When Xavier Basurto first arrived on the island of Newfoundland, he realized that the surrounding seas did more than define the horizon — they defined the very lives of its inhabitants. A Mexican self-governance and marine sustainability scientist, Basurto had come to this spot on the eastern tip of Canada in 1997 as part of a student exchange program. At that time, the region was suffering from the collapse of one of its most valuable resources: the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). An indefinite fishing moratorium was affecting the livelihoods of 40,000 small-scale and industrial-scale fishermen and workers at fish processing plants.At Newfoundland’s Memorial University, the young student found that some fishermen had decided to reinvent themselves by returning to the classroom. One day, one of them confronted a professor describing aquaculture techniques, pivoting the discussion instead to social issues. “That made a big impression on me,” Basurto says. After all, human and cultural issues were what largely determined whether these technical aspects of fishing “were implemented or not, whether they worked or not, or whether they were adopted or not.”It was a thought that has shaped the approach from which Basurto — now at Stanford University — has sought to understand the complexity of what is termed artisanal fishing — small-scale fishing that is a way of life, more than a job or trade. Basurto wants to understand the practice not only as an activity of food production and commerce, traditionally measured in millions of tons of catch and in monetary value, but as a social, ecological and cultural practice of people in coastal communities.It is an activity often overlooked by governments, scientists, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector, yet its scale is huge. In a recent analysis in Nature, Basurto and his coauthors estimate that artisanal fishing accounts for at least 40 percent of global fish catches. In addition, small-scale catches are made by 90 percent of the world’s fishing population and generate 44 percent of the total economic value of fish that is taken from the sea and landed in ports for sale.But perhaps most revealing is the practice’s social and nutritional importance: One in 12 people in the world depends, partially or completely, on artisanal fishing for their livelihood. In addition, artisanal fishing has the potential to provide essential micronutrients — vitamins and minerals that the body requires in small amounts to function properly — to one in four people on the planet.Small-scale fishing is also wrapped up in marine conservation, as it takes place in highly productive and biodiverse ecosystems.Basurto talked with Knowable Magazine about artisanal fishing and why, given its crucial role in food security and marine conservation, it doesn’t have a more central place in political and scientific decision-making. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.How do you define artisanal fishing? What is its main difference from industrial fishing?Artisanal fishing differs from industrial fishing in that the latter takes place in more oceanic waters, with the use of much more technology, capital and automation, and less labor.The definition of artisanal fishing is controversial because it is very difficult to arrive at a definition that encompasses the full diversity of practices it includes. In some places, artisanal fishing is done on foot, without boats. In others, it is done in wooden canoes, fiberglass boats or even more sophisticated vessels. But in general terms, it includes pre-catch, catch and post-catch activities in coastal areas, carried out with simple technologies, little investment and high labor intensity.To arrive at more concrete definitions, we would need to identify as many forms of artisanal fishing around the world as possible, and create categories that capture them in a reliable, consistent and practical way. For example, we have identified a category that we call “small-scale fishing as a nutritional and income safety net,” characterized by the use of little technology and little capital in shallow coastal and estuarine waters in the Global South. The catch is usually for personal consumption or is exchanged or sold in local markets, and the owners of the equipment or boats generally work individually or in family cooperatives, without a paid crew. Other examples include women that gather clams and oysters in estuaries in the Philippines or Thailand, or free divers harvesting chocolate clams in the state of Baja California Sur to sell in local restaurants.There is another category that we call “small-scale fisheries as economic engines.” These are characterized by greater capital, investment and technology, which makes them more formalized and integrated into national economies. Motorized vessels with better storage and refrigeration capacity mean less dependence on coastal waters and local markets, sometimes sustaining trade between distant locations.Considering both artisanal and industrial fishing, what is the current state of fishing globally?The status is very diverse. On the one hand, in rich countries, you have very well-managed industrial fisheries. Fishing that could be described as sustainable because a lot of information is available, and that information is used.On the other hand, in developing