Recognising the importance of small-scale fisheries in enhancing food security and nutrition is an important yet often overlooked strategy for addressing global malnutrition and food insecurity.
Fishermen play a crucial role in the global food chain by providing locally caught, nutritious aquatic foods to their communities. Many nations depend on fish and other marine foods, which are essential sources of animal protein and vital nutrients. This reliance helps reduce malnutrition rates and improve childhood health outcomes.
Recognising the importance of small-scale fisheries in enhancing food security and nutrition is an important yet often overlooked strategy for addressing global malnutrition and food insecurity. In developing countries, it is estimated that 31% of children are underweight, and 38% suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition. Malnutrition is linked to various lifelong health issues, including cardiovascular diseases, impaired immune function, and pneumonia.
International Fisherman’s Day, recognises the efforts of fishermen globally. The day honours the brave individuals in the fishing industry, highlighting their work's adventurous and thrilling nature. Various festivities mark the day, often centred around fish as the main dish.
Fishermen embark on deep-sea ventures to secure large catches, celebrated with enthusiasm. By putting the focus on these individuals, the initiative seeks to strengthen connections among fishing communities, vendors, processors, and government and non-government agencies. It fosters collaboration towards a profitable and sustainable fishing sector. The day is celebrated by many, including fish buyers, large companies, local communities, and fishermen, as a time to network, buy, sell, and appreciate the collective efforts to enhance the fishing industry’s sustainability.
Dr Levy Otwoma with a colleague from Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) on a boat ride to Kisite-Mpunguti Marine National Park
to conduct fish underwater visual census and benthic survey.
In Kenya, excessive and unsustainable fishing practices pose the most significant risk to marine populations. The lack of historical baseline data often leads to unnoticed local declines and extinctions. Investigating the extinction of tropical marine species, particularly in economically disadvantaged and developing nations, is frequently overlooked. Dr. Levy Otwoma is investigating the pattern of extinction in Kenya’s exploited reef fish species. The collapse and extinction of these reef species could lead to the loss of substantial livelihoods among Kenya’s fishers.
His study pioneered the integration of anecdotal information from anglers to corroborate local extinctions, addressing gaps in data reliability. By exploring fishers' perceptions of shifting baselines of Kenya’s exploited reef fishes, the research revealed that fishermen perceived decline and rarity in more than half of the species identified as potentially threatened with local extinction, suggesting that the reported results are likely to reflect genuine ecological patterns rather than local attitudes about the general state of fisheries.
Dr Levy Otwoma (left) at Bagamoyo fish market assessing fishermen catch landings.
It is now also apparent that older fishers rather than younger ones report a decline in populations and sizes of reef fishes threatened with local extinction, suggesting that fishers in Kenya might be experiencing the Shifting Baselines Syndrome. In this phenomenon, current species population levels are considered the norm because knowledge of past abundance has been lost.
The research project represents an affordable way of determining the threat status of reef fish for developing countries constrained by a lack of funding and infrastructure required for a comprehensive species-at-risk assessment.
Article submitted by Levy Otwoma
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