Adaptation to extreme weather events : the case of fisheries in Karaikalmedu, India : adaptation to extreme weather events by two groups of fishermen in Karaikalmedu, India

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Adaptation to extreme

weather events

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Adaptation to extreme weather events by two

groups of fishermen in Karaikalmedu, India

Bachelor thesis Human Geography

M.M. van Doornik (10189432)

July 11, 2014

Supervised by: Dr. L. de Klerk & Msc. J. Stephen

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Acknowledgements

This thesis has been made as graduation project for the bachelor Human Geography at the University of Amsterdam. For this project, we went to the state Tamil Nadu in India with a group of 17 students in total where we stayed for 6 weeks. The first two weeks we had some lectures at the Anna University in Chennai about coastal zone development in Tamil Nadu, together with a group of Indian students. The last four weeks consisted of fieldwork for our own research at different locations along the Coromandel coast. In these four weeks I stayed in the city of Karaikal, 300 kilometres south of Chennai, together with three other students. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that have helped me with everything to make this research possible.

First of all, I would like to thank Leo de Klerk from the University of Amsterdam for supervising me during the whole project. Although he is already retired, he was willing to supervise me and he has been of great support. Because he has a lot of knowledge about the topic and a lot of experience in supervising thesis projects and doing research, he was able to give me very useful advices and criticism that gave me the opportunity to create a good quality thesis. I would also like to thank Maarten Bavinck and Johny Stephen from the University of Amsterdam for setting up the thesis project in India. They are the core supervisors of the India thesis project and without them the project wouldn’t exist. Besides that, they guided us during the first two weeks in India to make us feel comfortable.

I would like to thank the staff of the Anna University in Chennai for receiving the Dutch students and giving us useful knowledge about coastal zone development in Tamil Nadu. I want to thank R. Dhanalakshmi for guiding the Indo-Dutch course and for guiding the Dutch students with exploring the city of Chennai. Special thanks goes to K. Subramanian, who went with us to the city of Karaikal and helped us the first few days. He helped us with finding a place to stay, hiring some bikes, showing us the different villages and meeting our translators and thus has been of great support for us at the start of our fieldwork. Without his help these things would have taken much more time, and we would have had less time for our research.

I would like to thank my translator Malai for translating all the interviews from English to Tamil and vice versa. Because of his help, I was able to speak to the fishermen who only speak the Tamil language. The research would not have been possible without him. We spent a lot of time together which was of great value for me to learn about the Indian culture. We did a lot of hard work together but also became good friends and spent a lot of private time together.

Overall I am very thankful that I had the opportunity to conduct my thesis research in a developing country like India. I have seen a totally different culture than mine and have had some experiences that I will never forget. I want to thank my fellow students with which I had a great time during these weeks. The research and writing process has been challenging and interesting and it provided me a lot of academic and personal knowledge that I will carry all my life.

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Abstract

This thesis gives a view on how fishermen in a small fishing community in India are adapting to extreme weather events. The study area is the village Karaikalmedu, located along the Coromandel coast in the state Tamil Nadu. A distinction is made between trawler boat fishermen and fiber boat fishermen. Because the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events can increase as a consequence of climate change, the importance of adaptation is increasing, especially in the developing world. The extreme weather events are an environmental risk for the fishermen, to which they have to adapt to be able to continue their job. The adaptation concept is divided in three categories which are treated separately in this thesis. The findings show that the way they cope is different between trawler and fiber boat fishermen, but that the avoidance and the protection shows no big differences. The different types of adaptation treated in this research form also different types of adaptation in literature: policy, technological and behavioral as well as individual, communal and governmental.

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1. Introduction

People everywhere in the world have many interactions with the natural environment. The environment provides goods and services. There are natural resources that are crucial for people to survive, for example water and food. And there are natural resources that make human life much easier, like oil. In the scientific debates, these goods and services are called ‘ecosystem services’. Ecosystem services are the benefits that people obtain from the functions of the ecosystem (MEA, 2005). This is more than only the provisional services that are just explained. There are also regulating services, like climate regulation. But also cultural services fall under the ecosystem services concept, think about recreation or aesthetic values. And finally there are supporting services that support the other types of ecosystem services, like soil formation. The ecosystem services are crucial for human life, in both developed and developing countries. The framework of ecosystem services has been created by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005 (MEA, 2005). The framework is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1.1.1: Ecosystem services framework (MEA, 2005)

Changes in these ecosystem services influence human well-being. One of these changes where a lot of scientific literature is written about is climate change. Climate variability is something that has always happened during history, but researchers have proven that nowadays the climate is changing due to human activity (IPCC, 2007). This has many consequences for all types of ecosystem services, and thus for human well being. Climate change results in an increase in global temperature, mostly known as global warming. The most important consequences of these processes are sea level rise, changes in precipitation patterns, more and heavier storms and drought. Although there is done a lot of research about climate change, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the effects of climate change (Scientific American, 2007). But it seems clear that climate change in the last decades is caused for a large part by human activity.

