• 2022 has been declared by the UN the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (Iyafa).
• The initiative aims to celebrate the importance of fish in the diet and culinary traditions of many populations around the world.
• Iyafa also seeks to highlight the importance of small-scale fisheries as a response to the challenges facing the global food system, to reduce hunger and malnutrition, adapt to climate change, and tackle the pandemic.
• Iyafa is an opportunity to recognise the work of small-scale fishers and promote sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices.

For the United Nations, 2022 will be the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (Iyafa): 365 days to celebrate fish, molluscs, crustaceans and algae as an integral part of the diets, cultural heritage and culinary traditions of countless people in every corner of the world.

2022, the year of fisheries and aquaculture: a response to the challenges of the global food system

The decision by the UN, led by the FAO, which will oversee the celebrations — from exhibitions to cultural performances, from panel discussions to conferences — is above all aimed at underscoring the importance of the role of small-scale artisanal fishers and aquaculture in driving change within the global food system, which is facing numerous and complex challenges, including hunger, malnutrition, global population growth and the consequent rise in food demand, the need to reduce food waste and resource use, the effects of climate change, not to mention the Covid-19 pandemic.

As noted in the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020 report, in 2017, fish consumption accounted for 17 per cent of the world population's animal protein intake and 7 per cent of all proteins consumed. Globally, fish provided more than 3.3 billion people with 20 per cent of their average per capita intake of animal protein, reaching 50 per cent or more in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and several small island developing states.

Small-scale fishers for sustainable fishing

Again according to the report, 34.2 per cent of fish stocks are being fished at biologically unsustainable levels. This percentage is too high and is not improving globally (even though trends relating to the sustainability of many of the main species are improving). The most unsustainable fishing is recorded in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (62.5 per cent of overfished stocks), the southeastern Pacific (54.5 per cent) and the southwestern Atlantic (53.3 per cent).

According to the FAO, small-scale fishers have the potential to preserve the balance of ecosystems, to adapt to the changes of our time and to develop resilient systems. Small-scale fishing can contribute to human wellbeing, healthy food systems and the elimination of poverty through the responsible and sustainable use of fisheries and aquaculture resources. And Iyafa, in this sense, can be the opportunity to implement codes of conduct and to encourage actions to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.