From Practice to Artefact: Heritage Licensing and the Ontology of Coracle Net Fishing in Wales

Abstract

This paper examines how the designation of coracle net fishing in southwest Wales as intangible cultural heritage is reshaping the ontology of the fishery. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research with the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen Association, the study approaches river fishing not simply as an economic activity but as a culturally embedded practice through which relationships with river environments, kinship, ecological memory, and seasonal time are enacted and sustained. Coracle fishers on the River Towy possess detailed ecological knowledge developed through repeated engagement with water conditions, fish behaviour, and shifting river rhythms across generations. In the context of salmonid decline, polluted catchments, and regulatory tightening, heritage licensing now permits continued practice while restricting the sale and retention of migratory fish. The paper argues that this shift operates as an indirect form of displacement. While affirming cultural value, it reclassifies a working fishery as heritage display and constrains the material rights and adaptive capacity that sustain it as livelihood practice. By analysing how fishers interpret and respond to this reclassification, the paper shows how bureaucratic heritage frameworks transform what the fishery is understood to be, from reciprocal labour and livelihood to curated cultural artefact. The Welsh case contributes to anthropological debates on heritage governance, bureaucratic classification, and the regulation of small scale resource practices under environmental change.

1. Introduction

One of the old boys, who is no longer with us, but he was a terrific, he was a prolific fisherman, and, always had stories, Snowy… He was, he was fabulous. He told me once that in the 70s he’d been out fishing, and he’d caught a load of fish. And, and I mean, like, a load of fish to Snowy would be, you know, hundreds of pounds worth of fish. Right. And he told me he had a great night, and he had to [go to work], he was working … hobbling on a builder’s site. Yeah. And he had to go and get sand, and there was across the Towy a builder’s merchant. So, he went to get sand. It was eight o’clock in the morning. So, he’d been fishing till four, at least. He looked over the wall at the river, and the river, as far as he could see, upstream and downstream, was completely black with, er, sea trout, or, as they call it, sewin. And he said he’d never seen, he’d never seen anything like it in his life. From one side of the river to the other side, completely black. And then he said he had to come back, sort of late morning, to get more sand. And he said, he looked over the wall, and they were still there, still going up. Just going, going, going through, up from there. They’d obviously come in on, on the, erm, on the tide. And, and he, they were just going up to this point. And that’s 1970s?

This paper examines socio-cultural and economic implications of heritage licensing on the survival of coracle net fishing in southwest Wales at a time when the practice is under threat from a variety of ecological stresses. Coracle fishing is a culturally embedded way of life in Wales, stretching back over many generations. Fishing with a coracle entails drawing a net between pairs of small, lightweight boats as the fisherfolk paddle along the river at night. The coracle itself is an ancient rivercraft: a bowl-shaped boat constructed on a basketwork frame with no keel (Figure 1a). Similar craft are attested worldwide, used for both transportation, such as the quffa in Iraq (Hornell, 1938), and for fishing, as for example the Kuttavanchi of Kerala, India (Rahman et al., 2017), and the basket boats of Vietnam (Figure 1b; Nguyen et al., 2018), although increasingly the latter is being reinvented within the country’s tourist industry (Were, 2025).

Across Europe small-scale fisheries are increasingly recognized as cultural heritage and yet this recognition coincides with intensified regulation and declining material viability. This paper examines how heritage recognition can function both as preservation and displacement. This tension is particularly significant given the importance of supporting small-scale traditional forms of fishing which are more sustainable than large-scale fisheries, particularly in the light of pressures on fish stock as a result of global warming (e.g., Palacios-Abrantes et al., 2025). This intersection between cultural heritage and the environmental stresses of the changing climate is a growing area of intellectual inquiry. While most research has primarily focused on the impact of climate change on cultural heritage (ICOMOS, 2019; e.g., Laime et al., 2024; Clarke et al., 2025) the value of local, traditional knowledges as a source of adaptive inspiration (Berkes et al., 2000; Lebel, 2013) is emerging as a new area of research, which highlights myriad ways in which cultural heritage might help communities to respond to and mitigate environmental and climate challenges (ICOMOS, 2019; Fatorić & Egberts, 2020; ARCHE Consortium, 2024). While cultural heritage has been an underutilized resource for climate adaptation, it has incredible potential to deliver innovative local solutions to climate change (ARCHE Consortium, 2024). In particular, the value of local, traditional environmental knowledge is increasingly recognized for its deep cultural insights into local ecosystems and how these are being transformed (ICOMOS, 2022, pp. 23, 25, 26). Research has demonstrated the importance of embedding historical evidence and traditional, locally-based knowledges within environmental research, as for example in the field of marine ecology exploring changing fish populations as a result of human activity, over fishing, and climate change (Pauly, 1995, p. 430; ICOMOS, 2022; Moore, 2024; Moore et al., 2024). This has the potential to throw light on people’s understanding of their changing relationship with the environment, and how they can perpetuate and adapt time-honored practices to sustain livelihoods and develop viable responses to unsettled and rapidly transforming ecosystems. This innovative area of research highlights the value of embodied, place-based knowledge, the importance of recording traditional knowledge before it disappears and emphasizes the need for local solutions, challenging the top-down notion entrenched in climate science that knowledge and solutions inevitably flow “from the global to the regional and, occasionally, to the local” (Turnhout et al., 2018, p. 65). While drawing upon plural knowledge systems might allow us to better understand and address climate change from innovative new perspectives (ICOMOS, 2022, p. 6), there can be problems in relating qualitative intangible heritage knowledge with quantitative data, resulting in a problem of translation of such insights into regulations and legislation (Thomas et al., 2025). These broader debates provide the context for understanding how coracle fishers experience environmental change and respond to evolving governance arrangements along the River Towy.

