What do fishing communities need to adapt to climate change? Fishers in Mongla set out their priorities

What do fishing communities need to adapt to climate change? Fishers in Mongla set out their priorities

Cyclone Remal left little untouched when it tore through Ulubunia in 2024. Rozina Begum’s home flooded and collapsed, while saline water swept into her aquaculture pond, carrying away the fish she depended on for income. She estimates her losses at about BDT 200,000.

Her experience was one of several shared by fishing households in Mongla, south-western Bangladesh, where climate hazards affect livelihoods on the water and assets on land. Heat, storms, flooding and salinity are making fishing and aquaculture harder to manage. The annual June-to-August fishing ban adds another source of income pressure for households with few alternatives. 

From 18–20 August 2026, WorldFish, under CGIAR Climate Action, convened a Climate Adaptation Co-Design Workshop in Ulubunia village. Participants included fishers, boat owners, traders, fisheries value chain actors, community organizations, women-led organizations, government representatives, local NGOs and law-enforcement authorities. The aim was to identify the risks people face along with their existing response strategies, and the support they consider of utmost priority.

Climate change is hitting livelihoods on water and land

Ulubunia sits near the Mongla River and the Sundarbans. Many households depend on fishing in the Sundarbans, the Mongla and Pashur rivers and the Bay of Bengal; while others farm fish, shrimp and crab in ponds.

When the weather turns dangerous, the first loss may simply be a day’s work. Rafiqul Shaikh, a small-scale fisher and cooperative leader, said boats sometimes cannot leave shore or are forced to return before a trip is complete. On exceptionally hot days, the physical toll can be severe as he described headaches, vomiting and at times heatstroke.

Then there is the damage left behind when storms make landfall. Boat owner Gazi Ruhul Amin said cyclones can destroy boats and nets as well as homes and other property. For families with little financial margin, replacing those assets is a longer-term economic burden.

Cyclone Remal brought several of those risks together for Rozina Begum, referenced at the start of this story. Floodwater damaged her home, while saline water entered her aquaculture pond, leaving it unfit for fish farming.

How fishing households are already adapting

Adaptation is already part of daily life in Ulubunia. 

Workshop participants described a range of ways households are already adapting: harvesting and storing rainwater, raising house foundations, growing salt-tolerant crops, avoiding fishing when conditions are dangerous, and following cyclone and flood warnings.

Livelihoods are changing too. Faced with rising salinity and disease risks, some farmers are replacing fish and shrimp with crab culture. Others are planting trees along riverbanks and embankments. And some families are looking further ahead, investing in their children’s education as a way to widen their livelihood options beyond those increasingly exposed to climate shocks.

But there are limits to what households can do on their own. Participants pointed to needs that require wider support, including reliable weather information, safe drinking water, assistance after disasters, accessible health services and protective infrastructure.

Four priorities for stronger climate resilience

The workshop created space to turn individual experience into a collective picture of what resilience could look like in Ulubunia. Through resource mapping, historical profiling, institutional mapping and vision mapping, participants traced the assets they already have, the gaps they continue to face and the kinds of support they believe are needed.

Rather than beginning with a fixed package of interventions, the process started with local knowledge. Participants worked outward from their own experience, identifying where household adaptation ends and where stronger systems, infrastructure and institutions are needed.

Their priorities converged around four areas:

• Safer water and better salinity management, including flood-resilient ponds, rainwater harvesting and treatment, stronger embankments and, where appropriate, desalination.
• Stronger early warning, preparedness and recovery systems, including more reliable forecasts and cyclone shelters that better meet the needs of women.
• More resilient and diversified livelihoods, including climate-resilient agriculture and aquaculture, salt-tolerant crops and suitable species, and alternative sources of income during fishing bans or periods of poor weather.
• Stronger local services and institutions, including health care, community organizations, revolving funds, ecosystem protection and closer coordination with government and other support organizations.

Together, these priorities reflect a shift from coping with individual shocks to building the systems households need to manage risk over the longer term.

Several of the priorities identified in Ulubunia cannot be delivered by households or community organizations alone. The District Fisheries Officer and Senior Upazila Fisheries Officer emphasized the need to co-design adaptation measures with communities and strengthen collaboration among government agencies, fishers and other stakeholders.

The workshop itself did not establish whether the measures participants proposed will make the community more resilient. What it did provide was, it brought local experience together into a community-defined agenda about things that should be developed and prioritized. 

Turning that agenda into implementation will require feasible measures, clear roles, resources, links to relevant institutions and continued participation by fishers. The next test is whether the priorities articulated in Ulubunia are carried into decisions and action.

This work is carried out with support from the CGIAR Climate Action Program. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/