COVID-19 pandemic impacts on global inland fisheries

A brief report by researchers assesses expert-perceived pressures from COVID-19 on global inland fisheries and relates these data to three use indicators including reported inland fish catch, human development index, and fishery provisioning value.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to environmental recovery in some ecosystems from a global "anthropause," yet such evidence for natural resources with extraction or production value is limited.

Researchers distributed an online survey assessing perceptions of inland fishery pressures in June and July 2020 to basin-level inland fishery experts; 437 respondents from 79 countries addressed 93 unique hydrological basins, accounting for 82.1 percent of global inland fish catch.

Based on the responses analysed against extrinsic fish catch and human development index data, it was found that the pandemic impacts on inland fisheries add gradation to the largely positive environmental narrative of the global pandemic.

It also identifies that basins of higher provisioning value are perceived to experience greater fishery pressures but may have limited compensatory capacity to mitigate COVID-19 impacts along with negative pressures already present.

The study contributes a data-driven perspective to COVID-19 impacts on inland fisheries complementary to studies on fishers and at-risk fishes.

Responses applied geographically to a deductive pressure typology yield locally clustered perceptions of COVID-19 impacts.

This distribution extending beyond positive evidence of direct and indirect benefits of the "anthropause" reflects interdependent, and often essential, provisioning services of inland fisheries. Such may apply to other extracted multiuse resources.

( With inputs from ANI )

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