Voices from the field 1
Fish cages on Lake Victoria and the Right to Food
Namakeba Village, Buvuma District, Uganda
I live in Namakeba Village and, like everyone here, my family survives because of Lake Victoria. We can’t farm much as we are inside a forest reserve and not even supposed to collect firewood, and the little good land around us got taken over by a palm oil company. So, fishing isn’t just something we do—it’s how we eat, and how we buy the food we can’t grow ourselves, brought in by small traders from Masese and Kiyindi.
Then the fish cages came. Now there are stretches of the lake we simply can’t touch—some owned by one Chinese investor cover more than an acre of water. We used to fish there. Now we’re chased off if we get too close, and every year the cages grow bigger, taking a bit more of the lake each time. Our nets come up lighter than they used to. Some of us go out a whole night and come back with barely enough to sell, let alone eat.
It’s not only the fish—it’s getting anywhere at all. The cages sit across our old routes, so boats now go the long way round. A trip that once took one night now eats up hours more, burns more fuel, costs more money. Fares to Masese have doubled. Since our food comes by boat, that cost lands on every bag of maize, every bottle of oil we buy.
We know exactly what’s happening to us, and we’re not willing to just watch it continue. Fishing is our livelihood and our source of food at once, so when the lake shrinks for us, our meals shrink too. We’re raising our voices because we believe this can be fixed, with fair rules that protect space for people who’ve always depended on this lake. We want our children fishing these waters long after us.
Voices from the field 2
We are Kottaimedu — This is our fight
Fisher families of Kottaimedu, India
We are the fisher families of Kottaimedu. For nearly twenty years, we have fought to protect our source of life—our waters and our coast.
After the tsunami took our homes in 2004, the government moved us here, near the Buckingham Canal—mudflats, mangroves, the waters we knew sustained us. We thought we were safe. Then, in 2007, an industrial shrimp farm arrived next door.
At first, it was just a smell. Then the canal that fed our families turned foul. Then our drinking water turned salty. Our children’s school, barely 150 metres from the pond, couldn’t use its own well. Our skin broke out in rashes. Our kidneys began to fail. We complained. Nobody listened.
In 2019, our women walked out and protested. For that, thirteen of our leaders were dragged into criminal cases—false ones, as two of our people were not even in the country when the alleged “crime” happened, and still we were named. It took the courts until 2023 to throw the case out. Six years of our lives, stolen by fear and suspicion.
But we did not stop. We documented everything ourselves—every encroached drain, every missing treatment pond, every violation. We took our evidence to every office that would open its doors. Slowly, painfully, the walls began to move. An order here. A court direction there. Appeals, delays, more waiting.
On 16 February 2026, we finally won—all aquaculture activity at the farm was ordered stopped for good. We’re now pushing to see it fully enforced, including removal of the encroachment on our land.
This was never about one pond. It was our life as a fisher community, our human rights to food and nutrition, to clean and healthy waters, and dignity. We didn’t wait for justice. We won because we refused to go quiet and fought for what was ours.
Voices from the field 3
When the mangrove disappears, we lose part of our lives
Fisher communities, Carapitanga Quilombo, Brazil
I am from the Carapitanga Quilombo, in the municipality of Brejo Grande, on the north coast of Sergipe State, in the São Francisco River estuary region.
In the past, everything here was healthy. There was no poison in the water; the mangrove was our wealth. We used to fish freely, catch crabs, oysters, sururu, aratu, siri and many kinds of fish. When we came back from fishing, we filled buckets with them and shared them with our neighbours—everyone took food home.
Everything changed after the mangroves began to be cleared for shrimp ponds. People cut down the mangroves, put poison in the ponds and, when they wash them, all that contaminated water goes back into the river. I have seen dead animals in the mud, and the mud smelled rotten. The fish, the crustaceans and many other species started to disappear. Every day there is less space for crabs, aratu, siri and fish to grow because the mangrove is being destroyed. Today we have to walk much farther, or go by boat, to find seafood. Sometimes we cast our nets and only catch enough food for one day. Fishing families are struggling. Before, our wealth came from the mangrove. Today many families depend on Bolsa Família and have to buy food because the mangrove can no longer provide what it once did.
