Fishermen’s Struggle for Livelihood and Pollution Lawsuits in Suncheon Bay, 1970s-1990s

This study examines environmental pollution in the Suncheon Bay fisheries during the 1970s-1980s, local fishers’ responses to ecological degradation, and the Suncheon Bay fisheries damage compensation lawsuit in the 1990s in order to clarify the multilayered historical character of the region. Although Suncheon Bay is today widely remembered as a successful case of ecological conservation, this narrative obscures an earlier history of industrial wastewater pollution, fisheries collapse, and the survival struggles of local fishing communities.<br/>Drawing on court records, newspaper reports, oral histories, and visual materials, this study cross-analyzes diverse sources to reconstruct the fishers’ collective actions and lived experiences. The findings show that local fishers did not passively accept environmental harm but actively politicized ecological issues through petitions, demonstrations, and litigation, thereby bringing environmental injustice into the public sphere.<br/>By reinterpreting Suncheon Bay’s past as a history of environmental damage and grassroots resistance that preceded its institutionalized conservation, this research seeks to broaden the scope of Korean ecological and environmental history beyond state-centered policy narratives toward a more socially grounded understanding of environmental conflict.