Rethinking Climate Resilience in Inland Fishing Communities

A qualitative study in Kurigram, Bangladesh, conducted between January and August 2025, finds that marginalization, inequity, and elite capture of inland fisheries by wealthy men hinder climate resilience. The study highlights that women are particularly vulnerable due to intersecting inequalities and argues that current gender-sensitive disaster risk reduction efforts are insufficient, calling instead for a gender-transformative, bottom-up approach to fisheries governance.

• Fisherfolk in Kurigram, Bangladesh, face barriers to climate resilience including marginalization, powerlessness, inequity, and environmental degradation. Women are disproportionately impacted because intersecting factors compound their inequality and marginalization, which increases their vulnerability.
• Wealthy and powerful men engage in elite capture of inland fisheries and employ harmful fishing practices. This restricts access to beels, marginalizes fisherfolk, and threatens livelihoods, which leads to the loss of traditional ecological knowledge necessary for sustaining social-ecological systems.
• Existing disaster risk reduction and resilience initiatives are often unsustainable and, at most, gender-responsive or gender-sensitive. The authors argue for a shift toward transformative resilience and a gender-transformative approach, utilizing a Feminist Political Ecology lens and bottom-up fisheries governance that supports fisherfolk's stewardship.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2026). Rethinking Climate Resilience in Inland Fishing Communities. https://www.sei.org/publications/rethinking-climate-resilience-inland-fishing-communities/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Rethinking Climate Resilience in Inland Fishing Communities. 2026. https://www.sei.org/publications/rethinking-climate-resilience-inland-fishing-communities/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Rethinking Climate Resilience in Inland Fishing Communities |date=17 June 2026 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/rethinking-climate-resilience-inland-fishing-communities/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2026rethinking, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Rethinking Climate Resilience in Inland Fishing Communities}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2026}, month = jun, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/rethinking-climate-resilience-inland-fishing-communities/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }