Co-designing transformative ocean sustainability narratives to address complex human-environmental challenges facing coastal fisherwomen: An evidence-based study

Marine fishing is paramount to the provision of sustainable coastal livelihood welfare; especially in the global South. To coastal women, marine fishing avails multiplier social-economic benefits; notably employment, food, and income. Sustaining the innumerable benefits of marine fishing is a conduit towards progressive fisherwomen empowerment and the attainment of transformative ocean sustainability targets. However, in most coastal regions, increasing evidence of human-environmental challenges is limiting the ability of fisherwomen to benefit from marine fishing and this is worsened by the perpetuation of social barriers to fisherwomen's inclusion in sustainable coastal fisheries value chains. In addition, there is limited research on how to co-design transformative actions to reduce these challenges partly due to the use of top-down approaches and frameworks that are largely complex and less inclusive. Our study aims to co-design transformative ocean sustainability narratives to address the complex human-environmental challenges by using local perspectives of coastal fisherwomen. We systematically reviewed 38 documents mainly focusing on marine fisherwomen in Kerala and used a local community participatory approach involving Focus Group Discussions with 43 fisherwomen in Alappad in Kerala, India. Review findings revealed that a combination of human-environmental challenges is still prevalent. However, in Alappad, three human-induced systemic barriers predominate: lack of support from people in their own Panchayat, seasonal jobs, and road problem. Through co-designing, fisherwomen in Alappad proposed a novel pathway involving ten steps. This revealed that coastal fisherwomen can identify key systemic challenges that hinder their empowerment and promotion of sustainable ocean practices. Using perspectives and narratives of local fisherwomen could be key in breaking systemic barriers to fisherwomen inclusion in not only fishing but also other coastal areas and thus could help in developing collaborative ocean sustainability and governance interventions.