Representing Masifundise and Coastal Links South Africa at the Peoples Summit in Belém was a journey into the heart of global resistance. As part of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) delegation, we witnessed fisher communities from across the world come together to challenge the systems driving both climate breakdown and the marginalization of our communities.
The decision to hold COP30 in Belém city at the mouth of the Amazon River, shaped entirely by its relationship with water, should have been the perfect setting for centering voices of those who depend on water. Yet inside the official Blue Zone, fossil fuel lobbyists negotiated climate policy while governments promoted carbon markets and blue economy schemes that treat oceans as financial assets. This amplified the reason why we gathered at the Peoples Summit, to build our own space, to speak into the issues and the impacts of climate change that are carried by fisher people as well as to denounce false climate solutions that are proposed and influenced by fossil fuel lobbyists.
On 12 November, the Peoples Summit opened with an unforgettable act of resistance. More than 200 boats carrying 5,000 participants sailed along the Guamá River into Guajará Bay. The barqueata, the boat parade, was a way of fisher peoples claiming their territories, making the waters themselves speak. Here amongst many others were fisher communities so often made invisible in climate negotiations taking to the water in a demonstration of power and presence.
Throughout the week, the commonalities in our struggles were striking. Whether from Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Kenya, or South Africa, fisher peoples face similar pressures from industrial operations encroaching on traditional fishing grounds, regulations that criminalize customary practices, extractive projects that promise development but deliver displacement, and climate impacts threatening food security.
From South Africa, we brought lessons from decades of struggle. The legal battles that forced the development of a Small-Scale Fisheries Policy. The Fisher People Tribunal held in Cape Town in August 2024, which exposed systematic violations of fisher peoples’ rights. Sharing these experiences reinforced that our struggles are part of a global pattern and our resistance must be equally global.
The WFFP report presented at the Peoples summit “Rising tides, shrinking coasts, and sinking rights: Climate Crisis and the Struggles of Fisher Peoples” documented impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels, ocean acidification, warming waters, changing fish migration patterns, and extreme weather patterns. But more importantly, it articulated fisher peoples’ vision for climate justice such as recognition of customary rights, rejection of false climate solutions like carbon markets and exclusionary marine protected areas, support for community-based resource management, and gender justice.
On November 15, the Peoples Summit took to the streets with thousands of people. Fisher peoples marched alongside Indigenous communities, peasant farmers, urban workers, women’s movements, LGBTQIA+ activists, and youth. The march demonstrated that climate justice is inseparable from social justice, economic justice, gender justice, and decolonization.
The week crystallized a fundamental divide. Inside COP30, governments promoted market mechanisms and corporate partnerships. Outside, at the Peoples Summit, we articulated a different vision: not carbon markets but ending fossil fuel production, not exclusionary marine protected areas but recognition of fisher peoples’ customary rights, not corporate solutions but community-based management.
The challenges coastal communities face such as displacement by extractive industries, criminalization of customary practices, climate impacts on fish stocks are all manifestations of global patterns. Similarly, our resistance is part of a global movement. The solidarity we built in Belém, the strategies we shared, the vision we articulated are tools we bring back to our communities.
Fisher peoples worldwide are rising. They are claiming their place as leaders in the fight for climate justice and food sovereignty. While climate change threatens their livelihoods through rising seas and warming waters, fisher communities are responding by organizing, mobilizing, demanding justice, and refusing to accept climate breakdown as inevitable.