Rethinking climate resilience in inland fishing communities: Gendered perspectives from Kurigram, Bangladesh

Using a qualitative study, we engaged fisherfolk in Kurigram to explore gender-differentiated lived experiences in a changing climate. Both women and men face marginalization, powerlessness, inequity, and environmental degradation, which serve as primary barriers to climate resilience. Women are most impacted due to the interaction of diverse, complex, and intersecting factors that compound marginalization and inequality, increasing their vulnerability. There is elite capture of inland fisheries by powerful, wealthy men who also engage in harmful fishing practices and restrict access to the beels, marginalizing fisherfolk and putting their livelihoods at risk, consequently eroding the vital ecological knowledge needed to sustain social-ecological ecosystems. Systemic and structural changes are crucial for fishing communities to achieve transformative resilience. Current disaster risk reduction and resilience efforts are gender-sensitive or gender-responsive at best, often failing to sustain. This study encourages a gender-transformative approach as a way forward. Revisiting fisheries governance and making it bottom-up by nurturing the stewardship of the fisher is vital in this climate-changing context. The polycrisis of climate change, disasters, gender and social inequalities, and marginalization demands a shift from conventional adaptive resilience to transformative resilience that will deliver equitable outcomes for women and men fisherfolk.