KOCHI: What’s the most important thing that fishermen look for before venturing into the sea? The weather forecasts. While there are organisations such as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) that provide weather forecasts, the fishers often find them complicated due to technical terms.
This is where Radio Monsoon, an online weather service, comes to play. The communication system is simple and easy to comprehend and has been helping fishers for some time now.
Sindhu Nepolean, who is associated with Radio Monsoon, said the forecasts in Malayalam are made available primarily through voice-over internet protocol phone calls and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp.
She said the bulletins are often played over loudspeakers and shared by word of mouth at places where the fishers launch and land their boats. According to her, the service covers the region along the coast of Thiruvananthapuram, small parts of Kollam and Kanyakumari.
“There have been days, especially during the monsoon, when Radio Monsoon received more than 700 calls seeking information about the weather conditions prevalent over the high seas,” said Sindhu. This online-based weather service was launched on an experimental basis in 2014.
But what does it do? Radio Monsoon was envisaged as a community media project with three objectives, says Sindhu.
“The first one was to give reliable weather forecasts and seasonal safety advisories to promote safe fishing. There have been a lot of changes in the weather pattern along our coast over the years. Cyclones used to be a rare phenomenon in the Arabian Sea and were considered endemic to the Bay of Bengal. However, of late, cyclones have been lashing the Arabian Sea due to climate change,” she said. Hence, an accurate weather forecast will go a long way in preventing accidents and saving lives, she added.
According to Max Martin, an advisor to Radio Monsoon, the second objective of the platform is to provide an avenue for artisanal fishers to share their perceptions of the marine weather and forecasts, the risks they face, and the way they respond to them.
Another interesting feature of Radio Monsoon is that it is manned by youngsters from the fishing community. Sajan Venniyoor, who leads the panel of advisors for Radio Monsoon, said the radio’s mandate is to provide daily and bi-weekly marine weather forecasts, safety tips, and socially and culturally relevant information in an engaging, easily accessible format to artisanal fishers. “It also gathers feedback from the fishermen on the accuracy, accessibility and responses to the forecasts and conveys them back to the forecasters, so that they can deliver better services,” he said.
The extended circle of stakeholders who access Radio Monsoon’s online and social media services includes agencies involved in marine and weather forecasts (INCOIS and India Meteorological Department), disaster risk reduction (Kerala State Disaster Management Authority), and atmospheric science research (Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Cusat).
However, one thing that has cast a question mark over the future of Radio Monsoon is the funding. They are looking for organisations that can invest in the platform.