A Yangtze without fishers - but not without fish

"Commercial fishing has been banned in the Yangtze River since 2021, a bold response to a severe biodiversity crash driven by intense fishing, dams, habitat degradation and pollution."

"Five years on, Fangyuan Xiong at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan and her colleagues report a doubling of fish biomass in the river and a 13% increase in species richness, as species too rare to be captured in earlier surveys become more abundant."

Commercial fishing has been banned in the Yangtze River since 2021 as a conservation response to a severe biodiversity crash caused by intense fishing, dams, habitat degradation and pollution. The Yangtze is China’s biggest river system. Five years after the moratorium began, monitoring recorded a doubling of fish biomass and a 13% increase in species richness. Species that had been too rare to be captured in earlier surveys have become more abundant. The moratorium has coincided with measurable recovery of fish stocks and diversity in the river.

Read at Nature