers, where tourists can experience activities on a commercial fishing vessel (Piasecki et al., 2016). With SSFs in Italy, this is very welcomed as it helps to preserve artisanal fisheries in coastal communities while reducing catches (because revenue is supplemented by paying tourists). In other places, fishers would not agree to this ‘adaptation’ and might see this as a detrimental impact on their social identity because they would be identified as tour guides instead of fishers, or license rights might be given to charter operators rather than to fishers, turning it into a commercial activity which does not benefit the fishers (Piasecki et al., 2016; Prosperi et al., 2019). SSFs around the world can thus learn from one another and find inspiration on how to deal with the coming challenges, but there is no single ‘best’ way of adapting to climate change.

There are few yet thorough reviews focused on documenting the array of potential adaptation strategies of SSFs to climate change. Shaffril et al. (2020), for instance, found that government assistance is required to support social, economic, and environmental adaptations. More importantly, adaptations should be in line with the needs, abilities and interests of local people. Other reviews have found that most studies focus on adaptation theory and planning, but that there is a gap between research on adaptation theory and implementation (Miller et al., 2018; Salgueiro-Otero and Ojea, 2020). In this study we modified a framework based on past work by FAO (2018) which we expand by incorporating diverse strategies discussed and proposed in academic and grey literature. Here, we define adaptation strategies as a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a particular adaptation objective. Each adaptation strategy consists of several adaptation actions (tools) that work towards achieving the objective of that strategy. Because there will undoubtedly be more specific proposed strategies as challenges and responses continue, we focus this work on providing categories to help organize and evaluate any adaptation strategies and tools from the perspective of SSFs, namely, “how much time and support would SSF need to implement this climate change adaptation?”. We then tested this new framework through an interactive exercise with small-scale octopus fishers in Yucatán, Mexico. By organizing the toolbox of strategies in this way, we aim to provide guidance to design climate adaptation strategies that are both environmentally, socially, and economically suitable for diverse SSFs and that could prove essential for maintaining fishing livelihoods while meeting local contexts and priorities. We also emphasize throughout this work, that it is important to listen to fisherfolk and their communities in terms of what they need to adapt, not only what we think they need. This information will then, hopefully, enable decision makers to make better decisions to prevent negative socioeconomic and ecological impacts, and create adaptation strategies with the necessary support so the burden of implementing would not be put on the fishers alone.

There are three main steps in this research that are further detailed below: 1) we gathered adaptation tools and strategies from academic and grey literature to create a toolbox by classifying the tools and strategies according to five categories, 2) we developed a theoretical time-support framework, based on the toolbox, that allows to investigate the implementation requirements by highlighting the amount of internal capacity, external support, and time needed to implement different strategies, and 3) we applied a case study with small-scale octopus fisheries in Yucatán, Mexico, where we used the toolbox and the time-support framework to gather information on what those fishers need to adapt to the changing climatic conditions. While continuous adaptation to ecological conditions is an integral part of all artisanal fisheries, we focus here on specific adaptations specifically to the unprecedented large-scale and rapid effects of climate change.

We adapted the FAO adaptation framework for small-scale fisheries and organized the toolbox of climate change adaptations for SSFs and at the same time focused on its implementations. We also showed its usefulness with a practical example of its application in the field. To be clear, constant adaptation is a hallmark of SSFs, yet specific literature on examples of implemented climate adaptation strategies was mainly found since 2015. This increase in research interest is unsurprising given the overall recognition of escalating climate impacts, but could also be due to the publication of the FAO ‘Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication’ (FAO, 2015). This galvanized international recognition for SSF research focused on local scales and contexts (Jentoft et al., 2017) and contributed to the declaration of the 2022 International Year on Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture by FAO. Most SSFs adaptation strategies came from case studies from developing countries, even though there are many SSFs in developed countries as well. This may be due to a lower perceived resilience of SSFs (and broader communities) in developing countries, and because of the larger expected climate (and ecological) changes in the tropics compared with other regions. While these characteristics of SSFs in developing countries do warrant particular research attention and financial support, we note that SSFs from developed countries face their own challenges and will also require adaptation strategies to be identified and implemented. Nevertheless, the toolbox and time-support framework are still very useful in context of developed countries since there are significant overlaps of strategies for SSFs in both developed and developing countries, such as livelihood diversification, among other ecotourism, changing of quotas and species caught, increasing the added value of the catch, etc. (e.g. Aguilera et al., 2015; Payne et al., 2021; Prosperi et al., 2019).

