Feature

Searching for a Safety Net

Facing growing competition from industrial fishing, climate change and new rules, traditional fishing communities in South China are struggling to retain their traditions and connection with the sea

By Wang Yan Updated Jun.1

An aerial view of Tanmen Port, Tanmen, Hainan Province, February 20, 2023 (Photo by VCG)

Mornings at the port of Tanmen are noisy and bustling, as boats return from distant waters amid the cacophony of buyers selecting and bargaining for the catch. Wicker baskets and polystyrene boxes teem with fish and seafood. Women wearing traditional straw hats sort through the fish by hand.

But on this day in mid December 2024, the port stands silent and idle. For four days, high winds and storms have kept the fleet from setting out. It is another blow to the struggling fishing community, who must deal with climate change, changing tastes, competition from large boats and new conservation rules. Some find it easier to adapt than others, especially the young, who no longer wish to learn the traditions of their forefathers. Community elders fear their culture and traditions are leaking away.　

“The days we can go fishing are getting less and less, and we need to go out much further. Fuel costs more and the catches are unpredictable,” said one Tanmen fisher in his late 40s, who would not give his name. He was helping his wife dig over a plot of wasteland to grow vegetable in Paigang Village.　

Tanmen, with a population around 30,000, comes under the jurisdiction of the city of Qionghai. It is a natural port sheltered from the typhoons of the South China Sea with a long inlet. Boats are moored, one against the other along the quay. Tucked in the southeast corner of Hainan Province, a tropical island in the South China Sea, generations of coastal communities have been dependent on small-scale fishing and harvesting seafood for more than a thousand years.　

Family genealogy documents show that fishing activities were already prosperous in the mid-1400s, in the early days of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). It was a vital link in the Maritime Silk Road, when sailors voyaged to Arabia, Africa and beyond.　

There are 611 registered fishing vessels now, 521 of which are small (under 12 meters) and stick to coastal waters, and 89 are deep-sea vessels. Among the 3,385 residential village households in the six fishing villages of Tanmen, there are over 3,000 fishers. Another eight villages depend on farming and other activities. In 2024, the total output of marine fishing in Tanmen was 38,615 tons, a steady decrease for five years.

Long Voyages

On days when there is no sailing, it is not only the fishers who lose their income. The women of Tanmen, who support the fleet with work like repairing nets or processing and selling the catch, must turn to work in the insecure gig economy, delivering packages or cleaning restaurants. Others try farming, reclaiming forgotten or marginal land to grow vegetables like taro and beans.　

“When I was a kid, my father set sail in a fleet for the Xisha Islands (Paracel Islands) and Nansha Islands (Spratly Islands) to fish, and sometimes the voyage lasted months,” Xu Xinhong, 58, told NewsChina on December 13, 2024. The Xisha Islands lie some 200 nautical miles southeast of the Hainan coast, and the distance to Nansha is about double.　

Xu grew up in a traditional fishing family in Caotang Village.　

“My mom stayed home, taking care of three children – me, my brother and sister. She worked hard on the collective farmland in the day and worked more at night doing other chores,” Xu said. She remembers that when her mom was expecting her father’s boat to return, she and the other wives would gather at the shore, scanning the distant horizon where the sea merges into the sky. The most indistinct of silhouettes would send them scurrying to share the thrilling news. “The boats are coming back!”　

There is a modern pavilion on the shore near the old harbor in Tanmen. Locals call it the “pavilion of waiting wives,” a commemoration of the past.　

In 1989, Xu married a young fisher from neighboring Paigang Village. Her husband Wu Qingwen, 57, started fishing at 16. He still takes to the seas. “It takes our motorboat a day and night to get to Xisha and three days and nights to Nansha,” Wu said. “In the 80s and 90s, I went to those faraway places two or three times a year, staying away one or two months.” Now, Wu feels he is too old for the arduous journey to Xisha or Nansha, so he stays in his home waters.　