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7 As mentioned earlier, climate change influences human well-being. But the effects are not distributed equally. There are areas that are more affected than other areas and there are groups that are more affected than other groups. Scientists say that developing countries are more affected than developed countries. Especially the poor groups of people in society are strongly affected by the consequences of climate change. In science, this unequal distribution is called environmental injustice (Schlosberg, 2004). The most important reason that poor communities are more affected than rich communities, is that they are unable to escape the vulnerable areas. For example, farmers depend for their livelihood on the income they receive from their land. They are not able to switch to other areas or other types of profession. When drought occurs and they cannot produce enough on their land, they have a big problem. This is just a simple example of a group of people that is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Much of the scientific debates about climate change is concerned with the question whether adaptation or mitigation should be applied (Nelson, 2007). Should we be concerned how we can handle the effects of climate change or about how we can reduce the causes of climate change? Most scientist agree that mitigation alone is not enough and that adaptation is also necessary (IPCC, 2007). Both ways of dealing with climate change should be applied. They should be applied at different levels of scale to reduce the environmental risks caused by climate change. Adaptation to environmental risk is the broad theme of this research. Whether the environmental risk has been caused by climate change or not is not sure, but it is likely that the risks can increase in the future as a consequence of climate change.

The research concentrates on one of the regulating ecosystem services, namely weather. Specifically, it concentrates on extreme weather events. These extreme weather events are strongly influenced by climate change. Because of climate change, rainfall will become more heavy and the frequency and intensity of storms will increase. This can have consequences for many communities in the world, especially in developing countries. Small communities are not always able to handle such weather extremes. Their houses may be not strong enough to face a big storm and they are not able to escape to the safe places. Especially people who live in the coastal zones are vulnerable to extreme weather events (Cambers, 2001). Here the storm surges can cause floods which can be disastrous for the people living in this area. The weather will also become less predictable as a consequence of climate change. These changes can be undesirable for many types of profession that depend on the weather conditions, like agriculture and fisheries.

In this research there is chosen to focus on fishermen, as they depend largely on the weather conditions for their job. There will be looked at the adaptation strategies that fishermen are using against extreme weather events. The research has been conducted in a small fishing village along the Coromandel coast in India. The Coromandel coast is the coastline in the state Tamil Nadu in the southeast part of India. The village is called Karaikalmedu and lies within 3 kilometer from the city of Karaikal. Fieldwork has been done from half April till half May in the year 2014. In this period there was a fishing ban for the big boats. The big boats were not allowed to go fishing for a period of 45 days. This is a rule from the government that is implemented to prevent the risk of overexploitation of fishes. The fishing ban gave me the opportunity to speak to a lot of these big boat users, as many of them were at their homes. In this research a comparison will be made between two types of fisheries: trawler boat fisheries and fiber boat fisheries. These are the two main types of fishing in

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8 Tamil Nadu and it could be interesting to see if there are differences in the way they adapt to extreme weather events.

Fisheries is an important sector in India. It creates employment for millions of people en contributes to food security of the country. India has a coastline of more than 8,000 kilometer, which creates opportunities for the development of marine fisheries. Marine fisheries contribute to food security and provides employment to over 1.5 million people besides others indirectly dependent on the sector (ICSF, 2014). The fishing sector is thus one of the main employment sectors in India. Losses in this sector can have consequences for many people in the whole country. This illustrates the relevance of this research. In the next chapters the theoretical framework, methodology and the context of the research will be outlined. Then the analysis will take place. Finally, a conclusion will outline the main findings of the research and a discussion will link the findings to the scientific and public literature.

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2. Theoretical framework

The aim of this chapter is to outline the main concepts of this research as used in the scientific and public debates. Definitions of the concepts will be given and the distinction between the different concepts will be explained. Different types of literature are used, ranging from scientific books and articles to reports from public institutions. At the end of this thesis, a link will be created between the theories outlined in this chapter and the main findings of the research.

