<p>How can a transdisciplinary approach in sustainability research on the global South transcend armchair scientific knowledge products and lead to meaningful collaborations, knowledge exchange and community engagement? When can transdisciplinary research yield more transformative and hands-on sustainable solutions within culturally and institutionally complex conservation landscapes? In this article, we discuss the results of a transdisciplinary (TD) knowledge to action (K2A) project on inland fishing experimentation in a remote, climate vulnerable island village of the Indian Sundarbans – laying out the context, the process, and the product of the ‘transformative’ enterprise, and its potential role in activating three converging SDGs (Goal 2: Zero Hunger, Goal 5: Gender Equality, and Goal 13: Climate Action) in the study area. The findings from this transdisciplinary research project strongly demonstrate that accomplishment of SDGs could be a locally-driven, bottom-up process, generating long-term and viable impacts for climate-affected ecosystems. The outcomes highlight that to ensure human wellbeing and upgradation of livelihoods in disaster affected areas, the very mandate of the SDGs-strategies and knowledge systems need to be pragmatic and place-based, aligning local community needs with the activation of SDGs within specific geographies and cultural contexts. The article is relevant in terms of establishing the interlinkage between TD research and SDGs on one hand, and exemplifying the efficacy of small-scale, locally rooted grounded actions in weaving narratives of hopeful transformations for densely populated climate vulnerable landscapes on the other.</p>