When she moved in with her husband in Paigang, Xu managed the household largely alone. Wu was more often at sea than not, except for the summer typhoon season in August. Shortly after the Spring Festival celebrations in late January or early February, he would set sail on a two-month expedition. There would be another from May to June, and more autumn voyages when the weather improved. It was the same pattern every year. Generally, the period from May to August boasted the most favorable weather, with the sea calm and the breeze gentle.　

In the decade after she married, jobs were scarce and women’s earnings low, around 10 to 20 yuan (US$3-4) a month in the 1990s. Xu farmed a small plot, growing crops like peanuts and sweet potatoes for her family to eat.

‘Living Spirit’

“In Tanmen, middle-aged fishers told me that as long as a boy was in good health, he started going to sea as a teen. Sailing to the Xisha Islands in particular was considered a coming-of-age ceremony for local boys,” Pan Hongjin, a media officer from Tanmen Township government told NewsChina. Now although most young people do not go to sea, he feels the culture is so ingrained that it is a “living spirit” that would not take too much to rekindle.

As well as boat handling and navigational skills, Tanmen fishers learn and continue to practice a unique method of reef diving. Wu said he learned it from his father. Using home-made goggles and a breathing tube, he could dive down more than 10 meters. Experienced reef divers can hold their breath for up to five minutes. Tanmen used to have a thriving industry based on deep-sea clams, but now they catch sea cucumbers, lobsters and abalone using spears or just their hands.　

According to anthropologist Wang Libing from Xiamen University, Fujian Province, the Xisha and Nansha waters are full of coral reefs, which makes net-fishing impossible. “In the sailing-ship era, without ice-making equipment on boats, they caught sea cucumbers and sea snails which were easier to preserve. After mechanization, the variety of species increased. Now they fish mainly high-value varieties such as wrasse, grouper and porcupine fish,” Wang wrote in an article published by China Blue, a Hainan-based sustainable fisheries NGO on its WeChat account in October 2022.　

Now with modern diving equipment and storage tanks on boats, seafood is transported back to port alive. Some vessels can freeze and store marine products on board.　

“Tanmen’s traditional fishing techniques aren't destructive to the marine ecology since they never adopted trawl fishing. It’s a real demonstration of sustainable small-scale fishing,” Wang Libing told NewsChina in January.　

In the era of sailing ships with no modern mapping technologies, fishers relied on oral instructions or handwritten almanacs. These are known as the Geng Lu Bu, or the Book of Maritime Routes. Geng means a distance of 10 nautical miles, Lu means routes, and Bu means book. Passed down and added to through the generations, some almanacs are hundreds of years old, and were still in use in the 1990s, despite modern navigational aids. A few Tanmen families guard their copies at home, the pages yellowed with age, while others are exhibited in the local fishing museum.　

Zhao Yuqi, a researcher with China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea, said that apart from recording sea routes, the almanac records weather conditions, wind directions and ocean currents in different seasons. The Geng Lu Bu was included on The Third National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China by the Ministry of Culture in May 2011.

Fishers unload freshly caught ffsh at Tanmen Port, Tanmen, Hainan Province, March 18, 2023 (Photo by VCG)

A display shows the traditional reef diving methods of Tanmen ffshers, China (Hainan) Museum of the South China Sea, February 20, 2023 (Photo by VCG)

Riding the Waves

“Hainan regulations state when the wind is above Beaufort force 6, or the waves higher than two meters, fishing boats are forbidden to leave or come back to port,” said a 60-year-old woman surnamed Wang in Paigang. Her family owns a small fishing boat crewed by her two sons. However, because of bad weather, they have not been out to sea for over a month.　

Tanmen fishers consider waves of up to two meters as small and not dangerous. In certain conditions, it is easier to catch fish than on a calm day. “Sometimes after storms or strong winds, the big waves drive fish in the deep sea to the coast, so it’s much easier to catch them. That’s why we want to be allowed to fish on certain windy days,” Ding Zhile, head of the Tanmen Fisheries Association, told NewsChina. “It’s we fishers who really know about the sea.”　

