{"id":47548,"date":"2021-06-16T19:51:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T19:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev6.blazedream.in\/ICSF\/samudra\/getting-their-act-together"},"modified":"2021-08-19T08:34:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T08:34:19","slug":"getting-their-act-together","status":"publish","type":"samudra","link":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/samudra\/getting-their-act-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Their Act Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

India : Co-management<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting Their Act Together<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Coastal communities in the Veraval-Mangrol coast of Saurashtra in the Indian State of Gujarat are pushing for fisheries and coastal-area co-management<\/p>\n

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This article is by Nalini Nayak<\/b> (nalini.nayak@gmail.com<\/a>), a Member of <\/span>ICSF<\/span><\/span>, and A. J. Vijayan<\/b> (admin@protsahan.org<\/a>) of Protsahan, an <\/span>NGO<\/span><\/span> based in Thiruvananthapuram, India<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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There has been an interesting sharing of ideas in recent issues of SAMUDRA<\/span><\/span> Report<\/i> on the experiences and principles of co-management. All over the world, fisher communities are trying desperately to safeguard their access to fish resources, while, at the same time, being driven to catch more in order to keep afloat. The fishers of the Saurashtra coast of Gujarat, one of the foremost fish-producing States of India, are no exception, as we happened to realize through a study that we had undertaken on \u0093The Impact of Development on Human Population Dynamics and the Ecosystem in three locations of the west coast of India, with the help of a grant from the McArthur Foundation. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of the study locations was the large fishing harbour town of Veraval in Gujarat. The findings of the study were rather revealing, not only regarding the nature of the decline of the overcapitalized trawl fishery, but also the poor environmental and social indicators in a place that had a booming fishery for over 25 years through the 1980s and 1990s. In the community feedback workshops held in 2005, people were also taken aback by the findings of the study for while they were aware that their fishery was on the downswing, they felt challenged to realize that a large number of the children of the community were not in school, that there was a fall in the female sex ratio, and that there was a rise in the levels of morbidity and demands for dowry at marriages. As a community that is basically business-oriented and with a desire to simultaneously claim progress, they found themselves in a prisoner’s dilemma. They threw us the challenge of seeking a way out. By doing so, they were actually inviting us to interact with them on a longer-term basis and, despite the fact that we had no earlier plans of doing so, we accepted to get involved.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fishery in the area is a trawl fishery along a 40-km coastline between the two fishing harbours of Veraval and Mangrol, which account for a third of the fish catches of Gujarat. There is also a vibrant hodi <\/i>fishery of fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP<\/span><\/span>) beach-landing craft, interspersed with the trawlers. We decided to get intensively involved in the fishing harbour\/community of Mangrol as the community has traditionally been well organized. We were also fortunate to get a local team that the local community agreed to host. In preparation for the work, we organized an intensive training programme for the team. There were also four representatives from Mangrol and Veraval, selected by the community, who participated in the programme. They actually represented the trawl fishery. <\/span><\/p>\n

Initiating change<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We did not initially mind this fact as it was this sector that we thought had to be involved in initiating any change in resource management. The boatowners were intensely involved in the training programme and, during the subsequent period, they turned out to be the main agents of change in the community. Besides developing an analysis of the fisheries crisis, they were most intrigued by the connections made to the fall in the female sex ratio, the number of school-age dropouts, the high morbidity rates, and the extensive pollution of water bodies, all in a context where the communities were well organized but totally in the hands of men. The inputs on gender analysis and the patriarchal development paradigm helped them to see the negative side of male-dominated communities, where women have no voice, and, as a consequence, the issues of potable water, sanitation and health receive no priority. In fact, the community organizations had seen to it that entry into the trawl fishery was limited to members of the same caste. Yet just as these caste organizations camouflaged disparities in the community, they were unable to manage the manner in which investments were made in the fishery, which, in turn, aggravated the growing disparities. <\/span><\/p>\n

The fishery in the area has been kept afloat by, on the one hand, State subsidies on diesel and, on the other, by the opening up of export markets and the development of surimi<\/i> plants. It is otherwise an extremely inefficiently run trawl fishery, which has also contributed to the massive pollution in the harbours. But the government has gradually begun to be less lenient on the diesel subsidies, certain export consignments have been rejected by some importing countries, and the government has begun giving greater importance to developing coastal resources other than fisheries. The fishing communities, therefore, needed to get their act together and think differently about their fishery and its future if they did continue to consider the fishery as a means of livelihood. <\/span><\/p>\n

Strategies to tackle this problem were developed at the training programme, and a plan was drawn up to set up a coastal area managing council in a year as well as push for co-management of the fisheries. The first step was to develop a general awareness in the community about the inter-relationships among the ocean, the land and the people so that people understand how these affect one another. This was done at several levels through all kinds of community programmes but the strategy in the first year was to:<\/span><\/p>\n