Natural hazards and disasters

A hazard is a situation which poses a level of threat to life, health, property or environment. A natural hazard is a hazard that arises out of the unceasing transformation of our physical environment by energy supplied from two unrelated sources of power (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 210). One source of power is endogenous: forces from within the Earth. The other source of power is exogenous: forces from the sun, that is related to climate and is manifest in the interactions between ocean and atmosphere that produce extreme weather events. It is the second source of power that is relevant for this research. Natural hazards seem to be largely outside the control of human activity. But the distinction between human and natural hazards is becoming blurred because humans don’t just occupy the physical environment, they modify it. There is a growing likelihood that human-induced climate changes are modifying the incidence and severity of some physical hazards, especially tropical storms (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 211). Climate projections predict more extreme weather variability. For fisheries this can be a large threat, as they depend on the weather conditions for their job. The challenge is to find ways to avoid, protect to, and cope with these events.

Natural hazards have a geographical bias. About 97 percent of hazard-related deaths, and 99 percent of people affected by natural emergencies occur in developing countries (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 209). This is also where the greatest financial burden of natural hazards lies. Average income losses from recent disasters in some developing countries are ten to twenty times greater than from disasters in more developed countries (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 209). There is a distinction between high intensity events that occur rapidly, like earthquakes and storms, and events that occur slowly, like drought and soil erosion. Another important distinction, is the distinction between natural hazards and disasters. A hazard is only a disaster when it is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society, causing many widespread losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 214). Hazards emerge from nature, but the disasters they inflict do not. Society decides which groups are most likely to be exposed to dangerous events and to what extent the hazard will become a disaster. This brings us to the next concept relevant for this research: the concept of risk.

Environmental risk

The concept of risk is related to natural hazards. Risk is the probability of loss resulting from the interaction of a hazard and a vulnerability (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 214). For example, in this research the hazard can be a tropical cyclone and the vulnerability can be a small fishing community. When the hazard is caused by environmental factors, we speak of an environmental risk. The risk concept has three parts: probability, the seriousness of consequences and the range of consequences (Tellegen & Wolsink, 2006: 147). All these components are dependent on basic

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10 assumptions about the way risk should be approached. The probability that an event occurs implies a lot of uncertainty. This is originated from statistical uncertainty, a lack of knowledge and a lack of agreement. The seriousness of the consequences is determined by the valuation of environmental change. According to the concept of risk, we are interested in undesired effects, but not all environmental changes are negative for everybody. The range of consequences describes the scale level and the time horizon of the risk. The consequences can be individual, but also local or even global and the consequences can affect people nowadays but sometimes also future generations. It makes the concept of risk a very subjective concept.

Environmental risk management/assessment

Environmental risk management or risk assessment is the process of identifying, evaluating, selecting, and implementing actions to reduce the risk to human health and to ecosystems (Jones, 2001). From origin, risk assessment describes the analysis phase while risk management describes the implementation phase. But in practice, both terms are used to describe the whole framework or specific parts of the framework. Risk management aims to manage the uncertainties related to environmental risk. It has to reduce the risk to a level that is considered acceptable by the society. One of the possible outcomes of risk management is adaptation, which is the main concept in this research. The concept of adaptation will be outlined next.

Adaptation to environmental risk

Adaptation is one of the main concepts in the climate change science. Adaptation can be seen as an outcome of risk management. Adaptation refers to adjustments in practices, processes, or structures to take account of changing climate conditions (IPCC, 2001). The other way of dealing with environmental risk, mitigation, refers to actions that reduce exposure to environmental change (Nelson et. al, 2007). Adaptation is necessary to deal with the risks that are the consequence of environmental change. The array of potential adaptive responses available is very large, ranging from purely technological, through behavioral and managerial, to policy (Buckingham & Turner, 2008: 202). Adaptation takes place at global and national level, but can also take place at local or individual level. It is the adaptation at a lower scale that is relevant for this research and it can take place in all forms that are just mentioned. Technological adaptation can be the equipment that fishermen use to protect themselves, behavioral adaptation can be coping strategies of the fishermen and policy adaptation can be the measurements that the government takes for them. Later in this research it will become clear which strategies they really use.