Different climate adaptation strategies will apply to different local communities, as their needs are location and context specific. There is therefore no set of strategies that will guarantee success. Nevertheless, some studies argue to have identified some key elements of successful adaptation strategies, which are increased involvement and co-management, and livelihood diversification (Galappaththi et al., 2021; Gianelli et al., 2021; Kalikoski et al., 2010). In addition, due to the reduced variety in catchable species and ever tighter legislations (Symes et al., 2015), then many researchers call for a higher degree of flexibility and adaptation strategies of flexible management tools, enabling a quicker response to a changing environment e.g., flexibility in livelihoods or fishing operations (temporal and spatial) of effort, target gear and species (Aguilera et al., 2015; Allison et al., 2009; FAO, 2018; Gianelli et al., 2021; GIZ, 2019; Le Cornu et al., 2018; Payne et al., 2021; Sievanen, 2014). Adaptive management like this should however be done properly, with full transparency, downward accountability and well-funded (Zulu, 2012). Otherwise there is a risk for incomplete decentralization, leading to competition, conflict, empowerment of privileged locals and mistrust, which would have the reverse effect and create more inequity within the community (Theesfeld and Schmidt, 2011; Zulu, 2012).

The most mentioned type of adaptation strategy comes from the Livelihood category, which broadly aims to diversify the activities and income of a fishing community. In practice, this comprises quite different specific tools and actions ranging from ones that can be readily adopted by fishers to others that need more support. These include, for example, switching fishing gears and/or target species, exploring freshwater resources, pescatourism, working on industrial fishing vessels, agriculture, or other temporary jobs (Deb and Haque, 2016; GIZ, 2019; IFAD, 2014; Islam et al., 2014; Jara et al., 2020; Kalikoski et al., 2010; Macusi et al., 2020; Payne et al., 2021; Prosperi et al., 2019; Salagrama, 2012; Shaffril et al., 2020; Sievanen, 2014). In this context, being less specialized is argued to be an advantage (Coulthard, 2008). Interestingly, diversifying activities has been found to occur more when individuals and households have a stronger social capital, especially family-centered systems of support (Leite et al., 2019). This links back to the element of self-organization. Even though diversification is mainly a bottom-up process, governmental support might be essential in order for it to be a successful adaptation strategy (Kalikoski et al., 2010), as was shown also during our exercises. Even though this adaptation strategy is mentioned most often, it’s not always as straightforward. Switching to agriculture requires people to have access to land or farmers willing to hire fishers to work on their land, working in a factory is easier because it only requires little investment, on the other hand, it often requires them to move to a big city, while older people might be less mobile to move somewhere else or to learn new skills (Kc et al., 2019; Hanh and Boonstra, 2019). Even in developed countries, SSFs usually involve a high capital investment (bigger boats and engines, more expensive permits, etc.) which makes it harder for them to switch livelihood (Kc et al., 2019). Similarly, switching species/gear will not only depend on the available permits and regulations, but also on the market and price of the catch. When switching to a lower market value species, fishers might have more expenses on gasoline then the return of the catch (Stoll et al., 2017).

