This project aims to fill knowledge gaps about the effect of recreational fishing on the health and wellbeing of recreational fishers. Currently, measuring and valuing the wellbeing benefits of recreational fishing is not currently possible due to a lack of evidence, and limited methods for monitoring, measuring and reporting effects.

In response to this, this project will:

• use available datasets to assess whether recreational fishing is associated with improved health and wellbeing for individual fishers;
• identify best practice methods for establishing a causal relationship between fishing and health and wellbeing outcomes for recreational fishers; and
• propose a set of measures and associated methodology that can be used to robustly measure causal association between engaging in fishing and health and wellbeing that can be used to provide valuation of these benefits for the broader economy.