As the sea changes, fisherwomen in Tamil Nadu struggle to stay afloat
A minute is always 60 seconds. But it rarely feels that way for Kavitha, 40, selling fish under an unforgiving sun. By seven each morning
A minute is always 60 seconds. But it rarely feels that way for Kavitha, 40, selling fish under an unforgiving sun. By seven each morning, she has to arrange the day’s catch neatly on a small table at Chennai’s bustling Nochikuppam fish market, one of the city’s fishing hamlets tucked between the Marina Loop Road and the Bay of Bengal. Buyers drift in, bargain, leave, and return. “Between each sale, I keep an eye on the fish. As the mornings are getting hotter, I worry about selling everything before the sun spoils their freshness,” she says. Rising temperatures are not the only challenge fisherwomen face. Changes in the sea itself have made earning a livelihood far more difficult. Kavitha’s husband is among the artisanal fishermen who plan their work around the predictable rhythms of two fishing seasons: vaadai, characterised by northerly winds and currents, and kachan, marked by southerly winds and calmer seas. But those rhythms are no longer as dependable. Changing sea, shrinking catch According to S. Palayam, veteran fisherman from Urur Kuppam, Chennai, the traditionally calmer kachan season has become, on average, 33 days shorter than it once was, while the vaadai season now lingers well beyond its usual withdrawal. His study, ‘Sea Changed; Seasons Changed: A Fisher Science View of Climate Change’, which draws on daily observations recorded over 1,179 days between September 2018 and October 2023, also found an increase in rough sea days during kachan, disruptions in the productive transition between the two seasons, and the disappearance in recent years of vanda thanni — a nutrient-rich phenomenon that traditionally brought abundant fish closer to shore. Fisherwomen sense these changes not through measurements of wind speeds or currents, but through the uncertainty they bring to daily work. Disruptions at sea, whether rough weather, poor catches or fewer fishing days, reduces the fish available for sale, thereby shrinking women’s daily earnings and, with it, the financial agency they exercise within their families. “My husband manages the bigger expenses and repays our loans.
But the money I earn gives me some independence. I can buy groceries, pay for my son’s school needs, or spend on small things without having to ask anyone,” says Kavitha. Fishers say the waters close to the shore no longer yield the catch they once did. Forced to travel farther into the sea, they incur higher fuel costs and spend longer hours fishing, even as their returns continue to shrink. “We’re spending ₹5,000 to ₹7,000 more per month, but the catch is much less,” says Kavitha. Although overfishing by mechanised trawlers remains the biggest reason for declining catches, many fisherwomen say changing weather and sea conditions have made their work increasingly uncertain. The seasonal cues they once relied on are no longer dependable. Erratic winds, rougher seas, and unpredictable ocean currents have made it increasingly difficult to anticipate fish availability and plan fishing trips as they did in the past. Pollution deepens woes S. Velvizhi, marine biologist at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), says climate change is only one of several pressures bearing down on marine fisheries. Marine pollution, overfishing and the degradation of critical habitats such as coral reefs, seagrass beds and river estuaries have all contributed to the depletion of fish stocks, she says. In Pulicat, India’s second-largest brackish water lagoon that straddles Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, fishers say declining catches are also linked to the periodic closure of the lagoon’s sea mouths, which regulate the exchange of water with the Bay of Bengal. When these remain closed, water flow into the lagoon is restricted, salinity rises during the summer months, and fish populations decline. Standing knee-deep in the waters of the Pulicat lake in Tiruvallur district, Sarala, 50, spends hours hand-picking prawns to earn a living. But the returns have dwindled sharply over the years. Decades of industrial pollution have degraded the lagoon’s ecosystem, while invasive species believed to have been introduced through ballast water have further disrupted native fish populations. Sarala recalls earning ₹200 to ₹300 after two hours of prawn picking; today, she says, four hours in the lagoon fetches her only about ₹150.
The BriefWire