This paper seeks to draw attention to the importance of incorporating Indigenous and local ecological knowledges, developed through generations of experience and long term relationships with place, into policy and governance processes that affect local communities. Here, Indigenous knowledge refers to locally rooted ecological understandings transmitted across generations through sustained engagement with particular environments. It examines coracle net fishing on the river Towy in southwest Wales through an ethnographic collaboration with some members of the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen Association (Figure 2). Working alongside and learning from coracle fishers, the research explores how this ancient fishing tradition (Jenkins, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1991/2009) continues to be practised in contemporary Wales despite significant environmental, regulatory and social change. We have been exploring how the intangible cultural heritage of coracle fisherfolk might inform river management strategies and enhance local water stewardship in Wales. Our research emphasizes the importance of place-based cultural knowledge curated over generations and the need to embed this within policy and river management. As such, our aim is not only to draw attention to the many challenges facing communities dependent on small-scale fishing in a rapidly changing world (see also Thomas et al., 2025), particularly arising from environmental pressures, but equally to draw attention to problems associated with the increasing legislative control and restrictions on net fishing. Particularly damaging is the development of a restrictive heritage license (Gov.Wales, 2024a, 2024b), which ostensibly seeks to conserve the practices involved in making and using coracles on the river, but would not allow the practitioners to continue to fish commercially. Recognizing that the knowledge curated by the coraclers is not easily captured in policy frameworks, this paper explores the dissonance between deeply embedded ancestral knowledge and short-term politics and how to translate traditional, local heritage knowledge to policy makers. It questions the separation of heritage practice from commercial activities in the development of new licensing regulations in Wales and how this impacts on the livelihood of inshore fisherfolk in West Wales and the continued survival of their traditional way of life. In doing so, the paper contributes to debates concerning environmental governance, cultural heritage, and the role of locally embedded ecological knowledge in responding to environmental change.

2. Methodology: Braiding Knowledges

The research presented here, is part of a wider international project, Coastal TALES, in which we are working with coastal communities in northern latitudes across Wales, Ireland, and Alaska to better understand how traditional ecological knowledge and heritage practices are helping inspire innovative local solutions to the rapidly changing climate (Coastal TALES, n.d.; Thomas et al., 2025). In Wales we have been working with societal partners from various inshore fishing communities from Ceredigion, Swansea, Pembrokeshire, as well as the coracle fishermen on the river Towy, who are the focus of this paper. This research has brought to light various examples of how these small-scale fishing communities are struggling to maintain their ancient way of life and traditions despite immense challenges. Here we are focusing on the disconnect between recognizing and protecting the intangible heritage of locally embedded ways of life, and the official designation of heritage practices and licensing laws, which tend not to attend to the realities and needs of commercial fisherfolk.

We have been working closely with the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen Association who are actively curating information on a way of life and an Indigenous form of fishing that is on the brink of extinction (Carmarthen Coracles, n.d.). Using participant observation, we are co-creating rich ethnographies of coracling, which represent an important addition to scholarship on Welsh fisheries (Jenkins, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1991/2009). Our approach, informed by Geertz’s notion of “deep hanging out” (Geertz, 1998), sought to engage closely with lived experience, embodied knowledge, and situated senses of place and being-in-the-world (Ingold, 2000; Pink, 2009). Consistent with anthropology’s longstanding commitment to immersion, participation and relational forms of inquiry, knowledge was approached as something that emerges through shared practice, co-presence, and learning-with others. This involved actively learning-with coraclers through participation in the practical, social, and cultural activities that continue to sustain the practice. In doing so, we attended to the tacit and embodied dimensions of coracling, including learning its skills, sensing its rhythms, navigating its relationships, and developing an embodied attentiveness to place. Fieldwork, therefore, included informal conversation and practical engagement with the skills and material practices of coracle fishing. Learning to handle the coracle, work with the paddles and move with the rhythms and flows of the river constituted an intensely embodied and sensory mode of enquiry (Figure 3; Pink, 2009). This could be understood as a process of embodied apprenticeship: learning through doing (Ingold, 2013). The craft was initially difficult to control, requiring sensitivity and attentiveness to balance, water, paddle, nets, and one’s partner—all forms of knowledge that could not easily be conveyed through verbal instruction alone. Knowledge of being a coracler, therefore, emerged through repeated attempts, until that feeling of how to respond bodily to the movements of the boat and river became intuitive (cf. Pink, 2009, pp. 69–72). This embodied learning was particularly apparent observing the coraclers fishing at night; paying close attention to their work revealed how this requires a complex bodily choreography between the movement of the water, the position of the coracle, the changing conditions, and the subtle sensory cues on which the experienced coraclers rely. Yet the difficulty of these conditions was also enlightening, revealing aspects of coracling that were less perceptible during daylight and making tangible the depth of embodied and situated knowledge required to work with the river after dark.

