Provisioning fisheries: A framework for recognizing the fuzzy boundary around commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries

ABSTRACT Although sparse, increasing evidence suggests an overlooked population of fishers whose fishing motivations and outcomes overlap across commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing sectors, resulting in underrepresented groups of fishers in management and policy frameworks. These fishers participate in what we frame as “provisioning fisheries,” a concept we propose to highlight the underrepresented values from fishing and fisheries across recreational, sociocultural, psychological, economic, health, and nutritional dimensions. We argue that provisioning fisheries often support underserved groups, provisioning fishers may engage in informal markets, and, that distinction exists from sport-oriented recreational fisheries in power, risks, access barriers, fishing motivation, attitudes, and practices including rule and advisory awareness. We propose that provisioning fisheries should be consciously considered—whether as part of existing fisheries structures or even its own sector to promote more sustainable and inclusive fisheries management. Overlooking this population of fishers may risk further marginalization, conflicts, contaminant exposure, and inaccurate stock estimates. Therefore, we propose provisioning fisheries as a useful analytical category to explore the heterogeneity of fishers and their distinct needs, motivations, and behaviors. As an example of how these fisheries may function, we synthesize what we currently know about provisioning fisheries in North America with hypothesized differences between provisioning and the sport-oriented recreational fisher to encourage greater dialogue and investigation about underrecognized fisheries.