countries, you have many industrial fisheries that are overexploited and where information is available but little is done in terms of management.Artisanal fishing is also very diverse and exists in both developing and developed countries. I believe it has the same characteristics: There are very well-managed artisanal fisheries in the United States, Canada, Iceland, Japan and Norway, which have a very good level of information, and not so much in developing countries, where there is almost no management and a lot of overfishing.What is the role of artisanal fishing in global food security and nutrition?Globally, artisanal fishing is much more important than industrial fishing as a source of food.Although industrial fishing dominates global catches in terms of volume, it is artisanal fishing that plays a decisive role as a source of nutrition and livelihood for millions of people. It accounts for at least 40 percent of the world’s fish catch — some 37.3 million tons per year — but the true value of artisanal fishing lies not only in quantity, but in who it feeds. Potentially, up to 2.3 billion people could obtain 20 percent of their essential micronutrient intake through it. Many of these people belong to highly marginalized populations, as is the case in Africa and Oceania.Likewise, our research showed that, in the countries analyzed, an average of 79 percent of small-scale fisheries catch is destined for domestic use, confirming that its main use is to meet local nutritional needs. In industrial fishing, only 62 percent of the catch is destined for direct human consumption, while the remaining 38 percent is used for nonfood purposes, such as the production of fish meal used in cosmetics or pet food.Artisanal fishing is especially important for food in regions where access to food with high nutritional value is limited, whether for economic reasons related to the high cost of transportation to marginalized areas, or geographical reasons — extremely hot or desert regions, high latitudes with very short growing seasons, or areas subject to seasonal flooding, such as the Amazon or the Sundarbans delta in the Bay of Bengal.In regions where artisanal fishing is key to food security, high levels of malnutrition and hunger persist. According to data from 2023, 384.5 million people in Asia and 298.4 million in Africa suffer from hunger. How can this situation be explained?In some of these places, the supply of nutrients from artisanal fishing exceeds the consumption of these nutrients. In other words, people prefer to eat other foods with lower nutritional value, even though they have access to fish with high nutritional quality.In other cases, poor handling of fish once it has been caught causes it to lose its nutritional value. For example, not putting it on ice immediately, either because of ignorance or lack of resources to buy ice. In other cases, the food culture does not make appropriate use of all the nutrients available: Eating only the fillet has less nutritional value than eating the head as well, which contains many more micronutrients than the fillet.In your study published in Nature, you highlight the contribution of essential micronutrients that artisanal fisheries can provide to billions of people. How did you calculate this potential contribution?“The most important thing is to understand that artisanal fishing is not a job, but a way of life. It is not an occupation. It is an identity.”— XAVIER BASURTOFirst, fish catch data were collected from 58 countries and extrapolated to cover a total of 186 countries. The objective was to quantify how much artisanal fisheries could contribute to local nutrition.Recognized databases (such as FishBase and INFOODS) were then used to obtain information on six key nutrients found in aquatic products: calcium, iron, selenium, zinc, vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids. Although the latter is not a micronutrient in the strict sense, it was included because of its relevance to human health.With this information, the average concentration of nutrients per group of fish species was estimated, weighted according to catch volume. This concentration was then multiplied by the annual amount of fish caught, and by the edible portion.To understand how much this represents per person, the total daily nutrients were divided by the population living within 20 kilometers of the sea or freshwater bodies, and the per capita contribution was estimated.Finally, this nutritional contribution was compared with the total micronutrient consumption of each country, using global dietary data.According to the research, artisanal catches have the potential to contribute on average 20 percent of the dietary intake of six key micronutrients: up to 50 percent of omega-3 fatty acids, 28 percent of selenium, more than 10 percent of calcium and zinc, 9 percent of iron, and 3 percent of vitamin A.Despite its great economic and social importance, artisanal fishing has historically been invisible. Why is there this lack of recognition?To understand the causes, we must understand the history of Western fisheries science, which was developed by scientists from rich countries to solve industrial fisheries management problems. As a result, economic resources, accounting strategies, data collection and official management were concentrated on industrial fishing.In the 20th