Local fishers say the best time to fish in the deep-sea is from March to June, before the summer typhoon season. But in 1999, China imposed an annual moratorium on fishing in the South China Sea during the fish breeding season for conservation purposes. It starts on May 1 and ends on August 16 in waters north of 12 degrees latitude. More recently, nationwide regulations to license new boats were tightened even more. In Tanmen, the number of fishing vessels has been the same for the last five years.　

“Some species and marine animals [such as Napoleon wrasse, giant clam and green turtle] are listed as endangered so it’s forbidden to catch or sell them according to national law, and declining fish stocks is making fishing even harder. This year life is particularly challenging for us,” Wang said. Many others in Paigang Village agree.　

She feels uncertain about the future, and wonders if it would be better to get some land to farm. But most of the limited village farmland was sold to real estate developers over a decade ago.　

Climate change has caused more extreme frequent weather events and makes life more difficult for fishers. Studies show that rising water temperatures can shift the geographical distribution of fish species, alter reproductive timing, and reduce the availability of suitable habitats. There are more violent storms and unpredictable weather, like Super Typhoon Yagi in September 2024, one of the most destructive storms to hit Southeast Asia in recent years.

Vendors sell freshly caught ffsh and seafood at a bustling morning market, Tanmen Port, Tanmen, Hainan Province, August 24, 2014 (Photo by VCG)

Fishing vessels remain docked due to poor weather conditions, Tanmen Port, Tanmen, Hainan Province, December 13, 2024 (Photo by Wang Yan)

Environmental Concerns

According to Climate Risks to Fishing Species and Fisheries in the China Seas, an article published in the international journal Science of the Total Environment in January 2023, “considering the water temperature in the 2010s, 20 percent of fish species in the China Seas have one-fourth of their habitats unsuitable, and the situation will become worse with future warming scenarios in the 2050s when nearly half of species will have at least one-fourth of their habitats no longer suitable.”　

Extreme weather was particularly destructive to Hainan’s fishing and aquaculture industry in 2024. “Typhoon Yagi destroyed fish farming rafts set up by Tanmen fishers, which caused the loss of many high-value live fishery harvests,” Wang Xiuhong from the Qionghai Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs told NewsChina.　

To encourage fishers to abide by the seasonal ban and other regulations to protect fisheries, Hainan government started offering subsidies in the early 2020s. Vessels that stick by the rules, are eligible for a minimum annual subsidy of 9,000 yuan (US$1,231). Depending on the length of the vessel and its equipment, compensation for lost fishing days can reach 300,000 yuan (US$41,444) per year.　

Moratoriums do work. Research on the Bohai Sea, published in journal Highlights in Science, Engineering and Technology in February 2024, found the moratorium there had enhanced species diversity, stabilized the marine ecology and guarantees utilization of fishery resources.　

In 2022, the central government published the 14th Five-Year Plan for Fisheries Development, pledging to build on the achievements of the previous plan, which from 2016 to 2020 had reduced the national fishing fleet by 40,000 vessels.　

Based on national regulations, the government will continue to dynamically adjust fishery resources, including limiting the number and area of fishery licenses, implementing quotas, and enforcing seasonal fishery closures. It also supports the modernization of small fishing vessels while strengthening supervision. In Hainan, with central government financial support, provincial authorities offer substantial subsidies to upgrade equipment on vessels, Wang Xiuhong said.

“Now our government discourages us from fishing, and with strict quotas for fishing vessels in Tanmen, it’s only possible to reduce the number of boats rather than registering any new ones for [commercial] fishing purposes,” Ding Zhile said.

Happy as Clams

According to both Wang Xiuhong and Pan Hongjin, apart from offering direct subsidies to help fishers find new livelihoods, authorities organize training programs in coastal communities. This includes starting their own mariculture projects, seafood restaurants, guesthouses and recreational fishing, or helping them find work in agrifood processing plants.　

Xu Xinhong’s son, Wu Shuxian, 34, has attended training sessions on guesthouse management, seafood e-commerce and recreational fishing. “I benefited a lot from these courses organized by the township or the city. They provided guidance to those unfamiliar with these new types of business,” Wu Shuxian said.　

