This year, Nepal celebrated the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in a grand way with cultural parades, exhibitions, and programs supported by national and international organizations, including FAO and UNESCO. These events honoured the diversity of our Indigenous heritage, from language to land stewardship. Encouragingly, Indigenous fisherfolk, once almost invisible in such national platforms, have begun to make their presence felt. This itself is a positive sign, likely enabled by the efforts of local NGOs and INGOs working to ensure that fishers’ voices are not completely absent. Yet, amidst the songs, dances, and declarations of rights, they still remain largely in the backseat of the national narrative even though they are the custodians of our rivers, lakes, and wetlands, whose way of life is both beautiful and under a strain.

For generations, these communities have passed down intricate skills that are part of Nepal’s living heritage: weaving fishing nets, crafting bamboo fish traps perfectly suited to local waters, building boats adapted to river currents, and preparing traditional fish-based dishes tied to festivals and rituals. Their bond with water runs so deep that, as a popular saying goes, when a king once offered fisherfolk a choice between land or river, they chose the river. This choice was not a mere sentiment it was an affirmation of identity, livelihood, and the belief that their life is inseparable from the water’s flow.