Following from the above, our framework based on required time and support highlights two differentiated groups of alternative livelihoods ( Figure 5 ). One group requires minimal additional training where people switch between modes of fishing or between one manual labor occupation to another. For instance, switching from fishing to agriculture or becoming a driver (Fauzi and Anna, 2010; Kalikoski et al., 2010; Macusi et al., 2020). Another group requires more training, education, or financial support to do the switch. For instance, starting a new business—even in seemingly related activities such as marine tourism—or developing aquaculture facilities (Fauzi and Anna, 2010; Macusi et al., 2020). Finally, we must be cautious with the alternative livelihoods that are being suggested since some e.g., agriculture or livestock, are also equally at risk of being significantly impacted by climate change (Gebre et al., 2023; Griffin et al., 2023).

We were often not able to distinguish the adaptation strategies, suggested in literature, whether they originated from the local people themselves or proposed by the person conducting the research. One of the successful strategies identified throughout case studies is, nonetheless, the importance of inclusivity, participation and incorporating the voices of local people, for instance by engaging local communities and institutes at the beginning and throughout the policy-making processes (Ayers, 2011; Gianelli et al., 2021; Hasan and Nursey-Bray, 2018). The method we present here, does exactly this. The application of the toolbox and the time-support framework using the participatory exercise has shown that it allows for the voices of the fishers to be heard. It is important that we ask the fishers what they need to adapt and what the time and support requirements they think would be necessary to implement the adaptations. Such inclusion increases the chances of a successful adaptation and leads to a more desired outcome because firstly, it improves the understanding and integration of local perceptions of change and appropriate adaptation strategies (Hasan and Nursey-Bray, 2018). Secondly, the adaptation strategies will be more aligned with the needs, rights and values of the local communities (Barnett and Campbell, 2010), and thirdly, the inclusion can develop a sense of ownership over the project (Le Cornu et al., 2018). It is important though that participation is not just symbolic, and includes a thoughtful consideration of the location and time of the meetings, the invitations, and transportation costs to the location (Kalikoski, 2002; Kalikoski et al., 2010), as well as people’s motivations, their benefits, satisfactions, skills and capacities (Cinner, 2014). In addition, researchers should pay attention to existing power asymmetries, social inequities, and lack of trust that can impact broad participation and fairness in distributed outcomes (Barnaud et al., 2014; Quimby and Levine, 2018). Though participation can be a long and costly process, there are new methodologies being developed of, for instance, online tools to help engage with participants taking into account restrictions of time, budget and the ability of stakeholders to join physically (Markantonatou et al., 2016).

One way to improve inclusion is for local communities to organize themselves and/or enter into more formal co-management arrangements (Kalikoski et al., 2010). Having a community-based institution to cope with common challenges and resources (Ostrom, 1990) is a popular approach and adaptation strategy (Aguilera et al., 2015; Allison et al., 2009; Bell et al., 2018; Berkes and Armitage, 2010; Galappaththi et al., 2021; Gianelli et al., 2021; IFAD, 2014; Jara et al., 2020; Le Cornu et al., 2018). In practice however, whether people are willing to comply with co-management initiatives and engage in collective actions will also depend on their context, such as poverty, shortage of labor or capital, which should be taken into consideration (Cinner, 2014). Note, however, that accountability must still rest with the institutions charged with supporting well-being in these communities, as ‘incomplete decentralization’ can muddle jurisdictions and shift responsibility for providing basic needs onto communities themselves (Méndez-Medina et al., 2020; Schneider, 2019). A high-level involvement and sharing of knowledge, power and responsibilities in decision-making would be for the fishery community to fully co-manage its fishery resources with governments and other actors (Armitage, 2007; Berkes, 2009). The co-management of resources would be better at problem definition, social learning, innovation and more effective at conflict resolution (Berkes, 2009). d’Armengol et al. (2018) also found that co-managed SSFs have an increased abundance and habitat of species, fish catches, actors’ participation as well as a higher adaptive capacity. In addition, they found that co-management is more successful if it is socially diverse. In these cases, the framework we suggest here could be useful in clarifying and making more transparent the specific responsibilities of different actors in the co-management system.

