Dwindling fish stocks caused by the climate crisis are leading to an increase in pirate attacks, according to a new study looking at two piracy hotspots over the past two decades.
“We wanted to test the hypothesis: does piracy increase when fish production declines and decrease when fish production increases?” said LaFree. The answer, they found, was yes. “We did a multi-varied analysis to see whether the underlying theory was statistically significant and it is.” “In a timeline of roughly 20 years, we’re picking up statistically significant, measurable differences,” LaFree said. “I was surprised by how rapidly those changes are occurring, especially when you think of climate change most likely accelerating in the future.”