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Abstract
The review presents the strong business case for inland food fisheries in developing countries to be either a co-benefit, or very often the main benefit, of ecosystem restoration. In view of the current state of inland water aquatic habitats the potential for restoration is high. Realizing this potential requires concerted action to overcome current challenges, foremost of which is the invisibility of inland fisheries in many policy arenas as well as technical and scientific fora. The drivers of ecosystem degradation, ecosystem services valuation frameworks and the main technical tools for implementing interventions are presented. Experiences in developed countries dominate the literature but are not necessarily applicable to developing country inland food fisheries. Local communities that have high dependency on inland fisheries and live in close association with inland water fisheries habitats not only provide much higher fisheries values but a management asset that is unavailable in developed countries and the mainstay of many successful restoration programmes. Ten case studies, representing effective restoration of food fisheries from local to basin scale are used to illustrate what can be achieved. The prospects of inland fisheries benefiting from, or contributing to, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) are good but upscaling the existing progress will require increased and sustained efforts to mainstream the values of inland fisheries including their co-benefits for biodiversity conservation.
Abbreviations and acronyms
ASB Aral Sea Basin Programme
CBD Convention on Biodiversity
CBEMR Community-Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration
CBO community-based organization
CDA Chilika Development Authority (India)
CSO civil society organization
CWP Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics (FAO)
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FRUG Federations of Resource User Groups (Bangladesh)
IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature
IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management
EPI Eiving Planet Index
MAP Mangrove Action Project
NTFP non-timber forest product
RMO Resource Management Organization (Bangladesh)
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
SER Society for Ecological Restoration
SYNAS-1 Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea Phase 1 Project
UFC Upazila Fisheries Committees (Bangladesh)
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
WET Wetland Extent Trends index
Executive summary
The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) has provided impetus to make the business case for increased attention to inland fisheries as a beneficiary of ecosystem restoration. This report focuses on...