The book brings together examples from indigenous small-scale industrial and recreational fisheries in marine and freshwater environments across the globe. The book grew out of a 2001 conference called ‘Putting Fishers’ Knowledge to Work’. Fishers’ knowledge is inclusive of men and women who ‘fish’ in the broadest possible sense. The main body of the book is divided between Indigenous and Artisanal and Commercial fisheries. The first section is by indigenous people with practical experiences based on their own knowledge systems. In the second part, researchers begin with the Pacific Vanuatu, through Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Bangladesh, Brazil and Mexico to Sweden where the names of the lakes given by fishermen were used to identify lakes that once supported brown trout. The knowledge of commercial fishers has been used to map the seabed in the USA, Australia, and other places. The final chapter contains a synthesis of the lessons learned. The urgent need for approaches to fisheries science and management that promote the collection, critical examination and synthesis of all potential types of fisheries knowledge and all effective mechanisms for promoting sharing of information and of the responsibility and struggle to protect and restore the world’s endangered fish stocks is emphasised.