Fieldwork was conducted through repeated periods of short, intensive immersion over a two-year period, adopting what (Günel et al. 2020, 2024; Günel & Watanabe 2023) describe as a “patchwork ethnography” approach. This approach was particularly suited to the seasonal and episodic nature of coracle fishing, allowing engagement to occur during key moments within the three-month fishing calendar. However, rather than diminishing ethnographic depth, the iterative and cumulative character of these encounters enabled relationships, familiarity, and forms of mutual understanding to develop over time. Returning repeatedly to the field facilitated engagement not only with the everyday practices of coracle fishing, but also with the shifting environmental, regulatory, and economic pressures shaping the lives of coracle fishers in contemporary Wales.

Coastal TALES is a transdisciplinary project (BRIDGES, n.d.; Seidl et al., 2015; Attala et al., 2023; Kaiser & Gluckman, 2023; Thomas et al., 2025; Attala, 2026), which highlights the unique value of locally situated and experience-based expertise, while recognizing the importance of different knowledge systems. In so doing, the project seeks to position lived, practical, and community knowledges in dialogue with scientific forms of knowledge, rather than subordinating them to scientific data alone (Kaiser & Gluckman, 2023). The success of this approach requires that collaboration is equal and equitable (ICOMOS, 2022) and reiterates the cultural value of qualitative observation drawn from personal lived experience (Walmsley, 2018). As such, following Ingold (2013, 2017) we are working closely with and learning from our societal partners to co-produce rather than extract knowledge (see for example Bawaka Country et al., 2014) and “correspond with them, not to speak for them” (Ingold, 2017, p. 21). Consequently, we are working together to interweave diverse knowledge systems, maintaining the distinctiveness of individual voices (Kimmerer, 2013; ICOMOS, 2022, p. 6) to promote more nuanced understandings of the complex issues of coracle fishing today. Emphasizing the unique insights and understandings derived from our embodied lived experiences with those of our societal partners, alongside their rich reservoir of generational and locally situated knowledge, we are centering on how the changing river environment and how the ways in which environmental degradation, together with increasing regulation, are both affecting livelihoods and the continued viability of an ancient way of life. In our braiding approach we are not positioning the knowledge of the coraclers in competition with the myriad scientific analyses of waterways and ecosystems (BBC News, 2026). Instead we aim to demonstrate the value of bringing together different types of knowledge, to show how scientific data can be enhanced and strengthened if we listen to people who know the river intimately through their regular interactions over the years, who can see changes in real time and thereby alert the scientific community and policy makers. This approach means we are advancing a transformative framework that enables different ways of knowing the world to interact in constructive ways to find novel, place-based solutions to the many complex environmental challenges we are facing globally.

We have chosen to use the gendered terms “fishermen” and “coraclemen” to refer to our partners throughout the text. This reflects the fact that the coraclers with whom we worked were men. While there is no formal proscription on women coracling, women remain fairly uncommon. Many coraclemen articulate the desire to carry the tradition on in their family, in our experience however, this is largely with their sons, and only rarely do daughters choose to learn the skills from their fathers. The interactions we experienced during fishing—including banter and informal conversation—were likewise situated within this predominantly male group. One coracler noted “… maybe it’s difficult for women to engage with that. So, the one woman I have seen here, she comes with her father, so I guess they’re… outside of that banter”.

Draft findings were shared with participants to ensure factual accuracy and to provide opportunities for feedback and discussion. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David Ethics Committee in April 2024. Research followed ethical guidelines published by the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK [ASA] (2011). Participants provided oral consent, recorded through researcher fieldnotes and reconfirmed during subsequent interactions. Anonymisation was used to protect participant confidentiality, except in cases where participants requested to be identified. All research information was stored securely in compliance with GDPR and accessible only to the research team.

3. Coracling on the Towy

Coracle fishing is one of the last remaining ancient net fishing practices that survive today in south Wales, on the Towy and Teifi and Taf (Jenkins, 1974). Others include seine fishing and lave nets on the River Severn (Turner, 2005, p. 83; Jenkins, 1971, 1974, 1991/2009, pp. 17–29). A coracle is a small, bowl-shaped boat without keel traditionally formed from a basketwork frame of willow, hazel, or ash and covered by an animal hide (Figure 1a; Jenkins, 1974, p. 155; Coracle Society, n.d.). Modern materials have altered its construction, the hide being replaced by a canvas or nylon covering and some being mould-made from fibreglass (Figure 4; Coracle Society, n.d.), resulting in a lighter and stronger vessel that is less prone to damage and has a longer life. The coracle has an ancient pedigree in Wales, perhaps stretching back to skin-covered boats described by Roman authors (Jenkins, 1974, p. 108); certainly Medieval Welsh texts attest to the use of coracles for fishing and transportation from the seventh century (Jenkins, 1974, pp. 108–109).

The coracle is particularly well suited for fishing in the shallow, swift-flowing rivers of Wales. While it is easy for the novice to capsize a coracle—or simply difficult to control and manoeuvre, as we found in our own fieldwork—, for the experts, who learn from a young age how to work with the boat, paddles, and the river’s current and swell, “paddling a coracle is a gentle affair” (Coracle Society, n.d.), the requisite skills sedimented into their bodies. Nonetheless, coracle fishing is fraught with challenges, including navigating strong currents, maintaining the delicate balance of the lightweight vessel, and the incredible skill involved in paddling the boat alongside handling the net, and there is a very real pride in the skills involved in net fishing:

“being able to control that boat. To be able to control the net. There is no other substitute”.

