The following article, Fishers are Farmers, is part of Rare’s Rethinking Conservation series, which builds on the need to view people as central to solving the biodiversity and climate crises. Through original content and discussion with forward-thinking experts, the series explores innovative strategies and collaborative solutions that empower communities, advance conservation, and redefine our relationship with nature.
Early in my days at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), snorkeling off the island of Nosy Mangabe in Madagascar, I followed a young hawksbill turtle grazing on sponges and algae tucked into the vibrant coral reef’s crevices. As I surfaced, I found myself in a miraculous wildlife moment. Overhead, black and white ruffed lemurs, bright-eyed and unbothered, fed and leaped through the trees. It remains one of the great wildlife highlights of my life — and a poignant reminder of the artificial divide we humans have created between terrestrial and marine species, and among ecosystems, people, and economies.
The great irony of my career is that, after 15 years spent persuading a land-focused organization that the ocean matters, I am now leading a fisheries-focused one back to land. Over that time, I’ve learned that the terrestrial-marine divide is neither natural nor productive. For too long, conservation and development have forced the world into a false choice: land or sea. Terrestrial teams often frame fisheries as “alternative protein” pressures on wildlife, while marine teams tend to see agriculture as a primary source of coastal pollution. Both are partly right — and together, they miss the point. Communities don’t live in silos. Neither do ecosystems.
If we accept a simple truth — fishers are farmers — our work changes. We give equal weight to food produced on land and at sea, and we conserve the whole web of nature that supports both. Not one for the other — but both for the common good.
Why it matters
The divide between land and sea isn’t just conceptual. It shapes how people live.
Across the world’s coasts and waterways, people straddle land and sea. Over 90% of the world’s population lives within 10km of water. In Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, 96% of fishing households also farm. Similar patterns appear across East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and beyond; most rural families depend on fishing and farming for food and income. Small-scale fisheries support nearly 500 million people — one in twelve worldwide— and most rely on agriculture. The shares vary widely by place, but the pattern is consistent: rural livelihoods and nature are intertwined.
Land and sea form one living network: Forests feed rivers that feed estuaries that feed reefs. Managing one while ignoring the other is like fixing a roof while the walls rot. Where farmers adopt better practices upstream (such as planting trees along rivers, keeping soil covered, or reducing fertilizer runoff), less pollution is washed into rivers and the sea. That keeps water clearer, reefs healthier, and fish populations stronger — protecting the entire food web people depend on. In island ecosystems, the ecological connection is reciprocal and even clearer: numerous species share food, nutrition, and habitat, particularly seabirds. Diadromous fish (those that migrate between freshwater and saltwater), — from salmon to alewife, herring, and incredible waterfall climbing gobies — all depend on healthy upstream waters for reproduction and feeding while serving as an essential food source.
Livelihoods and nutrition rise together: The benefits appear in people’s lives. In sub-Saharan Africa, households engaged in small-scale fisheries were nine percentage points less likely to be poor than those relying only on agriculture. Living near fishing grounds made households 12.6 percentage points more likely to be food secure. Fish — especially dried small species eaten whole — is affordable and nutrient-dense, narrowing dietary gaps between richer and poorer households. Outcomes may differ by location (for example, export-oriented chains on Lake Victoria can undermine local food security gains). Still, combining fishing and farming strengthens both livelihoods and diets.
Climate erodes old boundaries: Sea-level rise, storm surge, heavy precipitation events, and saltwater intrusion are redrawing coasts in real time. What’s “land” today may be underwater tomorrow as 300 million people are predicted to be at risk of coastal flooding by 2050. Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs provide incredible value to protecting land, $272 billion of losses from 100-year storms by coral reefs worldwide. Upstream agriculture directly impacts coastal ecosystem health, most notably in the form of dead zones. One estimate in Mississippi calculated up to $2 billion in costs annually from the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone.
Communities already connect land and sea: Many Indigenous Peoples and coastal cultures already treat land and sea as one living system. In northern Mozambique, roughly half the population farms and half fishes — often the same families. Across Pacific islands, community rules span from mountaintops to the reef and beyond. Further, communities even conceptualize the entire system as one, not separate. If communities worldwide don’t divide their worlds, why do we continue to divide?