I do not eat the shrimp produced in these ponds because it has poison. I prefer the shrimp and fish that come from nature.
The destruction has not stopped. New areas continue to be cleared, and every time another piece of mangrove disappears, we lose another part of our lives. Even so, I still believe that if they leave nature alone, it will recover. The mangrove can return, and with it the fish, crabs and shellfish. Maybe not for us, but for our children and grandchildren, because they also have the right to live from the wealth that the mangrove has always given us.
Voices from the field 4
Long hours, low pay, no security: a shrimp farm worker speaks
A worker at a shrimp farm in the province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador
My name is Carlos and I work at a shrimp farm. The work here is very hard because I don’t have a set schedule. I have to spend 24 hours a day here and work at night or in the early morning, rain or shine. My boss pays me 400 USD a month. To be honest, it’s not enough because I have my wife and three children that I need to send to school. Sometimes, I don’t have enough money for them to go to school. The work is very demanding and difficult, to the point that my wife and my oldest son often help me out.
I don’t have any social security cover. My children are constantly having health problems. Sometimes when someone gets sick here, it’s hard to leave because we don’t have road access. We often have to wait for boats to take us to town. My boss pays me in cash, and often I don’t get paid every month. Sometimes it takes a month and a half or two months before I get paid. I just have to put up with it because there are no jobs in my town. That’s why I came all the way here, so far from my town.
They use a variety of chemicals here that we aren’t trained to safely handle so we’re exposed to those as well. We often have to handle them with our bare hands without any safety equipment, and the work is very physically demanding. As I said, we have to constantly patrol the pool, especially at night.
Voices from the field 5
How we took our sea back!
Fisher communities, Karimunjawa, Indonesia
I’m Jack, a fisher from Karimumjawa, and my family’s life has always been tied to the sea. We used to catch anchovies and sell seaweed, living in sync with the ocean’s rhythm. I recall the days when the waters provided us with everything we needed. But then, the shrimp ponds arrived and changed everything.
Our whole life was turned upside down in just a matter of days. Men from the company came in, bought up the land, and started ripping out the mangroves. They laid pipes right into the coral reef—pipes that sucked in water and spat out waste. The sea near our houses quickly turned into a brown, thick, and disgusting mess. My kids could no longer swim in the water just off the shore and my youngest was in so much pain when the polluted water gave her terrible itching and blisters all over her feet.
Our seaweed turned white and rotten because of disease. One night, all my fish in the cages died, and it was a huge loss—hundreds of groupers suffocated in the bad water. I had to go further out into the sea to find better water, which meant using more fuel and making less money. As a result, I got deeper into debt. I couldn’t even pay for my child’s school and my family started to fall apart because of the land that was sold to the company.
But we did not stay silent. We formed LINGKAR (“Karimunjawa Struggle Circle”)—fishers, seaweed farmers, tourism workers— determined to fight back. At night, we dove without proper gear to document the ghost pipes (inlet/outlet pipes) destroying our reefs. We faced hired thugs, threats, and intimidation, but we kept documenting, kept posting under #SaveKarimunjawa, until the whole country was watching.
The government thought they could quiet us down by throwing one of our leaders in jail, using a law that’s meant to stop cybercrime but really just gets used to shut people up online. But it backfired, and the whole country got angry. The courts even stepped in and overturned the conviction. We worked together with our friends and journalists who wouldn’t back down and we made the government listen. The ponds were shut down.
The operators went to prison for the pollution caused and slowly, our sea is healing—the water is clearing, the coral is breathing again, and seaweed farmers are daring to tie their ropes back into the water. We’re still rebuilding, but one thing is clear—when people come together, they can hold even the most powerful forces accountable for the harm they cause.