One group often absent from policy-making decisions are women (Choo et al., 2008; Heck et al., 2007; Santos, 2015). Millions of women are directly engaged in small scale fisheries (Thorpe et al., 2013; World Bank, 2012) with a wide range of activities including among others capture fishing, gleaning, trading, processing, net mending, management/administration (Deb et al., 2015; Santos, 2015; Weeratunge et al., 2010; Zhao et al., 2014). Thorpe et al. (2014) found that women would more often diversify their labor, instead of specializing, because of their varied roles within the household and the community. They could therefore play a key role in changes in commercial practices and value adding activities (Monnier et al., 2020). However, as women often already take on most responsibilities of childcare and household labor, being additionally responsible for the burdens of the costs of adaptation strategies will lead to increased stress and childcare concerns and decreased well-being (Coulthard and Britton, 2015). Accordingly, it is important that the role of women be acknowledged as their work and, more importantly, their rightful participation in community-level decisions has been systematically discounted, undervalued, and underrepresented (Deb et al., 2015; Fitriana and Stacey, 2012; Koralagama et al., 2017). This would moreover increase their inclusion in decision-making processes (Thorpe et al., 2014). Zhao et al. (2014) therefore encourage women to organize themselves in order to enhance their participation in both fisheries related activities as well as decision-making processes, e.g., the Women in Fisheries movement in the UK (Britton, 2012).

Some of the adaptation tools presented in this study are government related while others are, for example, livelihood related. Therefore, different actors will use different tools, which generates top-down or bottom-up adaptation pathways. Whether an adaptation strategy is top-down or bottom-up is again location and context specific. For example, the co-management approach for the yellow clam SSF in Uruguay was initially advised by the government, but in the end fishery leaders mainly developed it by changing their marketing strategies and selling high quality products directly to restaurants (Gianelli et al., 2021). In addition, institutional structures of SSFs also differ. the Arctic Inuit SSF institutional structure mostly has a top-down approach while the Sri Lankan Coastal-Vedda SSF structure has a bottom-up approach (Galappaththi et al., 2021), yet both are seen as legitimate avenues for local adaptation. In any circumstance, autonomous bottom-up actions first require specific awareness of climate change (Hodgkinson et al., 2014), which is influenced by exposure to and communications about it. Secondly, it requires communities to have suitable levels of access to formal power and assets (Pecl et al., 2019). This is also clearly shown by the Mexican octopus case-study presented, since most of the strategies indicated as important for the fishers, were also marked with a high need for external support to realize them. Some top-down strategies involve direct financial support from governmental or non-governmental organizations. Those short-term, high-support (Delivered category) strategies should be carefully selected to address underlying issues, not only symptoms (Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2016), and they should aim to support fishers, not the fishing (Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2020). They should be fostered by open dialogue and co-management frameworks in alignment with local priorities in order to avoid harmful subsidy programs to be set up with unpredictable and unclear results (Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2016; Wabnitz and Blasiak, 2019). In addition, there is a risk that transnational financing favors geopolitical objectives from the nation funding the program (Wabnitz and Blasiak, 2019). Finally, external support in terms of physical and/or financial assets will be more successful when human and social capital foundations of the group are strong (Stanford et al., 2014).

Climate change adaptation is often a response to multiple stresses related to climatic impacts and will therefore not only focus on one area, but it is often a combination of several actions in different fields such as livelihood, fishing gear, management, population dynamics, etc (Adger, 2006; Metcalf et al., 2015; Nelson et al., 2007). In addition, there will be other stressors than climate change that will put pressure on the ecosystem as well, such as pollution, habitat degradation, market demands, invasion of local waters by foreign vessels, etc (Freduah et al., 2017). An inter-disciplinary, integrated and holistic approach should therefore include all different aspects, also other stressors, in order to reach a successful adaptation (Bell et al., 2018; IFAD, 2014), though this was not common in the examples we gathered. The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development similarly calls for “transformative ocean science solutions for sustainable development, connecting people and the ocean.” In general, only few studies mention the need for more science in fisheries and aquaculture (Allison et al., 2009) or technological innovations (Allison et al., 2009; Payne et al., 2021; Salagrama, 2012), while most NGO reports we reviewed cite this need based on workshops and interviews with fisheries communities (FAO, 2018; GIZ, 2019; IFAD, 2014; Monnier et al., 2020). Singh et al. (2021) however, points out that we must carefully consider the needs and priorities of ocean-dependent peoples and they argue that research should be done in collaboration with the people whose livelihood depends on the ocean to avoid unintended consequences and unjust outcomes. More/better science will not necessarily address their needs.