The skills involved in coracling also rely on a deep knowledge of the riverscape, its shape, and the flow of the water, a rich place-based knowledge that is not simply learned over a lifetime of fishing, but passed on from father to son over the generations.

Fishing is done at night to avoid casting shadows on the water. The night sky served as an indicator of when sufficient darkness had fallen:

“We can only go when it’s dark enough, okay? So, when you get seven stars in the sky, that’s dark enough for us to fish. So we don’t start until there’s seven stars in the sky”.

The fishermen work in pairs, holding the net between them. Drawing upon their deep understanding of the river’s ecosystem, they paddle silently across the water at night, setting nets in locations they know through generations of accumulated experience to be rich with fish. Net fishing is a profoundly sensory and embodied practice. Knowledge emerges through movement, touch, rhythms, and environmental attunement, through the feel of the net moving against the riverbed, the resistance of the current, and the shifting weight and impact of fish bodies within the mesh. In this sense fishing becomes a form of situated, haptic knowing, effectively a way of “knowing by hand” (Ingold, 2013, p. 115). As one fisherman commented:

“We only go in low water. …the net, basically, as it goes down the river, it’s tapping on the bottom. Yeah. So you feel the net. When a fish hits the net, then, you can feel the fish. You know the fish hit the net. So it’s all a good feel”.

This sustainable fishing method ensures that the ecosystem is left largely undisturbed. The traditional catch was salmon (Salmo salar) and sewin (sea trout, Salmo trutta), which used to be abundant in the rivers of Wales (Jenkins, 1974, pp. 13–17). We return to this below.

3.1. Yma o Hyd: Still Here

The Welsh phrase Yma o Hyd—“still here”—captures both the persistence and precarity of coracle net fishing on the river Towy. It expresses a sense of endurance in the face of profound social, ecological, and economic change. For the fishermen, the continuation of the practice is not simply about maintaining a technique of fishing, but about sustaining a way of life, a relationship with the river, and a form of cultural inheritance that they increasingly perceive to be under threat.

“As I say, it used to be a way of [life], people used to sort of catch, catch fish … and making a living really. You know, there was about, I think there was about 300 pairs at one stage on the Towy, believe it or not. Now there’s only … how many licences are there now? We’re down to eight licences at the moment.”

The dramatic decline in licensed fishermen conveys more than a reduction of a local industry. It reflects the erosion of an intergenerational practice that once structured social life along the river. The fishermen speak with a deep sense of pride about their heritage and the skills, knowledge, and endurance required to fish the river this way. At the same time, there is an acute awareness that the conditions that once sustained this culture are disappearing. This creates a strong sense of responsibility among the remaining fishers who feel compelled to preserve and transmit their knowledge to ensure the survival of this way of life before it is lost. Yma o Hyd, therefore, is a declaration of survival and an expression of vulnerability: a recognition that while still here, coracle futures are uncertain. Consequently, they feel the need to share this knowledge, to pass it down the generations, and are actively curating and disseminating it through a number of avenues. The Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen’s Association was established in 1938 (Carmarthen Coracles, n.d.):

• To continue and preserve the ancient tradition of coracle fishing on the River Towy, using some of the few remaining coracle fishing licenses;
• To raise awareness of the many issues threatening the continuation of coracle fishing, in particular water pollution;
• And to educate the wider public on the history of the Towy coracle, local coracle makers, and coracle fishing.

The Association is a member of the Coracle Society founded in 1990 to promote knowledge of coracles and related vessels through exhibitions and lectures, and perhaps most importantly to take “all reasonable steps to support the continuance of fishing involving the use of coracles” (Coracle Society, n.d.). In Carmarthen a small museum has been established near the town centre, at the Quay Centre (Figure 5), which is dedicated to preserving, honoring, and disseminating the history of the coracle and net fishing traditions. A key event is the coracle regatta in the annual Carmarthen River Festival. In 2018 the Association secured Heritage Lottery Funding (Coracle Society, 2018) to develop an archive on the Carmarthen Coracle (PCW, n.d.) and produce a booklet about the life and culture of coracles on the Towy (Peters et al., 2019). In recognition of the unique history behind coracle fishing, and following many years of hard work by the Association West Wales Coracle Caught Sewin and West Wales Coracle Caught Salmon were awarded EU Protected Geographical Indicator (PGI) status in 2017 (Coracle Society, 2017b, 2017c; DEFA, 2021), which promotes regionally significant food products and provides Europe-wide legal protection against imitation and misuse.

While they recognize the value and importance of all this work, the fishermen see themselves firmly as professionals, not merely keepers of an intangible heritage separate from the commercial practice of fishing (see also Laime et al., 2024). Coracle fishing is an economic activity, an ancient livelihood that has sustained families over centuries and the coraclers’ professional identity and sense of self are closely intertwined with their cultural narratives associated with this heritage. Andrew reminds us that what he does has been “passed down from generation to generation”. To show the depth of this connection to the past he continues to say, “basically. Malcolm, I think Malcolm, can trace his roots back probably over 200 or 300 years, probably”.

