On February 25, 2025, a group of fishers in Honnavar, a coastal hamlet in north Karnataka, were subjected to a violent police brutality for protesting a port project that threatens to destroy the ecology of the coast and their livelihood. Eyewitness accounts and widely -shared videos from the protest site depict scenes of fishers, including women, being mistreated.

B.T. Venkatesh, a senior advocate and executive at the Association for Protection of Civil Rights, who is representing the fishers in court, informed media that the fishers’ homes don’t exist on the land survey maps. “The survey numbers of land parcels that belong to the fishers, where they have built their homes and lived for generations, have disappeared from the survey maps,” he said. “So, they are being told that they are living illegally, and that their homes will be demolished. The police are entering homes without permission and supervising these surveys,” he alleged.

Further up the west coast, in Vadhavan, a coastal village in Maharashtra, fishers have been protesting against a government sanctioned deep sea port construction for over a decade. The port is likely to impact the livelihoods of at least 10,000 fishers.

In the neighbouring coastal Gujarat, a demolition drive across the islands of Beyt Dwarka, Okha and Pirotan in January 2025 has razed the homes of several small-scale fishers.

Meanwhile, on the east coast in West Bengal’s Junput area, a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) missile testing centre threatens the livelihood of a 2000-odd dry fishing community.

In Tamil Nadu, fishers of Ennore have been enduring a slew of environmental disasters in the last decade alone. From the giant oil spill in 2017 and another one in 2023, followed by an ammonia gas leak in the same year, apart from all the pollutants from the surrounding factories making their way into the waters of the Ennore creek continuously, the fishers are frustrated from being continuously ignored by the authorities.

The state-backed deepwater Adani port in Kerala’s Vizhinjam has already impacted the natural harbour, destroying the reef systems and livelihoods and creating death traps for fishers.

All across these coastal states in India, fishers are living through a precarious situation: climate change, rising sea-levels, declining fish catch, eroding coastlines, a crumbling social security net, rising debts, and to top it, in many cases, the land upon which they live and work has become contentious.

Sisir Pradhan, an academic specialising in sustainability management and transdisciplinary knowledge systems with a focus on the fisheries sector, highlights that climate change-induced decline in fish catch is compounding the challenges faced by small-scale fishers. However, he notes that the state’s response to climate change is further marginalising these communities.

“There are 58 countries that have signed the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), committing to expand Marine Protected Areas. This approach centres on conservation, often treating fisher rights and access as secondary,” he tells Mongabay India.

Pradhan adds that the rapid growth of the renewable energy sector — through projects such as wind farms, solar parks, and marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) initiatives — poses additional threats, as they often overlook compensation and the basic well-being of small-scale fishers.

In all these cases, it is the most marginalised small-scale fishers who bear the brunt. The land on which they live and work is consistently under dispute; their health, means of livelihood, access to basic amenities, homes, and overall well-being are rarely considered when large infrastructure projects are planned. In places like Honnavar, they are even told they are living “illegally”, despite generations having resided on that land.

Coastal states are witnessing an increasing marginalisation of small-scale fishers. Ironically, it is these very communities that are positioned at the forefront of global negotiations and debates when India represents the fisheries sector on international platforms.

Focus on sustainable fisheries

A 2023 report published by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) titled Illuminating Hidden Harvests provides an insight into the small-scale fisheries (SSF) sector in the Global South. According to this report, a small-scale fisher is a person practising small-scale fisheries, firmly rooted in local communities, traditions and values. Most of them are self-employed and provide fish for direct consumption within their household or local communities.

Their use of technology is modest and suited to smaller areas. For example, they typically operate small motorised boats equipped with outboard engines of around 10 horsepower in contrast to the large, export-driven, energy-intensive mechanised trawler fleets. Sometimes, the small-scale fishers also work on large boats for several months to earn a living.

Women are a significant part of this sector, contributing immensely towards the post-harvest and processing activities. About 90 percent of all people directly dependent on capture fisheries work in the small-scale fisheries sector.

