Abstract
Abstract
This article examines women’s changing access to ecosystem services in the Romanian Danube Delta, an underexplored post-communist coastal context. Drawing on ecosystem services and blue-justice perspectives, we examine how environmental benefits, livelihood opportunities, and governance constraints are unevenly distributed, recognized, and negotiated. The study is based on qualitative fieldwork in two contrasting Black Sea settlements: Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe. Comparing the two sites allows us to describe how women's access to ecosystem services may differ according to their position within a coastal-wetland continuum, from a small port town with a more diversified service economy to a fishing-oriented village more directly embedded in the Delta's wetland environment. Narrative interviews and participant observation were conducted during fieldwork in Sulina in 2024 and Sfântu Gheorghe in 2025. Using snowball sampling, we interviewed 24 women of different ages and ethnic backgrounds. The analysis focuses on provisioning services, particularly fish, and cultural services associated with traditional knowledge, local practices, and tourism. We investigate how the transition from state-managed resource exploitation to conservation-oriented governance has reshaped women’s access to these services, how family and community networks mediate access and benefits, and whether tourism expands women’s economic agency or reinforces existing labor burdens. The findings highlight blue justice as a question not only of resource distribution, but also of recognition and participation, showing how gender intersects with ethnicity, age, socio-economic position, and place to shape resilience, access, and voice in a protected post-communist landscape.