Nonetheless, the economic worth of coracling has been greatly diminished over the past century (see below) and today the coraclemen working the Towy are dependent on alternative sources of income to support their families. Indeed, there is a palpable sense of mourning for the lost livelihood and the vibrant industry that coracle fishing once was as a result of the challenges of changing weather patterns alongside other pressures.

“We haven’t just lost fish, it’s a way of life. There was a coracle hanging off every door in the village at one time and it was a thing to be a coracleman. Not now. Everywhere you look there’d be one. Now there’s not much, just a few of us trying to keep it going. We’ve lost… It’s not just the fish, it’s everything that came along with it. Well yes, it’s a shame. There you are. What can you do? You’ll never get it back when it’s gone. We’ve been doing this since Roman times and it’ll be gone.”

The coraclemen frequently articulate their frustration over the scarcity of fish and the difficulties in catching them, which they contrast with more abundant past experiences, demonstrating their deep knowledge of the river’s declining fish stock. Despite these challenges, there is a strong sense of camaraderie and shared history among them. They discuss the importance of adapting to changing conditions and meticulously plan their activities around environmental factors such as tides. The conversation is interspersed with humor and light-hearted banter, reflecting their resilience and community spirit. They recognize that their fishery is no longer a viable economic livelihood: “people used to literally do it for the money, like they could get hundreds of fish or whatever, hundreds of pounds, and then go sell them and make a decent bit of money. But that’s not possible now”. Even so, they still identify it as a way of life that defines their identity, which needs to be preserved as well as a working commercial fishery. Instead, the fishermen work in a variety of professions, from IT and finance to tree surgery, with fishing activity being restricted to a few short months (three in total) in the summer, carried out at night, after a day’s work. The shift from a profitable occupation to a heritage activity represents a significant crisis for these individuals. Nonetheless, their tenacity offers insight into how rural and river based communities are helping them respond to environmental crises, in particular by becoming vocal advocates for the River Towy which is central to who they are: “Protecting our waterways is about more than the environment: it is about safeguarding communities’ livelihoods and traditions before they disappear for ever” (Rees, 2026).

3.2. A Vanishing Way of Life: Environmental Degradation, Dwindling Fish Stocks

Jenkins noted the rapid decline of the coracle in Wales in the early to mid-twentieth century (Jenkins, 1974, p. 108) and coracle fishing continues to decline today, in the face of a number of environmental problems and sociological challenges. This decline is reflected in the stories we heard, alongside a determination to continue. One coracleman told us “back in the 1930s, because there were so many people, so many nets, they decided to bring it down to 12 nets. So there’s 12 net licenses, and that’s been since the 1930s, I believe” and another said “…we’re down to eight at the moment, and as I say, you know, it goes back generations really. Well, we can continue this…”. Other accounts emphasize the abundance of fish in the Towy in the past, which is in stark contrast to the current levels of sewin and salmon, noting for example “the fish aren’t in the rivers like they used to be. When I started, the rivers were black with fish, there was fish everywhere” and “each season it’s getting worse”.

The biggest threats to coracle fishing in Wales today are the changing climate, more extreme weather events, and pollution, resulting in habitat degradation and declining fish numbers (NRW, 2025, p. 92; 2026). This is recognised both through scientific data and the observations of the coraclemen. Notably, sewin and salmon (traditionally the main catch of the coraclers) are in serious decline; indeed, it is predicted that salmon may become extinct in some Welsh waterways by 2030 (NRW, 2025, pp. 92, 94, 95). The dramatic changes to temperature and precipitation over the past decade are affecting the river flows while there are also significant changes to the marine environment, affecting migration patterns, spawning, and the complete lifecycle of migratory fish.

The industrial landscape of south Wales has resulted in barriers to migration along the rivers of south Wales and habitat loss, alongside increased risk of flooding (NRW, 2025, p. 98; 2026). The River Towy was dammed in 1972 for the construction of the Llyn Brianne Reservoir which supplies drinking water to South Wales via the Felindre Water Treatment Works located near Carmarthen. The coraclers have noted how the resulting environmental impact of the dam is affecting their fishing practices, in particular reduced water flow means that mud brought in on the tide is not being washed away and instead settles on the river bed:

“The riverbed’s covered in mud as well. That’s what happens when the big tides come up. They bring the mud up, it dumps on top, it just keeps filling up… And if there’s not enough flow in the river, the mud doesn’t go anywhere. It just builds up down here. So what’s happening now is, because the water’s clear, when we’re fishing, the net’s dragging the bottom, it scoops the mud up. So the fish can see the net then. Ah, they can literally see the net coming. As the net’s coming down, they can see it’s stirring the mud up. … Well, there’s not any water flow, see, so what happens is when some big tide comes up, drops some mud, of course it builds up then. And is there a reason why there’s less water flow? Well, probably because of the dam when they built the dam”

In a natural, functioning ecosystem rivers are “dynamic, connected systems that allow fish to move freely between the habitats they need to survive” (WildFish, n.d.), but this is increasingly not the case. The charity WildFish has documented the fragmentation of riverscapes across Britain by literally thousands of human-created barriers such as weirs and dams; these structures block the passage of migratory fish, including salmon and sewin, which need to move upstream to spawn. This, they identify as one of the most significant pressures on the continued survival of wild fish populations (WildFish, n.d.; see also NRW, 2025, p. 92). In the context of the River Towy, for example, the coraclers tell us that the construction of a large DIY warehouse store in Carmarthen created such a problem because they built too far out into the river which affected spawning grounds and places the fish like to hide. As a result of these pressures there is a significant decline in the Atlantic salmon population (Limburg & Waldman, 2009) affecting fish populations across all British waterways (Gillson et al., 2022; Milner & Garcia de Leani, 2023; NRW, 2024b, 2026).