A key issue in the different adaptation approaches, is the identification of successful adaptations in the developing world, where the greatest risks and physical vulnerability persists. Adaptation can be undertaken by individuals, groups in society and the government. The individual and community adaptation is often triggered by individual extreme events. Adaptation by governments, on behalf of society, is sometimes in anticipation of change, but, also often in response to individual events. But, as Adger et. al (2003) say, these levels of decision making are not independent. “They are embedded in social processes that reflect the relationship between individuals, their networks, capabilities and social capital, and the state” (Adger et. al, 2003). The relationship between individuals and the government in handling risk is an important but under-researched area.

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11 Resilience

System resilience refers to the amount of change a system can undergo and still retain the same controls on function and structure while maintaining options to develop (Nelson et. al, 2007). The resilience approach is based on the idea that a system is one of change rather than one of equilibrium and that systems need to be managed for flexibility rather than stability. This approach also implies that social and ecological systems cannot be considered in absence of one another but must be understood as related, coupled systems (Nelson et. al, 2007). The resilience approach is similar to the adaptation approach in the scientific literature, but the perspective is different. While adaptation is focused on actors, resilience is focused on systems. Adaptation looks at the decision-making processes and resilience examines the implications of these processes on the rest of the system. Resilience is an important concept when we speak about natural hazards, like extreme weather events. The resilience determines the vulnerability of a community to such hazards now and in the future.

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3. Methodology

In this chapter, the research methodology will be outlined. First, the research question and subquestions will be named. Then the operationalization of the main concepts in this research will be outlined. Thereafter the research methods will be explained and finally there will be looked at what the limitations of the research are.

3.1 Research question

The topic of this research is the adaptation of fishermen to extreme weather events in a small village in India. Instead of what might be expected, the location of the research was chosen before the research topic. That is because the location is not chosen by the researcher, but by the supervisors. After I knew that the research was going to take place in the surroundings of Karaikal, I was thinking about what might be interesting and I found out that most of the villages around Karaikal are fishing villages. Because of that, I thought that it would be interesting to focus on fishermen as a target group. At the same time I had to fit my research within the ecosystem services theme, as this was the broad theme of the thesis project. After some discussions with my supervisor, I decided to choose this research topic. It’s a topic in which the relation between human and nature is a central issue and thus fits perfectly in the broad theme of the thesis project. The main question of the research is: What kind of adaptation strategies are fishermen using to extreme weather events and what are the differences between trawler boat fishermen and fiber boat fishermen in this?

The main question is divided in several subquestions. The following subquestions will be distinguished in this research:

- To what extent are fishermen exposed to extreme weather events during their work? - In what manner are fishermen trying to avoid the risk of facing extreme weather event? - What kind of equipment do the fishermen carry to protect themselves?

- How are fishermen coping with an extreme weather event on sea? In the next paragraph, this division will be argumented in more detail.

3.2 Operationalization

In this paragraph the main concepts of the research will be operationalized. The research is about extreme weather events in Tamil Nadu. Figure 3.1 shows how ‘extreme weather events’ is operationalized.

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13 Figure 3.1: Operationalization of 'Extreme weather events'

Storms and heavy rainfall are the two most common ways in which extreme weather events take place. These types of events are not strictly separate. In many storms and cyclones there will also be a lot of rain. But there can also be heavy wind without rainfall and heavy rainfall without wind is also possible. In this research, the storms and cyclones will be treated as the main extreme weather event that can take place, because most of the time a storm contains rainfall. But the fishermen are also asked about to what extent rainfall only is a threat for them during their work. It could be interesting to see what the outcomes will be when you distinguish these two types of extreme weather events. The other main concept in the research is adaptation. Adaptation will be divided in three different components: how are fishermen trying to avoid the risk, how are they protecting themselves against the risk and how are they coping with the risk. The operationalization of adaptation is shown in figure 3.2.

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14 Avoidance

The first component, avoidance, is about how fishermen are trying to avoid the risk of facing an extreme weather event during their work. To avoid this risk, they need to know the weather forecast before they go on the sea for fishing. There are different ways in which fishermen receive information about the weather. They can use own techniques to predict the weather but they can also receive weather information from others. Besides that, there is weather information that they receive on a daily basis but there are also weather warnings that will only be given when a dangerous extreme weather event will come. Fishermen can use this kind of information to make decisions about how to cope with the weather and how to protect against the weather.

