Making space for freshwater biodiversity in low‐income fishing economies

Abstract

AbstractGlobally, freshwater biodiversity and the food system that it underpins are under enormous threat. Historically damaged by overfishing, environmental deterioration (e.g., pollution, damming, water extraction and watershed modification) is now destroying canonical ecosystem structure. Under pressure to secure the food supply and create jobs, local politicians are reluctant to enforce rules that would reduce fishing pressure and threaten the already vulnerable economies of many fishing communities. Aquaculture can directly address food supply but has in the past been troubled with its own negative environmental footprint. New technology is available to solve these problems. Modern aquaculture, as a commercial alternative to capture fishing can take advantage of existing infrastructure to grow more food, but more importantly, create new and better jobs in places where few alternatives exist, making economic and local political space for policies that operate for both food production and the protection of aquatic biodiversity. This opinion seeks to revise the current vision of aquaculture as a competitor and threat to inland fisheries, arguing rather that the way to approach the biodiversity crisis in freshwater is to create economic alternatives to fishing and environmental abuse so that poor people can afford to care about nature.