By Salwa Mahmoud
In Lamu, the ocean is not just water. It is survival. For generations, it has been the heartbeat of coastal life, providing food, income, and identity. One fishing net, famously known as JUYA, though banned, can employ more than thirty men in a single day. Thirty fathers, thirty households, thirty families sustained by the sweat of the sea. Yet that very net has been declared illegal. Fishermen are dragged to court, their boats seized, and their dignity stripped away in the name of conservation.
At the same time, a single trawler owned by the wealthy and powerful is allowed to operate freely. It tears through coral reefs, destroys breeding grounds and scoops everything alive in its path. Unlike the humble net that sustains families, the trawler leaves behind only hunger and emptiness. It offers no jobs to locals, no security to the community, no dignity to the people. Yet it sails untouched. Not because it is harmless, but because it is protected by privilege.
This is not about the ocean. This is about class. It is about a system that crushes the weak while shielding the powerful. A law that punishes poverty and protects wealth cannot be called conservation. It is oppression wearing the mask of justice.
A fisherman from Kizingitini cut straight to the truth. “Ni kama kukataza Wameru kulima miraa. Je, tukafanye uhalifu ndio tupate kipato?” he asked. His question is the cry of thousands of fishermen who have been stripped of their only livelihood. If nets are banned, what is left for them to do? Must they now turn to crime to survive? Is this what leadership has chosen for them?
The Lamu East MP has spoken up against this hypocrisy, reminding the nation that laws must be applied equally to all. Her call is simple and fair. If the poor man’s net is banned, then the rich man’s trawler must also be stopped. Anything less is an insult to justice. Otherwise, the government should provide an alternative means of livelihood to the Lamu East communities and not just leave them stranded.
How can it be that thirty jobs created by a single net are destroyed overnight, while the devastation of a single trawler is ignored? How can a government claim to protect the sea while turning it into a playground for the privileged?
This is not conservation. This is betrayal. A betrayal of the sea, a betrayal of the people, a betrayal of justice itself. Until the law protects the poor as fiercely as it protects the rich, Lamu will remain a place where injustice sails freely on the ocean and the poor drown in silence.
