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Inland recreational fisheries provide numerous socio‐economic benefits to fishers, families and communities. Recreationally harvested fish are also frequently consumed and may provide affordable and sustainable but undervalued contributions to human nutrition. Quantifying the degree to which recreationally harvested fish contribute to food security and subsistence is impeded by lack of data on harvest and consumption and by the difficulty in differentiating among recreational and subsistence fisheries. Recreational harvest records tend to be limited to wealthy, food‐secure countries and well‐monitored fisheries with clear regulations or permitting systems. These records often neglect components of recreational harvest among food‐insecure fishers who are potentially more likely to have consumption as a motivation. Here, we highlight the 'fuzzy boundary' that can exist between inland recreational and subsistence fisheries and argue that unreported consumption is likely to be a hidden contributor to food security in some populations. We draw on local case studies from around the world to highlight specific instances where recreationally harvested fish species contribute food and subsistence benefits to participating communities. We use these examples to highlight the diversity of ways that inland recreational fisheries contribute to human nutrition, knowledge gaps in understanding recreational fishing for food, and consequences of not accounting for them as food fisheries in policy and management. The aim of this paper is to draw the attention of resource managers and policy makers, create greater social awareness of the importance of recreational fisheries and bring to light this hidden contribution of inland fisheries to nutrition and subsistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation is a major threat to global aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services. Regional studies are needed to understand and mitigate impacts of deforestation on local inland waters, yet such studies remain unavailable in many regions of the world where the risks of impact are high, for example in the tropics. Our goal was to identify such understudied regions by quantifying and mapping the global research need and effort on deforestation impacts on inland waters. We defined research need based on countries' deforestation rate, fish diversity, and vulnerability of human populations to freshwater ecosystem degradation, the latter estimated from water scarcity and consumption and trade of local freshwater fish. We quantified research effort by reviewing 1362 publications on deforestation and freshwater ecosystems, thereby providing the first quantitative literature review on this important conservation problem. We found that tropical countries exhibited strong overlap among deforestation, freshwater fish diversity, and vulnerability of human populations to freshwater ecosystem degradation, and therefore have high research need relative to temperate regions. However, we found that the best predictor of research effort on deforestation and aquatic systems was the size of a country's economy (indicated by gross domestic product), not research need. Finally, we uncovered a strong research bias against tropical Africa, the only extensive region of the world that has a high research need and a low research effort. This global analysis suggests that future research effort on deforestation impacts on inland waters should try to alleviate existing biases by increasing interregional cooperation and transfer of research resources to regions of high research need and/or low research effort, with a particular focus on the critical research zone that is tropical Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]