Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) 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. Published by an international team of scientists—including John Virdin, director of the Nicholas Institute's ocean policy program—the study is the first to rigorously quantify how marine and inland SSFs contribute to aquatic harvests and nutritional and socioeconomic security on a global scale.
Through a collaborative, multidimensional, data-driven approach, the authors estimate that SSFs provide at least 40% of global fisheries catches and 2.3 billion people with, on average, 20% of their dietary intake across six key micronutrients essential for human health. Globally, the livelihood of one in every 12 people, nearly half of them women, depends at least partly on SSFs, in total generating 44% (US$77.2 billion) of the economic value of all fisheries landed.
The data and methodology for this paper were produced within the framework of the Illuminating Hidden Harvests (IHH) initiative conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Duke University, and WorldFish. Read more about IHH and its unique global collaboration here.