Authorities reopen Lake Bardawil after negotiations to end fishers’ strike, key restrictions still in effect

Fishers at Lake Bardawil were allowed to resume work on Friday, a week after the lake’s administration — under the military-run Egypt’s Future for Sustainable Development Agency — suspended fishing activities “until further notice.”

Two fishers who spoke to Mada Masr said the lake was reopened following direct negotiations prompted by a fishers strike against new regulations imposed on their work at Bardawil. Some of the changes to fishing regulations, however, remain in place.

Hundreds of the lake’s boat-fishers began a strike on May 17 to protest the conditions imposed by the agency, which took over the lake’s management late last year. Fishers said the new rules significantly reduced their catch and disrupted their sales. The administration also raised the per-kilo fees fishers pay on their catch, and fishers were indignant to hear of plans for the agency to provide boats for fishers from other governorates to access to the lake.

The same day that the fishers began their strike, the administration suspended all fishing activities and enforced new prohibitions over the following days — this time on shoreline fishers and local traders.

The decision to reopen the lake came after a meeting on May 21 between the agency and representatives of the fishers, during which the administration agreed to several of the fishers’ demands, according to the two fishers. The administration also promised that the remaining demands would be reviewed and addressed at a later stage.

According to the two fishers, the lake’s administration requested direct communication with the fishing community, bypassing tribal elders or heads of fishing associations. The fishers initially proposed 50 names and eventually narrowed the list down to ten, who met the administration on Wednesday.

Among the approved demands was an extension of the weekly fishing window, which now runs from Friday through Wednesday — adding an extra day to the previous schedule, which began on Saturday. Fishers are also now allowed to arrive at the port on any day within that window to begin fishing, reversing a prior rule that barred those who missed the Saturday start from working the rest of the week.

The administration also agreed to permit the use of a specific type of floating fishing net with smaller mesh openings, allowing for the capture of smaller fish — another key demand behind the strike. The agency had previously enforced the use of larger mesh nets, ostensibly to protect fish fry. However, this resulted in a sharp drop in yields, as fishers were only able to catch large fish species, which were quickly depleted in the lake. Fishers said that crab became the only viable catch remaining.

In a May 22 statement announcing it would allow the use of modified nets with larger mesh sizes, the agency said that the decision was intended to “facilitate fishing in the lake in accordance with applicable regulations, following a successful field testing.”

According to the two fishers who spoke to Mada Masr, the trial of the new nets was conducted in collaboration with fishers and researchers from the lake’s research center. The nets were tested in a fry-rich area and retrieved after an hour, containing only rabbitfish and no fry.

One of the fishers said that using these nets would allow them to catch a wider range of species — including shrimp, rabbitfish, golden grey mullet and grunts — ultimately boosting the lake’s output and fishers’ income.

“We’re not against the administration or the agency,” one of the two fishers said. “All we want is for officials to hear our demands and open a space for dialogue.” Fishers backed down once this happened, they said, “especially as the agency had indirectly communicated its intention to take legal action against 35 fishers it believed were behind the strike.”

Following the launch of the strike on May 17, the administration initially demanded that fishers sign pledges not to return to the lake, which they refused, the two fishers told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. The administration then recorded the names of all those present at the docks and announced an indefinite suspension of fishing activities.

Traders were also barred from accessing the lake, and the administration began purchasing catch directly from fishers at significantly lower rates. “We sold a kilo of rabbitfish for LE90. Before the strike the price was LE150,” the fisher said.

The Egypt’s Future agency also banned shoreline fishing along the lake’s Bir al-Abd coast for ragly fishers — day laborers who fish on foot with nets or in shallow boats unfit for deep-water fishing. “Most of them are day laborers who catch a few kilos of fish and sell them at the docks to support their families on a day-to-day basis,” the fishers said, describing the decision as “collective punishment for anyone who makes a living from the ‘sea,’” as locals call it.

The orders to ban this category of fishers came after the administration contacted fishers’ elders on May 18 evening, instructing them to warn shoreline fishers to stay away from the lake. The two fishers denounced the measures against shoreline fishers, who were previously able to access the lake without permits before the agency began requiring ragly fishers to obtain monthly permits costing LE100.

But on May 19, fishers were surprised when 300 boats out of the lake’s 1,228 registered fishing vessels were allowed to return to the water.

“The agency wants to make it look like the lake is operating — as if it’s the fishers who are refusing to work,” said one fisher, who recounted being denied entry to the dock on May 20 — an experience shared by others as well, he added.

Though tribal leaders were not invited to mediate between the fishers and the Egypt’s Future for Sustainable Development Agency that administers Bardawil, they did intervene to discuss the strike.

Dawaghra, the largest tribe in the lakefront city of Bir al-Abd, held a closed meeting on May 19 to unify demands and avoid having fishers and traders air grievances against the military-run agency on social media, a tribe member who attended the meeting told Mada Masr, noting that Egypt’s Future is threatening to take “legal action” against those who incite against its administration.

Another meeting was hosted by the Bayadia tribe on May 19 and attended by several fish traders and some fishers. Sheikh Mohamed Nafel al-Bayadi, who organized the meeting, said it concluded by identifying the fishers’ demands “in accordance with regulations and laws” and submitting them to the lake's administration.

Bayadi described the strike as “inappropriate behavior,” noting that it had drawn the displeasure of the “lake’s leaders.” The lake administration promised to review the demands and issue a final decision on the resumption of fishing activities, he added.

The Egypt’s Future for Sustainable Development Agency, established in 2022, has increasingly tightened its grip on Egypt’s food security sector, from land reclamation and lake management to taking over wheat imports from the General Authority for Supply Commodities, and holding a majority stake in the Egyptian Mercantile Exchange.

Its role has since expanded to include importing wheat — previously the mandate of the General Authority for Supply Commodities — supplying local wheat for the Supply Ministry and overseeing Lake Manzala.

It was tasked with overseeing Lake Bardawil late last year following directives from the country’s “political leadership.” 

Egypt’s Future also began surveying Lake Burullus area in Kafr el-Sheikh Governorate earlier this month to assume management of the lake, two sources told Mada Masr — one from the Agriculture Ministry and the other from the Lakes and Fish Resources Protection and Development Authority.

Speaking at the inauguration of the first phase of Egypt’s Future Industrial City project on Wednesday, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi responded to a presentation by the agency’s director, Colonel Baha al-Ghannam, regarding the management of lakes Nasser and Bardawil. “Not just Bardawil and Nasser,” Sisi said, “but also Manzala — and all of Egypt’s lakes.”

“Egypt has 14 lakes,” Sisi continued. “They’re a potential source of wealth, not just for the state, but for the people as well. As long as weAdd a related post don’t use proper fishing methods or apply scientific approaches to development, fishers’ income will remain limited.”

He concluded his remarks with an appeal to the fishers’ community: “Cooperate with us, as citizens and as fishers. I don’t want you to bear losses, but I’m asking you to be patient for a year or two, because these lakes have an ecosystem that we must protect.”