World Fisheries Day: Nothing to celebrate for traditional 'karaivalai' fishers in Tamil Nadu
RAMANATHAPURAM: While the fishing community across the world will commemorate World Fisheries Day on Tuesday, the families along Ramanthapuram coast are on the verge of losing their livelihood. With several factors weighing their lives down, many have already begun scouring for alternative occupation opportunities. In view of November 21 being celebrated as World Fisheries Day, TNIE spoke to several fishermen about their present predicament.
Traditional trawling (locally known as karaivalai) is a type of fishing where a group of 40-50 people pull up the net, which is already placed in the sea, from the shore to catch fish. The net will be placed in the sea within just one nautical mile from the coast. This method was quite popular earlier and each port in the district used to have at least five such trawling groups. However, the number of people dependent on this type of fishing has now reduced by half.
Pollution of the sea and other fishers using types of nets that are banned, are the major issues plaguing the lives of trawling groups. Umaivel (62), who has been pulling trawling nets from the Rameswaram shore since he was 15 years old, said their livelihood was hugely affected by the use of banned nets by fishers on mechanised boats near the shore. "There is a law against this. Still, they practice bottom trawling and use banned nets. Due to all this, the daily volume of our catch has dwindled from one tonne to around 200 kg over the years. As a result, all of us are reeling under financial issues," he added.
K Patharul Jaman of Valinokkam is a third-generation 'karaivalai' fisherman. According to him, the fishers can undertake shore trawling only during the monsoon or winter season, when the wind flow and sea conditions are favourable. "After paying the workers and net maintenance expenses, we don't get much profit. Today the catch was much less and I had to incur a loss of `15,000. The main reason for the low volume of catch, is the illegal operation of motorised boats by fishermen from neighbouring districts to catch fish from near the shore," Jaman said and added that rampant dumping of sewage into the sea has also affected the breeding of marine species near the shores.
Karunamoorthy, an activist from Ramanathapuram who also works towards fishermen welfare, said, "As per the Tamil Nadu marine fishing regulations rules, a mechanised boat should not be used for fishing within three nautical miles from the shore. Rampant violation of this rule has affected the livelihood of traditional shore trawling fishermen. The officials must strictly enforce the rules, if there must remain any shore trawling fisher groups to celebrate World Fisheries Day in the future."
Sources from the fisheries department said those who are using banned nets are being brought to book. "Several measures are underway to curb the violations," they said.