Wild Capture Fisheries

Seafood – captured and cultivated – epitomizes the tight linkage between human and natural dimensions in marine coastal systems. Fisheries linkages to human systems go well beyond that of providing food from the sea. They provide an excellent example of the intersection between science, technology, and education with policy, management, and practice in maintaining the balance between resource conservation and use. Fisheries also influence culture, economies, and wellbeing of coastal communities. Numerous challenges confront fisheries. Challenges are ecological (such as declining fish stocks, bycatch, habitat degradation) and socioeconomic (changing markets and regulatory frameworks). Other challenges are new and have little existing regulatory framework. These include the impacts of global climate change (e.g., shifting species distribution, ocean acidification, and hypoxia), emerging market incentives (e.g., third-party certification and traceability), and pollution (e.g., microplastic impacts in wild and cultivated seafood). In this chapter we first provide an overview of the complexity of this coupled natural–human fisheries system. We share three case studies to illustrate how fishing communities have cooperated with managers and scientists to solve problems and take advantage of new opportunities.