Protection

The second component in this research is protection. Protection in this research refers to the kind of equipment that fishermen are carrying during their fishing trip to protect themselves against the risk of extreme weather events. It is likely that trawler boat fishermen and fiber boat fishermen carry different kinds of equipment, as their fishing method is completely different. The boats are different, the fishing technique is different and the duration of a fishing trip is different. But what does this mean for the equipment that they carry for protection? And to what extent do they protect themselves anyway? The protection is an interesting part of the adaptation concept.

Coping

The last component of the adaptation concept in this research is coping. It’s the behavioral aspect that characterizes this component. What will the fishermen do when they face a big storm or heavy rainfall while they are on sea? Will they immediately try to come back to the coast or not? The coping component can also be different for trawler boat fishermen and fiber boat fishermen. The investments that fishermen make are different, which could result in different behavior. Besides that, the boats are totally different and maybe a big boat can better handle a storm than a small boat. For these reasons, it is likely that these two types of fishermen cope different with an extreme weather event. It could be interesting to see what the differences are.

3.3 Research methods

The research approach in this research is predominantly qualitative. The aim is to get insight in the adaptation strategies of fishermen to extreme weather events in a small fishing community in India. The fieldwork consisted most of the time of doing semi-structured interviews with fishermen. Besides that, I spoke with the village Panchayat of Karaikalmedu, had an open interview with the director of the fisheries department in Karaikal and did a small observation at the beach at 8 o’clock in the morning for additional information. The interviews with the fishermen and the interview with the village Panchayat have been conducted in the Tamil Language. A local translator has been used to translate the Tamil into English so I was able to speak with people who know only the Tamil language. In this part the research methods will be explained in detail.

Semi-structured interviewing

In total I conducted 30 interviews with fishermen, of which 15 with fiber boat users and 15 with trawler boat users, who were mostly owners of a trawler boat. For these interviews a questionnaire is used to get similar answers from all the respondents (see appendix 2). In this way the interviews

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15 are comparable with each other. In the beginning the questionnaire changed a few times. This has been done because some questions were not sufficient to gain useful knowledge, while other questions have been added which were devised during the first interviews. The respondents have been found just by walking through the village and speaking to people at their homes. It was striking that almost everybody was willing to speak with me. This made it much easier for me to get enough response. During the fieldwork it seemed to be quite difficult to find trawler boat users. Most of the fishermen that I met at the houses were fiber boat users. For this reason, I decided to use snowball sampling to reach the trawler boat users. A snowball sample is “a non-probability sample in which the researcher makes intital contact with a small group of people who are relevant to the research topic and then uses these to establish contacts with others” (Bryman, 2008). After I found one trawler boat fishermen and finished the interview with him, I let my translator ask for phone numbers of other trawler boat users in the village. Because most of the people in the village know each other, most of them were able to give us some phone numbers. We also received some phone numbers from the village Panchayat. Then my translator called these persons by phone and asked if they wanted to speak with us and where we could met him. This method of sampling worked well. Open interviews

There is an open interview conducted with mr. Illaiyaperumal, director of the fisheries department in Karaikal. During the interviews with fishermen I discovered that the fishermen receive information about the weather from the fisheries department, so I thought it would be interesting to visit this fisheries department. I was together with my translator, but translating was not needed because he spoke English very well. Mr. Illaiyaperumal told me about the fishing villages around Karaikal, he told me what the fisheries department does for the fisheries and he answered some of my questions about the weather warnings that they sometimes give. Besides that, he provided some statistical data about the fisheries. It was a short interview because he was quite busy, but the information was very valuable. It gave me more insight in the system of the fisheries in the villages around Karaikal. Another open interview has been conducted with some panchayat members in Karaikalmedu. This was also a short interview but it gave me some valuable information. These people were not speaking English very well, so I used my translator to do this interview. I asked them about how they receive weather warnings from the fisheries department and how they spread this information over the fishermen in the village. The content of the answers they gave is used in the ‘avoidance’ paragraph of the analysis.

Observation

The last research method that is being used is observation. On April 30th I had an appointment with one of the fiber boat fishermen to make sail on his boat. When I arrived at the beach at 8 o’clock in the morning, there were a lot of people on the beach. These were fiber boat fishermen that just returned from a fishing trip. There were also a lot of women on the beach to offer on the fish that had been caught. I decided to use this moment for a small observation. I took my notebook and wrote down the things that I saw around me. I wrote down what the people were doing and what kind of equipment I saw in the boats. Also during the boat sail I kept my eyes open and after we returned I wrote down some interesting things I saw during the boat sail. Unfortunately, I was only able to do an observation about fiber boat users, because trawler boat users were not allowed to fish in the period that I was there. But at least this gave me good ideas and some additional information about the fiber boat users.

