InFish is a professional network to raise the profile of inland fish to inform policy, advance conservation, and promote sustainable fisheries.
Please join us!
Recent relevant news/ publications
- Exploding carp numbers are ‘like a house of horrors’ for our rivers. Is it time to unleash carp herpes? (Stuart et al. 2023)
- Putting the fish into inland fisheries – A global allocation of historic inland fish catch (Ainsworth et al. 2023)
- Linkages between inland fisheries and international instruments – Opportunities for engagement (Coates et al. 2023)
- A watershed moment for healthy watersheds (Vollmer et al. 2023)
- Plasma activated water offers food security opportunities by increasing shelf life of freshwater fisheries products in South Africa (Howard et al. 2023)
- Spatial analysis of aquatic food access can inform nutrition-sensitive policy (Bennett et al. 2022)
- SHOAL’s December edition of “The Stream”
- Information document on inland fisheries for Global Biodiversity Framework Target 5 (to find it, select ‘Position paper’ in the drop-down menu of Publication Types)
- Check out the final December 2022 International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA) newsletter!
Job / funding / award opportunities
- 2024 International Fisheries Science Prize – Request for Nominations. Materials must be submitted by 31 January, 11:59pm PST. For more information, please contact Julian Olden (olden-at-uw.edu).
- The Nature Conservancy - Amazon Freshwater Fisheries Conservation Scientist with the freshwater community-based conservation (fCBC) team. Apply for job #52739 at https://careers.nature.org/ by 27 January, 11:59pm EST.
- University of Illinois – Two PhD assistantships in fisheries conservation. Start date Fall 2023. Contact Cory Suski (suski-at-illinois.edu) for more information.
- University of Missouri – PhD research assistantship - developing a mid-sized river habitat sampling protocol. Review begins 1 February; start date late spring/summer 2023. See attached and contact Craig Paukert (paukertc-at-missouri.edu) for more information.
- Charles Sturt University Next Generation Water Engineering and River Management Hub Scholarships for PhD students. Expressions of interest will remain open until candidates for the three projects have been selected. See here for more information.
Do you participate in freshwater fishing in the US?
Please consider completing this short (< 20 minutes!) online survey. The study will investigate subsistence fishing, food security, and climate vulnerability of American communities.
InFish & SDG 1
The contribution of inland fisheries to resilient livelihoods, those which are buffered against difficult situations, is multifaceted and difficult to evaluate. Inland fisheries in Low-Income Food-Deficit countries are often part of a diversified livelihood strategy, exacerbating the tendency for them to be overlooked and undervalued. The challenge is in available data to highlight this role.
Grand Challenges
Even with long-standing management and extensive science support, North American inland fish and fisheries still face many conservation and management challenges. Addressing these grand challenges will promote open forums for engagement of diverse stakeholders in fisheries management, and better integrate the inland fish sector into the greater water and land use policy process.
Importance of InFish
Though reported capture fisheries are dominated by marine production, inland fish and fisheries make substantial contributions to meeting the challenges faced by individuals, society, and the environment in a changing global landscape. Inland capture fisheries and aquaculture contribute over 40% to the world’s reported finfish production from less than 0.01% of the total volume of water on earth.
Inland Fisheries
Freshwater fish provide food, livelihoods, and ecosystem services to millions of people, especially in low-income countries, yet their value is generally not adequately considered in water use, energy, and development decisions. Freshwater fisheries around the world may appear to be very different, but their value to local communities and the threats to their sustainability are often similar.
The challenges to inland fisheries are also critical to the 60 million people who rely on freshwater fish for livelihoods – over half of whom are women. Fish is also an essential source of protein and other nutrients that cannot easily be replaced with other food sources.
Inland fisheries around the world – and the people who depend on them for food, livelihoods, and well-being – need international cross-sectoral action to improve the sustainability of freshwater aquatic resources, according to recommendations in 2015 at the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) meeting at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.