These issues are exacerbated by industrial, agricultural and domestic contamination, including chemical hazards and increasingly micro-plastics (Windsor et al., 2019). Notably, habitat degradation as a result of intensive agriculture, has had a significant impact on the sustainability of fish stocks. Indeed, the issue of pollution (Figure 6) is the over-riding concern of the coraclemen we have been working with. They tell us that on the Towy fishing is “becoming harder with pollution”, identifying it as one of the biggest threats to net fishing in Wales commenting, “the pity of it is, the rivers are what’s suffering” and observing that “within five, ten years, I don’t think there’ll be any fish in the rivers”. For the coraclemen stewardship is not simply environmental protection but is an ongoing responsibility towards the river and future generations. Consequently they are increasingly frustrated by what they see as inaction on the part of the regulatory authorities:

“… the River Towy is not just an environmental asset but the heart of a centuries old, cultural tradition…. The coracle fishery, recognised as part of Wales’s living heritage, depends on a healthy river. Repeated pollution incidents, poor water quality and declining fish stocks now threaten not only wildlife but also the survival of a tradition passed down through generations. If action continues to be delayed by Natural Resources Wales and the Sennedd, we risk losing an irreplaceable part of our history as well as our river.”

(Rees, 2026)

Environmental concerns centered around the health of the River Towy and its wildlife are so strong that the annual Carmarthen River Festival was cancelled in July this year, following tests by a citizen science group Achub Y Tywi (Save the Towy), which found significantly high phosphate levels of 2.50 mg/L in May, indicative of significant nutrient pollution (inyourarea, n.d.). A local councillor commented “The evidence is clear, the river is dying, we must act now if we don’t want to see the extinction of our salmon and sewin” (inyourarea, n.d.).

The problems faced by the coraclemen are further complicated by regulatory issues, as the fishermen feel they experience the brunt of enforcement while the problems caused by agricultural and industrial pollution are not being adequately addressed. They have reported several high profile effluent incidents over the past few years, with slurry run offs from agricultural land being a sadly too frequent occurrence. The Association is very active in reporting these to Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the statutory environmental regulator, and raising awareness of this serious issue which not only affects all fishermen but also has serious consequences on the wellbeing of local wildlife and the environment. Significant modern environment and sustainability challenges therefore are making the need to balance traditional fishing practices with modern conservation efforts a complex issue (Chuenpagdee & Jentoft, 2018).

Net fishing practices across Wales are regulated by NRW within the framework of Byelaws and Net Limitation Orders (NLOs). The Carmarthen and Teifi Coracle and Netsmen Associations work closely under the guidance of NRW, in an attempt to preserve and maintain sustainable levels of fish in the Towy and Teifi. In an inspiring example of self-governance (Chuenpagdee & Jentoft, 2018, p. 103) the Teifi coraclemen moved to voluntary catch and release for all salmon in 2017 because of their concerns about the very low salmon stocks on the Teifi (Coracle Society, 2017a). Following a public inquiry, to which the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen’s Association gave evidence in 2019, and in response to a dramatic decline in the amount of fish in the river, NRW imposed restrictions on fishing rights, introducing strict new byelaws (Coracle Society, 2019; NRW, 2020) and curtailing the net-fishing season (Coracle Society, 2019). On the Towy this now runs between the 1 May and 31 July specifically for sewin. Salmon can no longer be caught commercially, but have to be released on capture, and can only be caught between 1 June and 31 July. Moreover, fishing is not permitted on weekends. What is caught needs to be tagged and logged, and is liable for inspection.

3.3. Intangible Heritage or Commercial Fishing?

There is a very real tension between managing expectations of all individuals involved in river stewardship in the light of a rapidly shifting environmental crisis affecting the rivers of Wales. One solution proposed by NRW, to continue to support traditional fishing practices, while at the same time finding a way to conserve and manage dwindling fish populations is the Heritage Licence (Gov.Wales, 2024a, 2024b). This recognizes that Welsh net fishing practices, represent local traditional activities which have potential cultural heritage value. It proposes that holders of the Heritage License will “have a small cost equivalent” and will be permitted to catch only ten sewin during the entire season (Gov.Wales, 2024b, p. 6). While the Heritage License might acknowledge the importance of the practices surrounding net fishing as Welsh intangible cultural heritage it is objectified, enforced externally and, with the severe restrictions on catch size, effectively ending coracling as a commercial enterprise. For many coraclermen, the Heritage Licence appeared to preserve the artefacts and symbolism of coracle fishing while simultaneously undermining the material conditions that had historically sustained it as a working fishery.

“They want to keep the tradition alive, but they don’t want us fishing anymore. It’s all right having the coracle in a museum, but that’s not what this was about. It was making a living. You can hand the coracle on a wall next to the nets but if nobody is allowed to fish, what are you saving?”