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3.4 Limitations

Unfortunately, the type of research that has been conducted has its limitations. The first limitation of this research is the amount of time that was available for the fieldwork. I stayed in Karaikal for only four weeks. The first days I had to find a place to stay and I had to arrange several things before the fieldwork could start. On the first day I met my translator. Before we could start I had to get to know him and I had to discuss my research plan with him. Then we had to inform the police to get permission to do the research in this area. It was already the end of the first week until we could start collecting the data. In total there were only 3 weeks in which we could do the fieldwork. Another limitation was the climate in this period of the year. At the middle of the day, the temperature reached a maximum of 40 degrees. Because of this heat, it wasn’t possible to do research at the middle of the day. I had to do all the fieldwork early in the morning and late in the afternoon. This reduced the amount of time that was available. So there was a very short period of time and we were able to do only 30 interviews. However, I don’t think speaking more people would have created big differences in the findings. But I could have collected more additional information when I had more time.

The second limitation of the research is the language. A translator was necessary because the fishermen in the village were not understanding English. All these interviews have been conducted in the Tamil language. Doing interviews with a translator has some restrictions. First of all, a translator cannot translate every word that the respondent has said, but only his main points. The consequence is that there will always be information lost. Second, there is a risk of misunderstanding or misinterpretation. I was lucky that I had a translator who was speaking calm and clear and who had been a translator one time earlier. But still, we were not always understanding each other. Sometimes he didn’t understand my question and sometimes I didn’t understand what he was meaning. A third restriction of using a translator is that the interview takes much more time. At every question, the translator first has to ask the question, then the respondent gives his answer and then the translator has to translate the whole story. Because every question takes much more time, I was able to ask less question than I would have been in a direct interview.

A third limitation is that I had to make the research plan before I arrived in the study area. This made it very difficult for me to make a good plan, because I didn’t know a lot about the local situation. It was difficult to know what would be possible and what would be impossible. It was also difficult to know what would be most interesting to investigate in this area. I prepared some question in my questionnaire where I didn’t get any useful answers on. And at the same time I discovered some other things that would also be interesting for a research. When I had seen the area and the people before making the research plan, I think it would have been slightly different from what it is now. All these limitations can have impact on the findings of the research. It could be difficult to generalize the results because the research has been conducted in one specific area. But I think it will at least give a good idea about adaptation strategies to extreme weather events that fishermen are using in this area. Whether this will be the same in other similar areas or not, could be investigated in later researches.

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4. Context

For this research I went to the southeast of India for a period of 6 weeks to do the fieldwork. The context in which this research has been conducted will be outlined in this chapter. First the study area will be explained. Then the organization of the fishing sector in Tamil Nadu and the different types of fishing will be explained. The aim of the chapter is to create an imagination about the situation in which the research has taken place.

4.1 Study area

During the month of fieldwork we stayed in Karaikal city, located at the Coromandel coast in the southeast part of India. Figure 4.1 shows the location of Karakal in India. Karaikal is not part of the Tamil Nadu state, but falls under the Union Territory of Puducherry. The Union Territory of Puducherry is formed out of four enclaves of former French India. Because the area is ruled by the government of Puducherry, the area falls outside the control of the Tamil Nadu government. Karaikal district has a coastline of 20 kilometers. There are 10 marine fishing villages. The total fishermen population in Karaikal district is 18,462 and there are around 3,700 fishing families (Fisheries Department, 2014). In the south of Karaikal city is a fishing harbor located with a lot of steel trawler boats and some fiber boats. In the whole district there are 237 trawler boats, around 400 fiberglass boats and around 100 catamaran boats (Fisheries Department, 2014). The field research took place in the largest fishing village, called Karaikalmedu. This village was chosen, because both trawler boat fishermen and fiber boat fishermen are living here. This gave me the opportunity to get enough response from both groups.