It has been a roller-coaster ride for Tanmen’s fishers. A few decades ago, when there were almost no rules, it was a boom time. Han Han, founder and CEO of China Blue, told NewsChina that from the 1980s, domestic markets for red coral, tortoise shell and giant clam surged, but this caused irreversible damage and species collapse.　

Almost every family in Tanmen was involved in the clam business, from gathering to processing to selling trinkets and jewelry to tourists. Authorities promoted it as an important industry.　

Between 2010 to 2015, one fisher could earn as much as 200,000-300,000 yuan (US$27,446-41,169) from giant clams. So, when the government suddenly banned catching giant clams and selling products made from their shells in 2017, it caught fishers and the Tanmen government by surprise. Around 100 stores closed overnight.　

After the ban, Tanmen’s fishers had to make do with regular fishing and seafood gathering. But in the last three years, e-commerce has provided a lifeline, creating a vibrant domestic market for fresh marine fish products such as groupers and parrotfish.　

When times were good in the early 2010s, many families built new two-story houses. As fishing income declined, authorities started pushing tourism. Many residents converted their homes to guesthouses. In 2017, Fu Minglin, now 44, renovated an old house in his hometown of Shiwan Village, becoming one of the first people to run a B&B in Tanmen.　

With government support, he set up a fishing cooperative of around 40 members. They invested 3 million yuan (US$408,248) to buy the sea use rights for a 12-hectare area near the old port for marine tourism, including a restaurant, leisure fishing, boat hire, scuba diving and eco-tourism. “We welcomed our first tourists in 2023, and the total investment is about 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) which includes development funding from our village committee,” Fu said. The project offers jobs for female villagers as receptionists, cleaners and gardeners.　

Fu told NewsChina the project generated net profits of 1 million yuan (US$140,000) in 2023. But the tourism industry has struggled in 2024 due to bad weather, and so has his recreational fishing project, which was already affected by a shortage of fish, Fu said, standing in front of his blue-and-white seafront café, mocked up like a boat. It is open, but there are few customers.　

It is not all doom and gloom. In 2020, with central government ecological recovery funds, Qionghai government started building artificial reefs off Tanmen to help marine life recovery.　

“As these man-made habitats attract fish, they provide economic benefits as fishing grounds for commercial and recreational fishers, or as scuba dive sites,” he said. Preliminary monitoring has seen an uptick in fish stocks.　

Fu’s projects have brought positive change to communities, providing alternative livelihoods as well as inspiring some young people to come back from the cities.　

Wu Shuxian resigned from his government job in 2020, and with the aid of a government grant of 100,000 yuan (US$13,734), he opened two guesthouses.　

Previously economically marginalized women have been brought into employment at inns and guesthouses. Sun Qiyuan, 31, works as receptionist earning 3,000 yuan (US$409) a month. She is grateful for the tourism development, which enables people to stay and work in the community and reduces their dependence on fishing.　

In 2023, Wu Shuxian set up a small cooperative with five friends, all in their 30s. They ship frozen fish and shrimp around the country through social media platforms. In 2024, Tanmen government invested in five new fishing vessels for the recreational fishing market. The cooperative has a contract to rent and operate them this year.　

“A two-hour trip costs 1,580 yuan (US$217) with a maximum nine tourists. Our best scenario would be combining tourism with fishing activities in different seasons to maximize the profits, but it’s unlikely due to the strict rules on boat use,” he said. Fishing and recreational boats require different licenses that are not easy to obtain.　

Han Han from China Blue said while there are policies to help fishers transition to alternative sea-based livelihoods, the red tape is off-putting. “For example, the rules say you can’t convert fishing vessels for recreational fishing, so you have to build a new one. That costs millions of yuan, a big stretch for most locals,” Han said.　

But Fu still believes that overall, recreational fishing will provide a better income and lower the impacts on marine resources, a more sustainable livelihood than conventional fishing.

