Urban dwellers fish for both food and leisure in the city. Investigating how blue spaces in cities, such as rivers, lakes and ponds, are used for fishing is important to understand the interaction between people, place and food in urban areas. Questions relating to access, environmental justice, ethics, human and animal health, and urban planning are important research topics to understand how blue resources can form part of urban food systems.
Urban Fishing looks different in cities across the world. Whereas fishing in Stockholm may only be done as a recreational activity, in cities in the global south urban fisheries can be a central producer for the food system and an important livelihood activity.
The social, economic, cultural and recreational benefits of urban blue spaces are diverse. The pressures on these ecosystems may therefore vary in different spaces, making it important to understand the human-nature interactions and the socio-ecological effects within and beyond cities for the sustainable management and planning of urban blue spaces.
Urban Fishing – using the blue spaces of the city for food and leisure is a project led by Sofie Joosse that gathers relevant research and information relating to the widespread phenomenon of urban fishing.
Food & Cities is a collaboration between SLU Future Food and SLU Urban Futures. The project communicates SLU’s existing research and aims to create new encounters between different disciplines and sectors. The project seeks to identify knowledge gaps and cross-disciplinary research questions and investigates how a long-term thematic focus on food and cities could be established at SLU.
Sofie Joosse, Researcher, Division of Environmental Communication, SLU, +4618672066