Karaikalmedu is the largest of the 10 marine fishing villages in Karaikal district. The village is located 3 kilometer northeast from the central city of Karaikal and is directly connected to the beach. Figure 4.2 shows the location of Karaikalmedu with respect to the city of Karaikal. This figure also shows the location of the harbor where the trawler boats and some fiber boats stay. In figure 4.3 you can see a map of the village with the places where the respondents live. The locations are determined by using GPS. Pipe water supply and electricity are available in this village. Karaikalmedu has 730 fishermen families and the total fishing population is 2,818 (Fisheries Department, 2014). The village has an active traditional Panchayat that plays a key decision-making and administrative role within the community. The Panchayat is involved in the following activities: solving issues related to electricity, water, sanitation; working as the nodal through which government welfare programmes are implemented; conducting local temple festivals; collecting individual taxes and undertaking important decisions pertaining to the village, among others (Praxis, 2005). Some of the members of the Panchayat are fishermen. The Panchayat has the leadership over the village.

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18 Figure 4.1: Map of Karaikalmedu with locations of the respondents (determined with GPS)

Figure 4.1: Location of study area in India (Google Maps) Figure 4.2: Location of the village and the harbor with respect to Karaikal (Google Maps)

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4.2 Tamil Nadu fisheries

In the Tamil Nadu fishing sector, there are different types of fisheries. The major types of fishing are the trawler fishing on the one hand and the artisanal fishing on the other hand. The fishing methods of these two types of fisheries are totally different. Trawler fishing can be divided in multi-day and single-day fishing (Vivekanandan, 2014). Most of the trawlers are multi-day trawlers, which means that they stay for many days on the sea. Artisanal fishing can be divided in motorized small-scale, ringseine and non-motorized fishing (Vivekanandan, 2014). Of these, most of the artisanal fishing consists of motorized small-scale fishing. Especially the fiberglass boats with out-board motors are largely used. Figure 4.4 shows a schematic overview of the Tamil Nadu fishing sector. In Karaikalmedu, trawler fishing and artisanal fishing both exist. The two types of fishing can also be categorized as livelihood fishing on the one hand and investment fishing on the other hand (Praxis, 2005). Trawler fishing is a form of investment fishing while artisanal fishing is a form of livelihood fishing. The dynamics of the fishing community are at the core of Karaikalmedu’s social and economic functioning.

Figure 4.2: Schematic overview of the Tamil Nadu fishing sector (Vivekanandan, 2014)

The artisanal fishing in Karaikalmedu consists largely of fiberglass boats, shortly fiber boats. A picture of a fiber boat is shown in figure 4.5. Fiber boats are small boats compared to the big trawler boats. These boats go mostly only 10 km from the coast and stay for only a few hours on sea. Fiber boat users throw their nets on the water and wait until the fishes swim into the nets. Fiber boat fishermen go for fishing at night time, mostly between 03:00 and 08:00. At night time the availability of fishes is higher than at day time. They are on a boat with only a few people. The ownership is essentially an individual/family affair with the owner as part of the crew. The crew will be composed of family members as well as others who do not own boats. Sometimes the owner pays a wage to the crewmembers, but most of the time they just share the net income they earn from the fish catch. Most of the fiber boats are not lying in a harbor, but just at the beach in front of the village. When the fishermen return in the morning, there are a lot of women on the beach to offer on the fish that

TN fishing

sector

Other

mechanised

Trawlers

Multi-day

Single day

Artisanal

Motorised

small scale

Ringseine

Non

motorised

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20 has been caught. These women sell the fish later on the market. The fishermen then remove all things like shells out of their nets and then bring the nets to their house. This form of fishing is known as livelihood fishing, because these fishermen need the money they earn to foresee them and their family in their livelihood.

Figure 4.3: Fiber boat Karaikalmedu beach (Source: fieldwork)

Trawling is a fishing method that involves actively dragging or pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets that are pulled along the bottom of the sea and in this way cover all fishes that are swimming in the sea. Trawler boats are very big steel or wooden boats (see figure 4.6). In Karaikal, the trawler boats are lying in the harbor in the south of Karaikal city (see figure 4.2). These boats are steel boats and have a length of around 60 feet (±18 meter) and a width of around 15 feet (±4.5 meter). The trawler boats, especially the steel boats, go sometimes 200 kilometer or further away from the shore and stay on the sea for a whole week. The trawler owners in Karaikalmedu are very wealthy community members, and some of them are also Panchayat members. A high investment is involved in trawling, an initial investment of approximately 5 lakhs (Praxis, 2005). The investments that trawler owners make, is a high risk investment. Because the operating costs are so high, a low catch means that the owners have great difficulty making any profit. A trawler has 5 to 7 crewmembers, mostly hired villagers from Karaikalmedu. These crewmembers receive a wage for their work. The height of this wage depends on the owner of the trawler and the fish catch. The trawler boat fishermen that I have spoken to were almost all owners of a trawler and not workers.