century, as fishing technology advanced, so did the knowledge of how to fish in large quantities and to understand how many fish there are. As industrial fishing became more organized, more information was demanded. Industrial fishing is organized into trade associations and, therefore, has historically developed a constant dialogue and reciprocal political-economic relationships with decision-makers at the government level.Governments respond by producing science at universities in the United States, Canada, Japan, Norway and Iceland, among others. But this is science about industrial fishing, not science designed for artisanal fishing. It is not science created by developing countries. All these factors have resulted in a dominance of attention from decision-makers toward industrial fishing.So, there is no interest in looking at artisanal fishers?Exactly. That is one of the factors. In many cases, artisanal fishers are not organized into associations. The other factor is that, even if the government had an interest without artisanal fishers asking for it, it is difficult to collect data from fishers who are widely dispersed along the coast, in isolated places where the government has little access or influence. And the third factor is that states may say, “Well, what’s the point if the income they generate is not enough to justify government spending?”Is this from the perspective of developed countries?From the perspective of the first world but, more importantly, from the perspective that the only thing you get from fishing is money. It is a perspective where the only thing that comes out of the water is volume of fish and money.Why is it important to go beyond fish volume?It is very important to go beyond the catch to change the perception that only money comes out of the water. And to value artisanal fishing in a different way. The activity can also promote gender equality in rural populations; a culture of involvement in fisheries management by fishermen, through giving them more management rights; essential micronutrients for food security; employment and work dignity. By quantifying all these contributions, it is easier to see them and make it tangible that fish is not just catch volume. It is much more than that.What role do women play?Four out of 10 fishermen are women. They may be part of the family business — wives, mothers, daughters — or simply women from the community hired to do the work. In this calculation, we take into account pre-catch, catch and post-catch activities. It is in the latter where women’s participation is much more prominent. Their activities include cleaning, processing, packaging, marketing and selling the fish. Their work remains invisible because, in many cases, fishing is only understood as the process of catching fish.Because of that, rights to participate in decision-making or be counted in censuses that determine who is eligible for social security funds or unemployment benefits, among other things, are only granted to the individual on the boat. It is that individual who is considered and labeled a “fisher.” The rest of the population working in pre- and post-catch activities does not exist in the statistics or social security programs such as health insurance and access to retirement, sickness or disability pensions.Not only does this make the role of women invisible, but it also makes them very vulnerable to machismo and sexism, as in the case of Lake Victoria in Kenya, where it has reached the extreme that women can only sell fish if they perform sexual favors for men, as demonstrated by Kathryn Fiorella, an environmental scientist and epidemiologist at Cornell, in her study.What public policies should be established to strengthen artisanal fishing?I’ll tell you something very specific: preferential access areas. This is a policy that exists in many countries but is rarely used, whereby artisanal fishers have preferential rights to use a strip of coastline. We don’t have data to know what percentage of artisanal fishing benefits from this, but we do know that at least 44 coastal countries have them in their regulations and that the impact could be very positive for artisanal fishing if they were monitored and respected. They can be scaled up by designating more preferential access areas in places where they don’t exist and implementing them through monitoring.What is life like for a family that lives and works in artisanal fishing?Well, I think the most important thing is to understand that artisanal fishing is not a job, but a way of life. That it is not an occupation — it is not that I am a fisherman during the day and someone else the rest of the time. It is an identity.What does that mean? It means that part of your culture, part of what makes you who you are, is completely interwoven with the activity of fishing.Can artisanal fishing contribute to the sustainability of the seas?Of course, because the activity takes place in the most productive areas, where there is greater biodiversity. Fishermen are the users of these ecosystems.So we have to work with those users. We may say, “No, they don’t know how to do it,” and we may think that a new user will be able to do it better. But most likely they will not, because they have even less knowledge, since their culture does not depend on that ecosystem.This article was originally published on Knowable Magazine.