Voices from the field 1
Indigenous Peoples and the Treaty Right to fish
Rochelle Diver and Chief Gary Harrison, Indian Treaty Council (IITC) and IPC Working Group on Fisheries, Great Lakes Region and Alaska respectively
In the US and Canada, the rights for Indigenous Peoples to fish are affirmed by Nation to Nation treaties signed between colonial governments and Indigenous Peoples. However, in Alaska, the trawl industry has annihilated salmon populations, collapsing ecosystems that Indigenous Peoples protected for over 25,000 years. Colonization replaced sustainable stewardship with greed– trampling fishing rights and destroying nature. Trawlers decimate habitats, kill salmon indiscriminately, and drive entire rivers to extinction—all for profit. This is ecological genocide.
Additionally, mining, as well as coal-fired power plants are contaminating fish with mercury and other chemicals and in-turn are contaminating our people. Ten percent of babies born in the Great Lakes region are pre-polluted with mercury. What use is the right to fish if the fish are harmful for our people and future generations? The intergenerational impacts of mercury and forever chemicals in our lakes are both physical and cultural. Developmental impacts from mercury hinder our children’s ability to retain our languages, stories and traditions.
Supporting Indigenous rights is supporting human rights and small-scale fisheries. Please join us in our fight for a toxic-free food system.
Voice from the field 2
Gaza’s fishers: a beacon in the struggle for food sovereignty and liberation
Saad Ziada, Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Palestine
The fisheries sector in Gaza has been totally destroyed – we speak about equipment, boats, storage facilities, everything. Fisherfolk already lived in extremely precarious conditions before October 7 as a result of the blockade which affected access to the sea, incoming materials and export opportunities. Now their livelihoods have been destroyed, and their lives and lifestyles are under serious threat of erasure. Fishermen have been killed trying to fish near the shore on improvised floating devices to avoid starvation.
Since the ceasefire many families have returned to their neighborhoods but have not found anything left. We were able to find one motorized boat that survived all destruction. The fisherfolk remain steadfast though and are eager to rebuild their livelihoods, but the ceasefire has not fulfilled its promises in terms of incoming fuel, equipment and other basic materials to restart life. Even nets are hard to come by leaving us few options to restart the fisheries sector. But we are fighting a struggle for existence, a struggle for food sovereignty and against cultural erasure. We cannot do that alone and call on WFFP, IPC and its members, to demand accountability for the crimes committed and support us in rebuilding a fisheries sector of cultural importance which will serve as a beacon in the struggle for food sovereignty and liberation.
Voices from the field 3
From abundant fish to struggling for sustenance: Resilience in Uganda’s fisher communities
Namaganda Rehema, FIAN Uganda and Margaret Nakato, Katosi Women Development Trust
Uganda’s once thriving lakes have become sites of militarized control. Soldiers now dominate the waters where small-scale fishers once freely worked to sustain their livelihoods. Fishers are struggling to comply with harsh new fisheries regulations from 2017, brutally enforced by the military’s Fisheries Protection Unit.
The military routinely arrests fishers, destroys their boats, and confiscates their gear– acts that disrupt families, markets, and the delicate web of local food systems. Women, who process and trade the fish, bear the brunt. Once a unifying force, fish has become a symbol of disintegration. Once an abundant and vital source of protein, it is now scarce.
Amidst the hardship, the fisher communities are responding with collective action. They have initiated petition letters, held numerous meetings with policy makers, and engaged the media to bring their struggles to light, leading to significant progress, including changes to fisheries law.
Their struggle is more than a fight for resources; it is a fight to sustain their families, their communities, and their culture.
In the face of continuing militarization, they remain steadfast in their focus on food sovereignty, refusing to let their rights be overshadowed. For in their hands lies the power not just to fish but to shape the future of the lake they have long called home. Theirs is a fight for dignity, justice, and the right of every community to feed itself.
Voices from the field 4
Community-based transformation
Claudia Pineda, FIAN Honduras
Honduras is a biologically diverse Central American country whose communities were forged in the struggle for survival, particularly in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Fonseca. There, thousands of families that depend on marine species for small-scale fishing and shrimp farming suffer from the destruction of their ecosystem. They are victims of the rapid and detrimental transformation of their territory as a result of environmental pollution and the deforestation of their mangrove forests due to agribusinesses and shrimp farming practices.
They are witnesses of how these practices based on an instrumental vision of nature have socio-environmental effects, with the reduction and loss of livelihoods, and increased vulnerability to extreme weather events. Both situations trigger migration and extreme poverty. Access to food is one of the main drivers of internal displacement and migration to countries such as Spain and the United States. This phenomenon leaves families with social problems in terms of changes in population structure, family disintegration and loss of labour force, to name a few.
However, resistance to this model is mounting, and fishing communities are increasingly demanding the right to participate in the definition and control of food systems. This is how, since 2024, began the construction of a community management’s model of their natural goods, based on local knowledge and practices.
Voices from the field 5
The Blackchin tilapia outbreak: A major ecological disaster in Thailand
Network of Thai Citizens Affected by the Blackchin Tilapia Outbreak (19 Provinces)
A blackchin tilapia outbreak began in Thailand in 2010 when Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) imported the species from Ghana to breed at its farm in Samut Songkhram. Within a year, the fish had spread to public canals and aquaculture ponds, and to nearby provinces. The species aggressively outcompeted native aquatic life, destroying shrimp, fish, crabs, and mollusks, leading to massive losses for small-scale fish farmers and coastal fishers. Many faced debt, land loss, and even suicide.
In 2017, affected communities filed complaints with the National Human Rights Commission, revealing CPF’s failure to comply with biodiversity protection measures. By 2024, the outbreak had spread to 19 provinces, threatening Songkhla Lake’s biodiversity and neighboring countries. Environmentalists called it “one of Thailand’s worst ecological disasters.”
On January 13, 2025, affected communities protested at CPF’s headquarters, demanding compensation and ecosystem restoration. “This serious problem originated from large corporations. We demand that environmental criminals be held accountable and that the state enforce strict biosafety laws to safeguard food sovereignty”, said Mr. Walop Khunjeng, a fisherman from Samut Songkhram.
CPF has yet to take responsibility and instead sued Biothai, an organization exposing the crisis. Experts warn that open-system fish farming may become unviable, forcing small farmers into CPF’s corporate-controlled closed systems.