In Africa and elsewhere, fishing communities rely on marine and coastal resources, understanding the biodiverse environment of fish for their livelihoods and for supplementing their economic activities. The paper draws on a South African case study, of the Doringbaai community, on the West Coast, Cape Town. The small-scale fisher folk fish sustainably using line fishing, competing with a changing ecosystem, overfishing by international trawlers, national and local fishing companies, and the peak in global warming. The study used qualitative research methods that included interviews with fishermen and women in Doringbaai and surrounding coastal communities since 2022 and two one-week public participation meetings held on the West Coast in 2023 and 2024. There is a lacuna in literature considering the paucity of sustained research on how a change in biodiversity, such as a decline in fish stocks or habitat degradation threaten these communities and their livelihoods making it harder to access food and essential resources for subsistence. The study contributes to a deeper academic and policy understanding of the mitigating interventions that can be developed for coastal and fishing communities in Africa and globally afflicted with the challenge of depleting marine and coastal resources in the wake of climate change.