Xu Xinhong tends her vegetable plot in Paigang Village, Tanmen, Hainan Province in December 2024

Tanmen entrepreneur Fu Minglin stands in front of his beachside eatery on a blustery day, Tanmen, Hainan Province, December 2024 (Photos by Wang Yan)

Less Fishers in the Sea

According to statistics released by the Fisheries Administration Bureau, there were an estimated two million small-scale fishers and 81,289 small-scale marine fishing vessels in China, representing 64.26 percent of the total marine fishing vessels.　

Young people have more choices now, so few choose the labor-intensive fishing industry. The cultural inheritance has stopped with the older generation. “Shiwan Village where I live has 450 people, but only one person under 30 goes out to sea to fish,” Ding Zhile said. He remembers that until the early 2000s, villagers went to sea after the Spring Festival, and the streets were empty and silent. It is too uncertain now as fish stocks decline and prices fluctuate.

“Modern technology has replaced the Geng Lu Bu, but the cultural experience and local knowledge can never be replaced, so young generations who grew up in urban areas away from the ocean won’t be able to inherit it,” Ding said.　

Other skills are lost too. Only women in their 50s and 60s can weave and repair nets. Han Han believes the hundreds of years of collective wisdom is a precious asset that should be kept alive.　

Many experts agree that small-scale fishers’ knowledge is invaluable, and their environmental impact is relatively small compared to modern industrial trawling, which can be very destructive. Xavier Basurto, professor of environmental social sciences at Stanford University told NewsChina in February that local fishers’ knowledge, “which has been fine-tuned through years and years of interactions with the aquatic environment, is key to finding solutions to a more sustainable relationship between humans and nature.”　

Basurto said the most pervasive threat small-scale fishers face is invisibility. In China, farming and marine cultures are often marginalized, and they suffer from “policy invisibility.” He suggested that community-based co-management of coastal resources be strengthened, empowering fishers to participate in decision-making processes that directly affect their livelihoods, increasing the likelihood that solutions will be maintained over time.　

Qionghai city government spends hundreds of thousands of yuan a year training fishers to work in manufacturing or seafood processing, Wang Qiuhong said. But many are reluctant to work in rigid environments after the freedom of being their own boss. One young fisher surnamed Yang said he would rather drive a cab.　

William Cheung, professor and director of the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at University of British Columbia in Canada, said that alternative livelihoods such as tourism and aquaculture are limited to location, and typically require a different set of skills and knowledge, not to mention capital to manage finance, customers, advertising and marketing. It is not a transition all can make. “Those are not easy skills for them [fishers] even if you provide resources. Often only a small proportion of fishers can successfully transition to alternative livelihoods,” Cheung told NewsChina in March.　

The run of bad weather and economic slowdown has hurt tourism. Xu Xinhong and her husband Wu Qingwen help their son Wu Shuxian with the guesthouse. But with business slack, Wu senior is back at sea. “I go out near the reef in the early morning and return in late afternoon. I usually get great wrasse, grouper, large yellow croaker and porcupine fish, and I sell them as soon as I get back to port,” he said.　

December to early March is the best time for mackerel, which migrates back to Tanmen’s coastal waters in late winter and early spring. A delicacy for locals, they can sell it for around 250 yuan (US$34) a kilo. The mackerel harvest has been pretty good this year.　

Now average incomes are lower. residents told NewsChina that fishers can make around 30,000-40,000 yuan (US$4,109-5,579) a year, but if they own a guesthouse, they may earn 100,000-200,000 yuan (US$13,699- 27,397), if tourism is good.　

“Fishing is the fundamental means of livelihood amid the fast changing social and market environment. Local communities are the experts of the sea,” Wang Libing said. “Despite their ups and downs, they can keep a sense security as long as they have their ancestral seas in the vast South China Sea to fish in as freely as before.”　

“My early ancestors, my grandpa and my father spent their whole lives fishing. The only difference is the way we fish. My grandfather fished on a sailing junk, my father on wooden motorboat, and I may captain a yacht. I don’t think we’ll lose our fishing culture. Of course, we may change our ways, we can share our traditional scuba diving methods, our unique cultural heritage with visitors,” Wu Shuxian said.

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Searching for a Safety Net