Showcasing the Wild: Work Package 3
Wild catch value chains in Tanzania
- Work Package 3
Human-Aquatic Relations and the Commodification of Freshwater Fish in the African Great Lakes: The Role of Artisanal Fisheries in Rural Livelihoods
Growing interconnectedness between local and global fish trade has created a sensitive yet significant livelihood pathway for communities located near freshwater ecosystems. Through participation in these trade networks, local livelihoods have been restructured as wild-caught freshwater fish are increasingly commodified and integrated into global consumer markets. This integration has extended fish use beyond subsistence and local exchange toward export-oriented livelihood strategies, embedding everyday fishing and trading practices within broader market logics and reshaping how communities engage with aquatic environments.
However, the dynamics posed by change in demand and the evolvement is global practices in the market witnsessed since the 1980s, have altered consumer preferences and directly affected the stability, composition, and viability of these livelihood options. Thus, local communities continuously adapt and negotiate among subsistence, local trade, and export-oriented activities in response to evolving market conditions and existing livelihood opportunities mediated through fish use.
This work package examines how fish use across subsistence, local trade, and export markets reconfigures livelihood strategies and human–wilderness relations. Using a human–wilderness interaction lens, it analyses how processes of these commodification process reshape the social, economic, and relational foundations of community livelihoods linked to freshwater ecosystems, offering insight into how livelihoods are organized, negotiated, and transformed through everyday interactions with aquatic environments in the Global South.
- Work Package 3
Focus questions
How do communities negotiate between subsistence, local trade, and export activities involving fish, and how do these processes of commodification reshape relations between humans and the wilderness?
What roles do fish play across various livelihood options (subsistence, local market, ornamental export, other related products), and how do these roles shape household and community dependencies?
What strategies do communities use to balance subsistence needs with volatile market opportunities, and how do these strategies reflect agency in adapting to changing human–wildlife relationships?
How do fish qualities, along with culturally and symbolically embedded meanings, influence processes of commodification within local communities?
Background
Livelihood strategies reveal how communities balance security and risk while negotiating changing human–wilderness relations through fish use. Fish-based livelihood strategies in this project are expressed through how households combine subsistence fishing, local market sales, and selective engagement with export-oriented trade. Rather than replacing existing practices, new market opportunities such as ornamental fish demand are layered onto long-standing food and income uses. This creates diversified but uneven livelihood options, where households shift effort between activities depending on access to fish, market prices, seasonal variation, and regulatory conditions. While diversification can enhance income opportunities, it can also expose livelihoods to volatility, particularly where export demand is unstable or mediated by intermediaries.
In the project, Human–wilderness interaction is visible in the everyday practices through which fish are accessed, valued, and incorporated into livelihoods. As fish use change from subsistence use to local and export markets, interactions with aquatic ecosystems change in form and intensity from food provisioning and local exchange to selective capture, handling, and temporary holding for commercial purposes. These shifts alter how communities perceive fish, transforming them from primarily sustenance resources into commodities with specific market qualities. Such interactions generate new income opportunities, and reshape access, control, and responsibility toward aquatic environments. This reveals how wilderness is continuously negotiated rather than passively exploited or protected.
Integrating freshwater fish into commercial and export-oriented markets transforms species once valued mainly for subsistence and local exchange into commodities defined by market demand and specific traits. This shift creates new livelihood opportunities by attaching economic value to selected species, but it also concentrates effort on particular fish and practices. While commodification can enhance income potential, it simultaneously reshapes access, dependency, and control by tying livelihoods to intermediaries and fluctuating demand. In doing so, it alters how communities engage with aquatic environments, blurring the line between livelihood use and market-driven exploitation.
Freshwater ecosystems support livelihoods through both tangible and intangible contributions hence showcasing natures contribution to people’s livelihood. Fish provide material contributions such as food and income, but also sustain cultural identity, social relations, and place-based knowledge tied to fishing practices. As commodification expands, these contributions are reinterpreted e.g species once valued for household consumption gain aesthetic or commercial value in distant markets. This reconfiguration can enhance certain livelihood benefits while marginalizing others, for example when market demand prioritizes specific species or traits. NCP is therefore used to trace how changing valuations of fish redistribute benefits and reshape how communities relate to aquatic ecosystems.
The African Great Lakes region illustrates how high freshwater biodiversity intersects with layered livelihood practices. Around Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi, communities depend on fish simultaneously as food, income, and trade commodities, including niche ornamental exports. These lakes provide contrasting yet connected cases where similar ecosystems support different livelihood configurations and market engagements. The regional focus allows the study to observe how commodification unfolds unevenly across sites, influenced by ecological characteristics, historical trade pathways, and access to markets. This grounds the analysis in real livelihood contexts where human–wilderness interactions are shaped by both ecological richness and economic opportunity.
The stability of the local community‘s fish-based livelihoods varies as households adapt to changing access, market conditions, and the intermittently available ornamental fish option shaped by a shifting market window.