There are many barriers to successful, efficient, and equitable adaptations, and integrating multiple climate change stressors, adaptation strategies, and involved and affected actors, is a huge challenge (Pecl et al., 2019). Some were already discussed with respect to the Communication strategy, e.g., a lack of climate change awareness or names in local languages for key concepts of climate change and adaptation (Hasan and Nursey-Bray, 2018). However, other barriers related to basic needs, well-being, and enabling governance conditions beyond fish and fisheries themselves have not yet been emphasized. As Coulthard and Britton (2015) discussed in the case study for the Northern Ireland SSFs, there are some hard choices and trade-offs that fishers need to make that are often overlooked when talking about adaptation strategies, but that significantly impact their well-being. Examples are trade-offs in close relationships such as family relations and security when a spouse must go further out in sea, spending significant periods at sea, away from the family, often alone to reduce the costs of crew, but increasing safety risks. As well as at the community level where relations between boat owners and crew workers are declining due to poor integration of foreign workers and the lack of support for women in fishing communities. Adaptation strategies should therefore also focus on turning around the negative impacts of such wellbeing trade-offs, perhaps by focusing on health care, food security, basic housing, childcare support, improved social networks, or by focusing on the next generation through education. However, only few articles mentioned these strategies – e.g. Abu Samah et al., 2016; Cinner et al., 2018; Coulthard and Britton, 2015; Deb and Haque, 2016; GIZ, 2019; Islam and Chuenpagdee, 2022; Monnier et al., 2020; Salagrama, 2012; Shaffril et al., 2013. Generally, we also need to do better at carrying out social science methodologies in fishing and coastal communities (Le Cornu et al., 2014).

Finally, the implementation of the strategies will be a crucial part of the adaptation process. As was clear from our test case in Mexico where most of the adaptation actions that the fishers thought were important to them, were marked as high external support required to implement the actions. Interestingly, the non-fishers thought that fishers could do more of the adaptations themselves, without as much external support needed. In addition, the fishers thought that most of the livelihood adaptation strategies were not important to them, while in literature, this is the most cited strategy ( Supplementary Table S1 ; Figure 4 ). Despite the small sample size and that one participant said yes to almost all adaptation tools presented because of the desperate need for change, the practical application of the adaptation toolbox and time-support framework still demonstrated its potential use in the field. The exercise is easy to comprehend, it can be done solo or in group, it gives a voice to the people and a good overview of the perspectives, livelihood challenges and problems the people are facing, and including information on time and external support will provide important information to create a starting point to then continue the planning of the implementation process. By conducting workshops with the local fishers and conducting the exercise as is described in the paper, we hope that governments, NGOs, and local communities can operationalize the framework and enabling them to listen to perspectives of these communities, drawn from their own contexts and lived experiences.

The implementation will, of course, depend on local infrastructure and capacity (Hallegatte, 2012). For example, instrumentation for monitoring is often either controlled by private companies or is part of a scientific project that runs for a limited period of time (Garcia and Fearnley, 2012). It will therefore be important to take a holistic approach and find out who has what role and power in the communities and their institutional organizations and how much resources and time is required for training and implementing the strategies (Sowman, 2020). Adaptation is an ongoing and iterative process that involves strong partnerships and networks and successful implementation requires planners, engineers, scientists, decision makers, etc., and the local stakeholders to sit together and engage in explicit discussions on the confronted problems of the stakeholders, which often have trans-organizational causes and impacts (Malekpour et al., 2017). Future research would therefore require looking into mechanisms towards the actual implementation of the strategies and in-depth information on the topics such as: What strategies require priority? Which partners are involved? How much funding is required and from whom? What kind of skills need to be acquired and how? Who is responsible for what? What are the challenges to be expected in this process? What is the role of cooperative governance in ensuring equitable outcomes for fishers? Etc. Additionally, developing proper mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the success of the adaptation strategies will be important to ensure the accountability and sustainability of the strategies.

