Challenges and Sustainability of Livelihood of the Fishing Community: A Case Study of Digha –Sankarpur, East Medinipur, West Bengal, India

The communities tends to promote sustainable living must be environmental and economic sustainability and to meet current needs ensuring also adequate resources for future generations may be defined as sustainable community. 37% of the world’s population live in coastal communities where whole families are often employed in fishing. The main objective of the study is to focus on how the fishing community can cope up their occupational hazards and make their livelihood sustainable through the perception. The study area ‘Digha-Sankarpur’ is twins’ small sea side resort situated on coastal area of East Medinipur in the state of west Bengal, India. The study is based on the primary data collected by field survey. The total number of respondents are 55 fishermen. Maximum of the fishermen are migrated from other districts of West Bengal. They are traditionally engaged in this livelihood. Only men are directly doing this primary economic activity whereas women are doing secondary marine-related activities such as fish processing and marketing. The combination of these leads to the long-term feasibility of commercial sustainable fishing communities.