Technical solutions can be transferred from land to sea (and vice versa): Recent work by the Walton Family Foundation and 3Keel has helped bring fisheries into mainstream food-system conversations by adapting familiar agricultural ideas for the ocean. We must also do the opposite, translating familiar marine ideas onto land. Clear, shared language can make ocean sustainability part of the broader food system dialogue. Borrowing terms like regenerative and nature-based solutions, highlighting their marine parallels, and being honest about transition time all help bridge understanding. Farmers need a few seasons before regenerative practices pay off; fishers do too. When we tell that story clearly, capital follows.
Examples from around the world
These connections aren’t abstract. They are already visible in communities worldwide. Across Rare’s work, communities are demonstrating that managing land and sea as a single system can enhance both livelihoods and ecosystems.
Philippines: On Siargao Island, small-scale fishing communities, supported by the Equity Initiative and Del Carmen Mayor Alfredo “JR” Coro II, are adapting proven financial tools first developed for farmers. The savings club model, initially piloted by CARE in Niger in the early 1990s to help rural farming communities pool resources through Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), has been adapted for use by coastal fishers. Nearly 70 clubs in Siargao now provide access to microloans, banking services, and informal insurance, helping families manage income volatility and prepare for climate shocks. Early evidence suggests that fishers participating in savings networks and managed areas exhibit higher compliance, improved adaptive capacity, and a stronger alignment between household stability and marine health.
The same logic inspired the world’s first parametric insurance for fisheries, modeled after parametric crop insurance that triggers payouts based on environmental conditions rather than damage claims. Together, these innovations illustrate a robust exchange: the financial systems that build farmers’ resilience on land can also secure fishers’ livelihoods at sea, especially when paired with community governance and managed access area approaches that sustain the ecosystems both depend on.
Mozambique: In northern Mozambique, the (now discontinued) USAID-funded Feed the Future Resilient Coastal Communities program, led by iDE, integrated marine management into a broader livelihoods approach. Farmers and fishers share the same coastal watersheds, facing the same challenges, including cyclones, sedimentation, and depleted reefs. The program linked sustainable fisheries and mangrove protection with diversified incomes — from shellfish to beekeeping and cashew production — and invested in the roles of youth and women in these value chains. Rare’s contribution connected upstream agroforestry and soil management with coastal and marine co-management, creating a ridge-to-reef model strengthening ecosystems and markets.
Honduras: In 2023, mayors from Honduras met with representatives of our Colombia staff in a learning exchange to share approaches for integrating fisheries and farming governance. This exchange informed an initiative in Honduras to integrate a land-sea solution for fishing and farming. With Rare’s support, this pilot is bringing fishers, farmers, and mangrove stewards under one governance and investment plan. This integrated model aims to help communities and ecosystems respond to multiple shocks (climate, market, and resource) from a single platform, enhancing adaptive capacity, aligning interests across sectors, and increasing the returns on conservation and sustainable livelihoods. The lessons from Honduras will help shape similar integrated efforts worldwide.
Rare’s 2030 Strategy
Rare is scaling this approach and reality by building on these lessons through its 2030 Strategy. We are re-centering conservation around community-led, place-based food production — where fishing and farming coexist and thrive in harmony with nature.
We’ll prioritize regions where small-scale fisheries and smallholder farming overlap, and where high-value ecosystems meet along the same shorelines. Our work will unite fishers, farmers, and those protecting ecosystems under a single, community-led plan. We will strengthen local governance bodies so farmers and fishers can make and enforce decisions together. And we will channel finance (grants, loans, blended capital) toward enterprises that sustain land, sea, and people together.
Some initiatives will focus more on inland or offshore areas, but our center of gravity is where communities live — in the spaces that connect both. Our goal is simple: communities that are more food secure, more resilient to climate shocks, and stronger stewards of their shared ecosystems.
Fishers are farmers — and they are central to the future of conservation.