Through the review we also noticed that there is a significant lack of discussion about equity and justice perspectives in climate adaptation. Social equity should be better integrated in marine policy (Bennett et al., 2021) as shown by the IPCC who has pointed to the disproportionate burden of certain communities due to their geographic contexts (IPCC, 2022), and others who are concerned that environmental changes can exacerbate these inequities due to limited governance structures (Cheung et al., 2019). This concern has already been raised for ocean-based development under a Blue Economy approach involving broader ocean sectors (fisheries, renewable energy, aquaculture, etc.), but to date this has not been implemented and it is not clear if it will be successful (Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2021). Thus, when selecting and implementing adaptation strategies we have to reflect on where, when, and why issues of equity are being considered and at which stages in the decision-making process, what is being distributed and amongst whom, and what the equity implications are of governance structures and policies (Crosman et al., 2022).

In this study, we first adopted the FAO climate change adaptation framework and modified it to fit a broader range of adaptation tools and actions. The modified framework consists of 5 categories (areas of actions): Institutional, Communication, Livelihood, Risk Resilience and Science—and associated strategies that recognize a diversity of fisheries contexts and climate challenges yet offer similarities that can inform adaptation plans. Each of these strategies are informed by examples of adaptation tools that were gathered from academic and grey literature. In a second part, we assessed the implementation requirements of the adaptation strategies in terms of resources of time and external support. Finally, because of a lack of discussion in the literature about the relevance of the adaptation strategies, we ended this study with a method to test their relevance through a participatory exercise.

Based on findings in this study, fishers can consider adaptation strategies such as improving current practices, diversification, and collective action, while they work and are supported towards gaining more power to co-develop other strategies such as targeted government aid, changes in policy, or technological innovations. Even though we created a very comprehensive toolbox, since adaptation is very case-specific, more examples of adaptation tools could be added to the adaptation strategy list (especially since more communities face climate impacts), but our focus is on helping clarify the main strategies and requirements so that other examples can be considered with in this framework. This can be done, for instance, while conducting the participatory exercise, as described in this paper. In addition, we have also shown that only identifying the strategies is not enough to make it meaningful to the local people. What theoretically would seem like an easy adaptation, could, in reality, be much more cumbersome based on local rules, regulations, or needs for permits, approvals, social cohesion, or specific equipment. Adaptation is an ongoing, iterative process (Barnett et al., 2015; Brooks and Adger, 2005) and more effort should go towards finding appropriate climate change adaptations that focus on the goals and needs of SSF communities, the implementation process, and synergies between adaptation strategies that may enable communities to leverage their own capacity to achieve greater successes (Pecl et al., 2019; Tompkins and Eakin, 2012). This was especially apparent in the practical application of the adaptation framework during field work in Mexico. First, the results of the participatory exercise can give a useful overview of where and how people struggle to adapt. It shows which strategies are relevant for them and at the same time which ones are out of reach and the match-mismatch of relevance and implementation. Secondly, the participants responded positively to the exercise as it can lead to very interesting discussions with and in-between the participants. Importantly, this exercise can help in contexts where multiple collaborating actors may nonetheless need to better understand the perceptions of expected work and time required of other actors in the system. Finally, more studies are needed for different areas where this framework is applied in the field to assess the alignment between the adaptation strategies, their implementation cost and accessibility, and their relevance for the people that rely on fisheries and marine systems to make a living.