According to the report, small-scale fisheries account for nearly half of global fish catches in developing countries and employ around 90 percent of the world’s capture fishers. An estimated 90 to 95 percent of small-scale landings are intended for local human consumption. These fisheries not only enhance the availability of nutritious food in local markets but also serve as a crucial source of income for those engaged in the sector.

The report also says that small-scale fisheries contribute at least 40 percent of the global catch from capture fisheries and provide employment across the value chain for an estimated 60.2 million people — representing around 90 percent of the total global fisheries workforce.

In this regard, small-scale fisheries respond well to several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals — removing poverty (SDG 1), removing hunger and improving food security (SDG 2), and conserving oceans (SDG 14). Small-scale fisheries define the livelihoods, nutrition and culture of a substantial and diverse segment of humankind. Despite their importance and potential, small-scale fishing communities continue to be marginalised and their contribution to food security and nutrition remains unrealised.

A legal framework for fisher rights

In India, there aren’t any legal rights specifically for the fishers or coastal communities. There are the coastal regulation zone rules that protect the coastal commons — spaces such as the beaches, mangroves, inter-tidal zones, mudflats and sand dunes, on which fishers depend for fishing and allied activities. While the CRZ laws help to prescribe what is allowed on each zone, over the years, the rules have been diluted to allow for more commercial and infra projects to come through.

The Environment Protection Act, 1986 and the Forest Rights Act, 2006 have institutional arrangements, but nothing specifically to protect fishers.

“Fishers’ rights need a formal recognition in the eyes of the law,” says Sebastian Rodrigues, general secretary of National Federation of Small-Scale Fishworkers. A legal framework would mean the state granting recognition to the existing customary rights of fishers in marine waters.

Customary fishing rights emerge from long-standing traditions and practices of fishing, reflecting that many fishers have been engaged in this vocation for generations. These rights imply the need for formal recognition through legislation enacted by Parliament and state legislatures, effectively making them constitutional. Such legal recognition would prioritise the protection of fishing activities over coastal development projects that may be hostile to the interests of small-scale fishers.

The National Fishworkers Forum, a national union representing fishworkers, also identifies securing coastal land rights as one of its main objectives.

“The state is supposed to be the custodian of coastal-marine spaces, holding such resources as land and territorial waters in trust, for the benefit of its people, through sustainable and equitable use,” says Aarthi Sridhar, co-founder of Dakshin Foundation, a non-profit organisation working on coastal marine conservation and development. “An acknowledgment of this relationship, through legal language, serves to reinforce and remember this social contract,” she adds.

Human rights-based approach 

A 2019 research paper titled Situating Human Rights in the Context of Fishing Rights, suggests a human rights-based approach towards fisheries governance. It says that the framing of fishing rights as human rights is “purposeful and effective to remind us that the rights of small-scale fishers to access and harvest fishery resources are, in many cases, a fundamental and indivisible part of their culture, survival, and wellbeing, which ought not be capitalised, sold, and otherwise removed from their social-historical contexts.”

“Right now, fishers have only territorial access to land and water,” Pradhan points out. “If you work towards a human rights-based approach, then the fishers have an opportunity for individual compensation. They can apply for judicial and compensatory support from the state,” he explains.

Another advantage of a human rights-based approach is the co-management of fisheries. “The biggest stakeholder in sustainable fisheries are small-scale fishers,” says Sridhar. “There is a need to understand the fisher communities’ roles in real-time fisheries management. Without rights, their role and impact cannot be fully realised and threats to the coastal-marine ecosystem will continue. It is a democratic ideal that this large constituency of SSF be involved in planning and fisheries development,” she says.

The FAO’s introduction of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) in 2014 draws on human rights standards as its guiding precepts. Translating human rights principles into concrete action is a crucial step towards ensuring the basic dignity of fishery-dependent communities worldwide and empowering them to pursue sustainable and equitable fishing livelihoods.

“The current narrative holds fisheries as encroachers of marine waters. This is a colonial mindset. The rights will create a layer of legal protection to fishing communities, protecting them from these large state infra projects,” says Rodrigues.

Banner image: Fisherfolk in Honnavar, Karnataka. Image by Supriya Vohra.

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Arathimenon Editor

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