Lenzerini emphasises the importance of the self-identification of intangible cultural heritage “of the communities, groups, and … individuals concerned… who recognize …[it to be] an essential part of their idiosyncratic cultural inheritance, even though it may appear absolutely worthless to external observers” (Lenzerini, 2011, p. 108). Certainly, there is a strong case to be made that the coraclers’ way of life, the making and manoeuvring of the coracle, fishing practices, and the ecological knowledge or Welsh waterways that has been safeguarded by families and passed down through the generations is an important element of Welsh intangible cultural heritage and a clear recognition that it is under threat. As such, we have been actively pursuing, alongside the Carmarthen Netsmen and Coracle Association and other net fishers in South Wales, to have their practices recognised as UK living heritage (Amgueddfa Cymru, n.d.). The aim is to protect coracling as an ongoing and vibrant way of life, rather than an historical curiosity for entertainment.

One coracler told us “the more restrictions you put on things that are traditional methods of fishing and then when that stops you won’t be able to bring it back because particularly it’s been passed down through generations and generations and generations”. There is also frustration that their traditional practices are not valued by policy makers, with the same coracler noting that it is “all heritage-based things that you should be proud of, not just language and rugby, which is what Welsh government was really you know pushing … but they weren’t pushing businesses or traditions or culture”. There is an ontological problem in separating local traditional knowledges as something to be preserved almost as a museum exhibit in aspic as opposed to a viable economic way of life. Intangible cultural heritage is dynamic and has the ability to adapt to changing historical, social, economic, and environmental pressures. It should not “be considered as something to be preserved under a glass case” (Lenzerini, 2011, p. 108) but as a living thing to be protected and transmitted to future generations.

Ensuring fish populations remain healthy and ecosystems are not over-exploited is important for both NRW and the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen’s Association. While coraclers have operated as a commercial fishery, given the continuing decline of the fish in the River Towy, the majority of netsmen during the 2026 season have voluntarily elected to operate under heritage licences rather than commercial licences. This decision has been taken in the interests of conservation and the long-term protection of the fish. The Association has taken this responsible approach in recognition of the fragile condition of migratory fish and the importance of safeguarding the ecological future of the river. This is a moral decision that eloquently reflects the coraclemen’s reciprocal ethic of care and sense of guardianship of the river. This demonstrates how they are willing to act with restraint for the long-term benefit of the river, and the biosystem it supports, rather than see the river through purely economic and extractive lens. Conservation and environmental stewardship remain the priority until fish populations recover to sustainable and healthy levels, but it is of the utmost importance that the rich and ancient knowledge of coracling should not be lost to future generations.

4. Who Speaks for the River?

Debating the value of intangible cultural heritage as a working practice or as a museum artefact raises the questions of what is lost culturally and environmentally when traditions with deep ecological intelligence are allowed to fade. One issue that has emerged in our fieldwork in southwest Wales centers around how external governance, and modern regulations are shaping who can speak for the river. In Wales, efforts to restore river health, such as NRW’s ambitious Four Rivers for LIFE project (NRW, 2024a), have emphasized ecological metrics and engineering strategies. In Carmarthenshire this approach overlooks the coraclers’ deep understanding of the Towy’s unique identity, which is embedded in generations of tradition and practice. Consequently, their distinctive embodied knowledge of the Towy is not always heard in discussions of river management. “Nobody knows this river like us who’ve fished it since we were kids and spent our lives in it. We notice things because we’re here when nobody is, at night and early morning.” Nonetheless, traditional fisheries have been sidelined, despite their relatively low environmental impact and the wealth of ecological knowledge and expertise held by their communities. Discussions with the coraclemen reveal a deep and sophisticated understanding, based upon generations of fishing the waters, of the river’s ecosystem, its relationship with marine species, and the interconnected effects of changes in individual species populations. They also describe how the decline or protection of particular species can produce knock-on effects across the wider ecological balance. At the same time, their practices risk being moved from a living livelihood practice into a form of cultural heritage, potentially preserving the symbolic value of coracling while undermining the material conditions that enable it to continue. This recalls the way in which the traditional fishing coracles are being reinvented in Vietnam as tour boats (Were, 2025) and have even become a resource used to promote tourism on the internet (Vietnamcoracle, n.d.).

Catch and release regimes, license reductions, and lack of entry pathways mean fewer young people can take up the work. These coracle and net fishing traditions carry strong family histories, local identities and communities (Jenkins, 1974, p. 15; 1991/2009, p. 2), with generations caring for specific stretches of water, creating relationships that extend beyond livelihood into stewardship (Figure 7). One retired fisherman said about his son, “it was in his blood from the day he was born”. Beyond their pride in the practices they are passing down there is also a strong emotional bond with the river: “you can feel the water, you can sense the water. There’s something quite romantic about seeing these boats drifting down”. Their rich knowledge of the river encompasses fish behaviour, the shifting rhythm of the waters, and importantly how the significant environmental changes in the landscape wrought by industry and intensified agriculture are significantly impacting the life of the river. Therefore, the coraclermen’s local, intergenerational knowledge exceptionally situates them as advocates for the river’s rights: its rights to flow, to protect its ecosystems and native biodiversity, to be free from pollution, and to restoration.

