Joseph Lycett, Aboriginal Australians Spearing Fish and Diving for Shellfish, New South Wales, c. 1817.
National Library of Australia, nla.obj138500727.
Across the continent, diverse, adaptable fishing practices, recipes and rituals were a cornerstone of Indigenous life at the time of first contact – and many remain so to this day.
Fly-fishing in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
Joseph/Flickr
Founded in 1959, the membership group Trout Unlimited has changed the culture of fly-fishing and mobilized members to support conservation. Could its approach work for other social problems?
Fishing net covers the coral reef in the Thailand’s marine national park.
Suwat Sirivutcharungchit/shutterstock
If ASEAN demands its member nations try to stop illegal and unregulated fishing, but without requiring matching financial commitments, we will continue to lose the battle against illegal fishing.
Alligator gar can grow to gargantuan sizes.
Zeb Hogan
Over 100 shark and ray species were recently added to an international treaty, known as the CITES list, to protect them from the threat of unsustainable and illegal trade.
A green turtle on Aldabra entangled in abandoned fishing gear.
Rich Baxter
To fish the oceans sustainably, nations must reduce bycatch, or accidental catches. But fishermen often resist changing gear or techniques that kill nontargeted species.
Workers flood a Vietnamese-flagged boat caught operating illegally off West Kalimantan, Indonesia on May 4, 2019 in order to sink it.
AP Photos/William Pasaribu
Understanding when, where and why fishing vessels sometimes turn off their transponders is a key step toward curbing illegal fishing and other crimes on the high seas.
Last summer was the worst for drownings in a decade, with some groups tragically overrepresented. Community groups are urging a change of approach to water safety education.
Overfishing leads to the deaths of millions of sharks each year.
Hollie Booth
Fining and jailing Indonesian fishers taking shark fin is a knee-jerk solution. As long as sharks keep vanishing and demand for shark fin soup remains high, illegal fishing will continue.
Small-scale fishers in Durban are drawn to southern Africa’s sardine run.
Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images
South Africa’s policies need to do more to protect vulnerable and marginalised small-scale fishers and fishing communities.
The warming of the Gulf of St. Lawrence is causing upheaval in the balance of species, with direct repercussions on the commercial fishing sector.
Shutterstock
The warming observed in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is causing upheaval in the balance of the species living there. That is having direct repercussions on the commercial fishing sector.
An olive ridley swims Into the wild blue yonder.
Gerard Soury/The Image Bank via Getty Images
Every year, it’s estimated as many as 24,000 fishers die in fishing vessel accidents. That’s more than 10 times more lives claimed than on merchant ships, carrying cargo or passengers. Why?