InFish is a professional network to raise the profile of inland fish to inform policy, advance conservation, and promote sustainable fisheries.
Please join us!
InFish is a professional network to raise the profile of inland fish to inform policy, advance conservation, and promote sustainable fisheries.
Please join us!
Recent relevant news / publications
- Fishing ban halts seven decades of biodiversity decline in the Yangtze River (Xiong et al. 2026)
- The role of pondscapes in supporting identities (Benejam et al. 2026)
- The unseen threat: indirect pesticide effects are key to realistic ecological assessments of standing small water bodies (Ruf et al. 2026)
- Understanding Recreational Fishers: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Approaches for Fisheries Management (Pope et al. 2026 – OPEN ACCESS book)
- Change in fish composition and their distribution after twenty years of the Ba Lai dam construction in the Mekong Delta, Viet Nam (Xuan Nguyen et al. 2025)
- Global recreational consumption of non-native inland fish: Higher economic benefits, but lower nutritional value and climate resilience (Milardi et al. 2025)
- World Rivers Day Update: #5
- The Delta: #95 (Global Water Forum newsletter)
- The Stream: January 2026 (Shoal)
- World Fish Migration Day Newsletter: September 2025
- WorldFish Monthly: December 2025
- ACARE Newsletter: May 2025
Job / funding / award opportunities
- Baylor University - Stokes Lab - fully funded PhD position [starting August 2026]. Open until filled; review of applications will start on 11 March 2026. Contact Gretchen Stokes ([email protected]) with inquiries.
- Cornell University – Senior Research Associate to lead the Oneida Lake long-term research program. For more information, contact Olaf Jensen (olaf.p.jensen-at-gmail.com).
- Stanford University - Heilpern Lab opportunities (graduate students [starting Fall 2026], a postdoc, and a lab technician/manager [someone skilled in data management/analysis who is also open to some lab work]). Contact Sebastian Heilpern (heilpern-at-stanford.edu) with inquiries.
- International Fisheries Section of the American Fisheries Society:
- Danida Fellowship Centre - New initiative to attract more African students to Denmark and strengthen university collaboration
Inland Fisheries
Freshwater fish provide food, livelihoods, and ecosystem services to millions of people, especially in low-income countries, yet their value is generally not adequately considered in water use, energy, and development decisions. Freshwater fisheries around the world may appear to be very different, but their value to local communities and the threats to their sustainability are often similar.
The challenges to inland fisheries are also critical to the 60 million people who rely on freshwater fish for livelihoods – over half of whom are women. Fish is also an essential source of protein and other nutrients that cannot easily be replaced with other food sources.
InFish & SDG 1
The contribution of inland fisheries to resilient livelihoods, those which are buffered against difficult situations, is multifaceted and difficult to evaluate. Inland fisheries in Low-Income Food-Deficit countries are often part of a diversified livelihood strategy, exacerbating the tendency for them to be overlooked and undervalued. The challenge is in available data to highlight this role.
Grand Challenges
Even with long-standing management and extensive science support, North American inland fish and fisheries still face many conservation and management challenges. Addressing these grand challenges will promote open forums for engagement of diverse stakeholders in fisheries management, and better integrate the inland fish sector into the greater water and land use policy process.
Importance of InFish
Though reported capture fisheries are dominated by marine production, inland fish and fisheries make substantial contributions to meeting the challenges faced by individuals, society, and the environment in a changing global landscape. Inland capture fisheries and aquaculture contribute over 40% to the world’s reported finfish production from less than 0.01% of the total volume of water on earth.