ABSTRACT
Already buffeted by depletion of resources due to commercial and over-fishing and climate-change-related livelihood impacts, artisanal fishers in Mumbai and other regions are facing further marginalisation due to new coastal claims and encroachments in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notified areas of the metropolitan region of Mumbai. As neoliberal urbanisation and speculative capital make new claims and demands on urban coastal zones with implications for coastal degradation and livelihoods, fishing communities are organising themselves and fighting back to defend their community rights and restore marine ecologies supported by civil society organisations and environmental activists. This is not withstanding the neoliberal thrust of environmental legislation, their amendments, and violations – the most evident being those pertaining to coastal regulation zones. Coastal fishing villages in the region are facing a double jeopardy from conservation interests and development imperatives – with fishers being marginalised and alienated from their workplaces and residential areas because of conservation needs and development projects. The Swaminathan committee recommended that ‘future policies for coastal area management must reverse these trends and find approaches to conserve and protect vulnerable ecosystems and secure livelihood of all these habitats’. Owing to large-scale state and policy failure in giving force to this recommendation, fishing communities in the region have resorted to several formal and informal strategies – legal and political – in battling further marginalisation and reclaiming coastal zones which have both livelihood and long-term environmental consequences. Using insights from political ecology and environmental justice perspectives, this chapter attempts to explain issues related to power and resistance in the everyday life of marginalised fisherfolk in Mumbai. The use of formal and informal mechanisms, forum shopping, and diverse discourses by fisher associations in the region as part of their struggles, are highlighted.
