Fishery in Ca Mau, Viet Nam’s most southern province in the Mekong Delta, plays locally an important
role for human nutrition and has great potentials for export earnings. The overexploitation of inshore
fishing resources is a major problem in Viet Nam’s coastal areas along the Mekong Delta. As a result, the
Catch per Unit of Effort of small-scale fishing enterprises has decreased, undermining the sustainability
of livelihoods of fishing families. The paper focuses on livelihoods’ strategies and diversification in the
context of overexploitation and exhaustion of near-shore resources in relation to fishery policies. The
results show that overexploitation is unavoidable in near-shore waters because of the lack of
enforcement of fishery regulations for offshore vessels and the limitation of alternative sources of
income and opportunities for livelihood diversification for small-scale fishers. The present policies to
prevent overexploitation need to be reconciled with livelihood sustainability and fishery management,
resource conservation and socio-economic goals