While there is a need to protect ecosystems that are under stress as a result of human-related actions, there is also a clear need to balance ecological solutions with economic and social needs (Delmas & Young, 2009, p. 4). A key step is moving away from a hierarchical model of governance to a model of co-governance (Chuenpagdee & Jentoft, 2018, p. 103), not just working with civil society, commerce, big business, and industry, but equally listening to, and learning from, the frequently marginalized ecological knowledges of local communities that are steeped in history (ICOMOS, 2022). Traditional Welsh netsmen form a network of ecological practitioners on rivers including the Towy, Teifi, Taf, and the Severn estuary. Their practices are grounded in continuous observation of water conditions and species behavior. Yet this traditional commercial fishery is under threat as regulations move their work into heritage categories that reduce viable opportunities for younger practitioners and given these pressures the coraclemen are worried that they might be the last generation to practice their craft. One said “My son is going to carry it on, right? It’s been in my family. I don’t want to be the reason that it stops”.

The history behind this marginalization might be viewed as political and class based, reflected in the tension between net fishing and angling. From the nineteenth century onward, rod and line fishing was promoted by landowning elites as a gentleman’s sport: landowners controlled fishing rights to waters and prized the skills involved in flyfishing (Harper, 2023, p. 251). In contrast traditional subsistence net fishing for salmon was perceived negatively (Harper, 2023, pp. 254, 269). Netsmen, whose families had been fishing British waterways for centuries were marginalized, their customary rights delegitimized, and they were increasingly represented as poachers and a problem for salmon stocks (Harper, 2023, p. 269). The legacy of Victorian elite fishing is a power dynamic that has become entrenched in current understanding of who are the rightful stewards of British waterways and fisheries. Today, the coraclemen describe a mistrust between themselves and anglers who also fish on the river, for example noting “We’ve got people that perhaps don’t appreciate this as much. And those are the anglers because they think we take all the fish. But that’s so far from the truth”. There is also frequently an unequal power dynamic between environmentalists and conservationists who frequently disregard the economic needs of small-scale fishing communities, as has been observed elsewhere, for example in the Marine Protected Areas of South Africa (Sowman, 2015). Consequently, traditional fisherfolk such as the coraclers on the Towy feel their knowledge and expertise is not valued and their voice is not heard. We observed similar failure to fully engage small-scale fisheries in decision-making and the development of legislation and regulations at a nearby small-scale ocean farm called Câr-y-Môr (Thomas et al., 2025) indicating that this is widespread in Wales. While it is increasingly recognized that there is a need for government institutions to be sensitive to the interface of environment, social and economic systems in which small-scale fisheries are striving to survive (Chuenpagdee & Jentoft, 2018, p. 106), and to take lived experience and local knowledge into consideration in shaping governance (Cleaver, 2012), this remains a significant challenge.

5. Conclusions

Working with the coracle fishermen has revealed a poignant intersection between traditional practices and contemporary challenges, highlighting the emotional and cultural impacts of environmental and economic changes on traditional industries. The fishermen’s pride in their heritage and professional identity contrasts sharply with a sense of loss for a vibrant past. This is further exacerbated by the introduction of a heritage license, which, while seemingly a positive step that recognizes the value of the unique heritage of net fishing in coracles, in fact represents an indirect form of displacement. A working, commercial fishery is re-designated as heritage display, objectifying and externalizing intangible heritage as a curated cultural artefact or museum-piece rather than helping to sustain a living, working fishery.

Knowledge of small heritage and traditional fisheries should not be dismissed as simply anecdotal evidence; rather their deep knowledge should be recognized as a valuable resource for river management and adaptation. We suggest the following:

• Water governance bodies and policy makers should work with the fisherfolk to develop a participatory co-monitoring system (drawing upon models of citizen science; see Teifi Citizen Science, n.d.) for early detection of problems;
• Co-governance of river management, providing coraclemen (and other such traditional fisherfolk) a formal equitable seat in decision making bodies to ensure that their knowledge of the waterway helps guide adaptation and responses to changes.

Our research demonstrates the problems involved in the regulation of small-scale resource practices that are already under stress from the environment crisis. At the same time, there is increased global interest in how local, place-based knowledges and intangible heritage practices might contribute meaningfully to combatting the environmental issues resulting from the current climate crisis. This acknowledges the limits of conventional top-down governance to address these concerns and recognizes the potential for co-creating governance to develop sustainable interventions that are situated in culturally specific human-environment interactions (Delmas & Young, 2009, p. 3; Cleaver, 2012). The future of coracle fishing will therefore depend not only on environmental recovery but also on how governance systems engage with the communities whose knowledge and practices remain closely tied to the river. Our research reiterates the need for nuanced understanding and support for traditional practices, recognizing their cultural significance, and the identities of those who sustain them. It highlights the perceived misalignment in environmental governance between small-scale fisheries and larger entities that have a greater impact on the environment and the need for more effective and equitable regulatory frameworks. We encourage policy makers to work more fruitfully with the practitioners of the ancient craft of coracling in Wales (and with other ancient net fisheries), along with other communities invested in the river Towy and other Welsh waterways, to find a balance between honoring the past and adapting to present and future challenges, to ensure that the voices and experiences of traditional fisherfolk are heard and valued. As one coracler reflected: “Once it’s gone, it’s gone. People say they’re saving it for the future, but what are they saving? The coracle, the nets, maybe that’s what they mean. But not the fishing. The coracle isn’t just a boat, it was a way of life. If nobody’s on the river anymore, what are we saving?”