The book ‘The Beauty and the Bounty at Risk’ is the first e-book on small-scale fisheries in Nepal. This book has twenty-five stories of fishes, fisheries and fishers of Nepal, which are written by experts, early career scientists and students of the B.Sc. Fisheries and M.Sc. Fisheries in the Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur. A five-day writing workshop conducted by TBTI experts, Prof. Ratana Chuenpagdee and Prof. Svein Jentoft, and assisted by Dr. Tek Gurung, Ms. Ranju Ghimire and Fisheries Program faculty members in the university during February 17 to 21, 2023, had been very fruitful in motivating our students to write for this e-book. The workshop enhanced our students writing skill and the results are the beautiful articles in this e-book. The book offers insights of different aspects of the small-scale fisheries such as fishing technology, socio-economics, environmental issues, and governance. It has covered fisheries in different water mass, both stagnant (lake, pond, reservoir, wetland) and running water (river, stream), and cold-water and warm-water from mid hills and Terai (plain area). The book also highlights cross cutting issues such as women empowerment, climate change and its impacts on aquatic biodiversity, and the need for conservation. Finally, the book explores the challenges, opportunities and visions, which are useful for future development of fisheries. I believe that the book will be helpful to draw the attention of policy makers and researchers, and promote sustainable, equitable and resilient fisheries in the country.

Sunila Rai​, Professor of Aquaculture and Fisheries in the Aquatic Resources Department, Agriculture and Forestry University