Small-scale fisheries play a significant but overlooked role in global fisheries production and are key to addressing hunger and malnutrition while supporting livelihoods around the world, according to research featured on the cover of Nature in Jan. 2025. Published by an international team of scientists, including Professor Chris Anderson from the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, the study is the first to rigorously quantify how marine and inland small-scale fisheries contribute to aquatic harvests and nutritional and socioeconomic security on a global scale.
“This project is particularly important because it is the largest effort to systematically collect data describing the contributions of small-scale fisheries to the multiple dimensions of fishery outcomes,” said Chris Anderson. “This includes several places where fisheries contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including eliminating hunger, eliminating poverty, ensuring gender inclusive development, and supporting ecologically healthy oceans.”
The international team, consisting of scientists from almost 10 different countries, found that fisheries that rely on labor-intensive, relatively low-tech methods make surprisingly large contributions to societies, economies and diets around the world. “Illuminating the large scale of these small-scale contributions will provide small scale harvesters and shoreside participants with voice and visibility in policymaking circles. More systematic data will also make it possible to study the mechanisms that support higher levels of small-scale fishery benefits, including food provision and social and economic safety nets, from the very diverse resources and circumstances in which small-scale fishing occurs,” Chris Anderson added.
Adapted from a Duke University press release