Indigenous peoples fisheries: cultural interactions, social-ecological contributions and sustainability challenges

Within indigenous food production systems, fish and marine invertebrates are fundamental sources of nutrition and health. Coastal indigenous people consume up to 15 times more fish than non-indigenous individuals living in the same country. And yet the importance of indigenous fisheries extends beyond these key nutritional components, forging major social, cultural, and cosmological links between indigenous peoples and their environment. This presentation focuses on analyzing the various roles that the ocean plays in indigenous peoples’ lives, not only in terms of food security and nutrition but also in terms of livelihoods, culture, and well-being. The research, carried out under the illuminating Hidden Harvest project, provides a snapshot of the state of indigenous peoples fisheries, including the features, values, and practices that set them apart and the experiences that draw them together. Specific ethnographic examples from diverse geographic regions will illustrate indigenous fisheries systems, moving past the diversity of fishing practices to evidence the changes and challenges that affect indigenous fisheries today. It adopts a holistic approach that places emphasis on aspects such as vernacular denominations, local ecological knowledge, spatial cognition, and links to territories, as well as on marginalization issues, environmental injustice, global changes and current challenges for the sustainability of indigenous people's fisheries. The originality of the analysis resides in the aim to relate the socio-cultural, ecological, political, and economic dimensions of indigenous peoples to understand their fisheries systems and evolving interactions with the marine environment.