10.1038/s43016-022-00501-2 View Article Page correspondence Urban fishing reveals underrepresented diversity To the Editor — Diversity is an important feature of small-scale fisheries and aquaculture (SSFA), yet is commonly overlooked or oversimplified within broader studies of food systems. In a recent Analysis published in Nature Food, Short et al. 1 provide a much-needed snapshot of SSFA diversity — demonstrating the importance of this seafood subsector to support livelihoods, alongside sustainable and equitable food provisioning. However, we wish to draw attention to additional important aspects of this diversity that remain understudied. SSFA producers are conventionally represented as rural actors. Yet, as the world continues to urbanize, fishing in cities is becoming a more prominent livelihood activity, especially for low-income households 2 . Urban fishing can occur wherever water and fish exist in a city environment. Consequently, the variety of fished species includes saltwater and freshwater finfish, shellfish and other aquatic species. People fish from shorelines or boats using a broad range of gear and methods, such as angling, spin fishing, cast-netting or traps. Although the contribution that urban fishing makes to food production should not be overestimated, it provides important nutritional and sociocultural benefits to a growing group of city dwellers who use fishing to complement — and secure — precarious livelihoods 3 . For some urban dwellers, fishing provides a way to augment Urban fishers and entrepreneurs face a number of distinct challenges related to health risks 5 , tenuous legal rights 6 , fragile urban aquatic ecologies 5 , gentrification 7 and competition over city space with other stakeholders 8 . Scientific literature is available on the sustainability of urban fishing, health effects of the consumption of fish caught in the city, and the neglect, criminalization and stigmatization of urban fishing 9 . Thus, framing SSFA as only rural misses the importance and distinct implications around food safety, food sovereignty and environmental justice that fishing within urban environments entails. Within the wider SSFA field, we find that the diversity is conventionally explained as a product of conscious and deliberate adaptation, but habits, sentiments and intuitions also influence adaptation and contribute to a diversity of fishing practices, including urban fishing. The social sciences contain a rich body of knowledge that we can draw on to better understand subconscious, habitual, emotional and tacit adaptations 10 that play a role in the stark contrast between fishing that is primarily for food, market or leisure 11 . Future SSFA research must explore the complex intersections between fishing styles and urban socioecological conditions (for example, connections between urban built infrastructures and the shifting qualities of urban ecologies), polices and governance practices (for Lauren Drakopulos 4 , Jessie Fly 5 , Sofie Joosse 6 , Sarita Panchang 7 , Meghna Narang Marjadi 8 , Anja Rieser 1 and Hanna Charlotta Wernersson 9 1 Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. 2 Department of Environmental Studies, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL, USA. 3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and High Meadows Environment Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. 4 Department of Global Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. 5 Department of Anthropology, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL, USA. 6 Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. 7 NPC Research, Portland, OR, USA. 8 Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA. 9 School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. ✉ e-mail: wijnand.boonstra@geo.uu.se Published: xx xx xxxx https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00501-2 References 1. Short, R. E. et al. Nat. Food 2, 733–741 (2021). 2. Drakopulos, L. et al. Projections https://doi.org/10.1162/00c13b77 .0c274823 (2020). 3. Carlson, A. K. et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 16, 034054 (2021). 4. Boucquey, N. & Fly, J. Int. J. Commons 15, 305–319 (2021). 5. Marjadi, M. N. et al. Environ. Sci. Policy. 121, 68–77 (2021). 6. Pitchon, A. & Norman, K. Bull. Southern California Acad. Sci. 111, 141–152 (2012). 7. Loto, L. et al. Ocean Coast. Manag. 153, 203–214 (2018). 8. Patchell, J. & Cheng, C. Mar. Policy 99, 157–169 1 / 1 References 11 Add to Library PDF