Stocking in inland food fisheries of South and Southeast Asia: issues, risks, and rewards

Abstract

Inland fisheries in South and Southeast Asia represent important sources of food, and many are extensively stocked. Stocking often catalyses wider changes in inland fisheries is considered in this context. Stocking can be beneficial, providing additional sources of food, incentives to manage, and income-generating opportunities. However, there are also identifiable risks: stocking can be used to avoid or ignore addressing reasons underlying the degradation of inland fisheries and economic development, tenure arrangements, and culture technologies involved in stocking can combine to transform the very nature of inland fisheries. These transformations can degrade environments and alter the nature and distribution of benefits, potentially marginalising and impoverishing fishers. There is consequently a need to consider and assess more explicitly in advance the implications of stocking for the nature and distribution of social and environmental costs and benefits, and the risks related to access to, and availability of, food.