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A strong smell of fish pervades the air of Muara Angke, a popular spot in North Jakarta to buy fish and shellfish. The streets are buzzing with pedestrians, motorcycles, three-wheeled becak and small trucks scurrying to and fro, carrying fish and shellfish in baskets.

Some fields are filled with long tables, covered with plaited rattan mats, where salted fish are laid to dry for a day or two. Just inside the border of Muara Angke, just 4km northwest of Sunda Kelapa port, is a fish market where auctions are held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m each day. Vendors in the market are also happy to cook fish to order.

Surrounding the fish market are a number of makeshift villages, including Blok Empang, a growing residential area literally inches from the sea and minutes away from the last remaining mangrove forest in coastal Jakarta. Residents have built homes from boards and cartons and, except for the main road, the small alleyways are comprised of rock and mud.

“This area used to be a swamp,” said Arfani Said, 61, the ketua , or village head, of Blok Empang.

“I used to be the only person living in the area, I cut down all the eceng gondok [water hyacinths] and turned the area into empang [fish ponds] all the way to the sea. That’s what the village is named after.

“Villagers who live here are mostly victims of settlements knocked down by the government.”

Ninety-two former residents of Muara Kapuk, in North Jakarta, came to the area in 1998, he said, after their former homes were condemned. They settled in what is now known as Blok Eceng. In 2002, more families relocated, this time from Kali Adem. That was when Arfani divided the area into Blok Eceng and Blok Empang, with his house on the border. He assigned a resident from Blok Eceng to lead the group of 232 residents, while he takes care of the larger population of more than 700 in Blok Empang. Arfani has divided the residents into eight groups, based on which of the area’s eight alleys they live on.

“ Bang Yos [who was then the Jakarta governor] approved a request from Dinas Tata Kota [the City Planning Agency] to relocate them here,” Arfani said.

With the neighborhood growing quickly, Arfani is seeking government recognition of its status as a village. He said the government had announced plans to build a port and an office for Thousands Islands district somewhere nearby, but he had heard no further details. The only official response to his demand for administrative recognition of Blok Empang was their acknowledgement of his appointment in 2003 as ketua by the residents.

“They said, it’s better for me to be a ketua kampung, so no one can fire me, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be this way,” he said.

Arfani was born in Serang, Banten, West Java, in 1948 but said he couldn’t remember his exact date of birth. When he was 17, he started work as a helper at the Sunda Kelapa fish market and he has lived near fish markets since, moving from Sunda Kelapa to Muara Baru and Muara Karang before he came to live at Muara Angke in 1980.

Most of the villagers come from Indramayu, Cirebon, Lampung, Padang and Medan, making them all relative newcomers to the Jakarta area. Some residents of the kampong nelayan , or fishing village, catch fish, some work at the fish market, others at mussel and clam farms and yet others processing fish waste.

The coastal fishermen sail daily, some from dawn to midday and others from dusk to dawn, catching fish and gathering mussels, clams and small crabs from coastal rocks and shellfish farms offshore.

Andim, 30, is a coastal fisherman originally from Indramayu, West Java, who has been sailing since he was 15. He sets sail each morning at 6 a.m. with two friends and returns to the village each afternoon by 1 or 2 p.m.

“I just gather mussels here,” he said.

Andim cannot afford to rent a house locally and his wife and one child live in his kampong in Indramayu. He says he goes home once a month “if I have the money.” “I sleep on my boat every night,” he said. “Sometimes, one or two friends join me.”

Preparations for a day on the boat include packing a lunch box and fuel, which costs about Rp 60,000 ($5.80). According to Andim, about Rp 15,000 of that goes toward meals.

“If I don’t have enough money [to go sailing], I borrow from the tukang warung [food stall owner],” he said, pointing to an old woman cleaning a table at a warung across the street.

Andim looks for mussels and clams at Priok Port and earns about Rp 30,000 to Rp 50,000 a day, sometimes as much as Rp 100,000 on a good day selling his catch to owners of the shellfish farms.

Villagers said they were worried about the effect water pollution was having on their livelihoods.

“There’s too much waste in the sea, and I’m worried it’s killing the shellfish,” said Dito, one of Andim’s friends. Andim said it was hard to find shellfish now and it had been two weeks since he and his friends had gathered any.

In a corner of the village, where the shellfish farms are situated, the road is no longer rocky but covered with broken shells. A group of workers are shucking the shellfish under a wooden house frame near the shore, covered with canvas as a shield from the heat. Some of the women shade their heads with handkerchiefs.

Idah, who works at one of the shellfish farms, said she started work at 10 a.m. and her finish time depended on how much shellfish her employer obtained each day. Shuckers earn $5,000 per 1.9-liter drum of mussels and clams, measured in the shell.

The small village also processes fish bones, which are steamed and dried for later use as fish or chicken feed.

“They process the bones and send them in packages to Surabaya,” Arfani said.

Warki, also from Indramayu, is head of one of the village alleys. He said he started fishing at the age of 35 and used to sail for a month at a time from Ujung Pandang, in Sulawesi, catching fish and squid. He now lives in Blok Empang with his wife and seven children and sails once every two or three months as captain on an oil tanker that goes from Tanjung Priok.

Elsewhere in the village, children chase each other in the street and a group of young men play marbles after a day of working at the fish market.

Workers put away colorful rattan baskets and plaited mats as dusk approaches. Mothers call their children home and the neighborhood quiets.

The smell of fish continues to flavor the air of Muara Angke. Just offshore, fishermen raise their sails, getting ready to leave for another night’s work.