Category: Gender Equality and Social Inclusion

Local knowledge and Nature-based Solutions constitute mutually reinforcing pillars for sustainable inland aquaculture in Thailand. Traditional, place-based practices enhance ecosystem services and livelihoods, while NbS provide conceptual and technical frameworks to address contemporary challenges such as climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

NbS can play a crucial role in promoting elderly inclusion in aquaculture by reducing labor intensity and aligning production systems. Rather than viewing population aging as a barrier to sustainability, labor-reducing NbS offer a pathway to enable older farmers to remain productively engaged in aquaculture with dignity, autonomy, and reduced physical strain.

Positioning persons with disabilities as active contributors within nature-based aquaculture systems allows Vietnam to mobilize underutilized local knowledge, reinforce community stewardship, and ensure that the transition toward sustainable aquaculture genuinely leaves no one behind.

Men and women worked together to found in 2010 the Blue Crab Bank, a Nature-based Solution (NbS), that bred and released egg-bearing crabs to restore the sea’s fertility. Women took central roles in this transition.

Only by fully recognizing and integrating Indigenous knowledge can Vietnam build an aquaculture sector that is ecologically sustainable, socially just, and resilient to future climate challenges.