The small-scale fisher community of “Balıkçılar Köyü” (Fishermen’s Village) in “Rize’s Pazar district”, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast is now facing a threat of losing it’s livelihood. The village is collectively resisting plans to install industrial fish cages in their traditional fishing grounds. According to recent reporting, companies are rapidly expanding cage aquaculture across the Black Sea, turning coastal waters into new zones of commercial control. This expansion has been supported by subsidies, incentives, and fast-track approvals. In “Balıkçılar Köyü”, the company of “Hasan Kuzuoğlu” — a former local AKP official who already operates multiple fish farms in Rize, Artvin, and Trabzon — is seeking to establish new cages in waters long used by the village’s fishers. The people of “Balıkçılar”, a community whose very name reflects its dependence on fishing, have made their position clear: they refuse to lose their fishing areas and will not accept the pollution of their sea and coastline. Their resistance is a defence of livelihood, culture, and the marine commons that sustain them.
Industrial cages threaten small-scale fisheries
Industrial cage aquaculture frequently leads to the enclosure of common fishing grounds, water pollution from uneaten feed, fish waste and chemicals, damage to wild fish stocks, and the concentration of benefits in the hands of a few companies. For small-scale and artisanal fishers, these projects often mean restricted access to traditional fishing areas, declining catches, and long-term harm to the ecosystems they depend on. The Black Sea is already under pressure. The further privatisation of its coastal waters through cage farms deepens the crisis for communities that have fished these waters for generations. What is presented as “development” or “blue growth” is experienced on the ground as ocean grabbing. The struggle in “Balıkçılar Köyü” is not an isolated local dispute. It is part of a wider global pattern in which industrial aquaculture expands at the expense of small-scale fishers and coastal ecosystems. From Asia to Latin America to Africa and Europe, fisher peoples are resisting the same logic of enclosure and pollution.
Call for solidarity
WFFP calls on fisher organisations, environmental movements, human rights groups, and all allies to:
- Amplify the voices of “Balıkçılar”s fishers and other Black Sea communities facing the same threat;
- Demand that coastal waters remain accessible to small-scale fishers and are managed for ecological sustainability and community benefit rather than corporate profit;
- Support community-based, low-impact approaches to food production from the sea instead of industrial cage systems that externalise environmental and social costs.
The sea is not empty space waiting to be filled with cages. It is the living foundation of fisher peoples’ cultures, economies, and futures. The people of Balıkçılar are defending that foundation. As WFFP we salute the determination of the women, men and youth of “Balıkçılar” who are defending their sea. Their collective resistance shows that communities will not quietly surrender the waters that feed them and define their identity. We stand with them.
World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) In solidarity with the fishers of “Balıkçılar Köyü” and all small-scale fisher peoples defending their territories.