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21 Trawler boats are not allowed to go on the sea from April 15 till May 30, the so-called fishery ban period. This ban period exists so the fishes can regenerate. Only fishermen who use small fiber boats or wooden boats are allowed to fish in this period. Without this ban there would be overexploitation of fishes. The fisheries department in Karaikal provides 4000 rupees as compensation for the fishing families. The peak season for the trawler boats is in the months June, July and August. The fish availability is high in these months because this is directly after the ban period. Trawlers manipulate the fish wealth in an unsustainable manner. All fishermen that I have spoken to, told me that the fish availability has been reduced because of the increased amount of big boats and the type of nets that the trawlers are using. Even the trawler boat owners themselves realize this and even accept that trawling is spoiling the marine ecosystem. The trawl nets scraps the sea bottom and picks up baby fish and fish eggs and invades spaces and resources that artisanal fishermen have used for generations (Praxis, 2005). But because trawling is very lucrative, people keep harming the coastal ecosystem. In addition, trawling has become a status symbol as trawler owners are considered to be influential and wealthy people.

The two types of fishing are completely different from each other. The most critical difference is the type of fishing techniques that they utilize. Besides this, they have a completely different relationship with fishing. While artisanal fishermen are working for their livelihood generation, the trawlers represent a class of fishermen who are investors expecting a return. Trawlers are more mechanized and thus require less manpower from the laborers (Praxis, 2005). While trawlers stay on the sea for a whole week, the fiber boat fishermen return to Karaikalmedu every day after fishing. This gives them more flexibility and freedom. Because these two dominant groups of fisheries are so different, they will be distinguished in this research. It is interesting to see if their way of dealing with extreme weather events is different and in what manner it is different.

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5. Analysis

This chapter will show the findings of the research. The data that is collected from the interviews is analyzed in a qualitative way. The answers of the respondents on the main topics of the research are shown in appendix 1. In the text, there are a lot of quotes from the interviews. These quotes are not perfect quotes, because a translator is used to do the interviews. But the translator had the instruction to translate literally, so the content of the quote is correct. It is the core of what the respondents have said. Each paragraph will represent one of the subquestions. In the next chapter, the conclusion, an answer to the main research question will be given by using this analysis.

5.1 Exposure to extreme weather events

The coast of India is affected every year by cyclones whose greatest impact is due to storm surges, heavy winds and rainfall (Lakshmi, 2014). India experiences two monsoons. The southwest monsoon covers most of the country between June and September, and the northeast monsoon between October and December. Tamil Nadu receives most of its annual rainfall from the northeast monsoon as it falls in the rain shadow region of the southwest monsoon (Lakshmi, 2014). The northeast monsoon is also the period in which most of the storms take place. One of the largest cyclones that hit Tamil Nadu in the last years was the cyclone Thane in 2011 (Punithavathi et. al, 2012). The cyclone had its largest effect in the areas of Puducherry and Cuddalore. There was a lot of damage here, especially in the coastal area. Other cyclones that have hit Tamil Nadu in the last years are Nisha in 2008, Jal in 2010 and Nilam in 2012.

The village Karaikalmedu has also weathered a number of cyclones throughout its history. The village was most affected by cyclones in 1952, 1965, 1977 and 1993. But these are only the big cyclones that have occurred. Every year during the rough season there are around 3 or 4 serious storms. Such a storm takes a few hours in general, but can also take a day or even more. The storms are one of the major problems for the fishermen in the village. Several fishermen told a story about a storm that they had experienced in the past. One fishermen told that his brother has died in a storm. It happened at October 30, 2011. “The wind and the rain were very heavy so the boat was shaking. My brother fell in the water and we could not find him. Because of the heavy water waves, he bashed against the boat and he did not survive this”. His brother was a victim of the heavy weather, although he was a good swimmer. Another fishermen, who was using a fiber boat, told that his boat capsized one time. “All people fell in the water and we had to hold the boat in order not to drown. We waved with our clothes and shouted for help. Then, other boats came to help and fortunately everybody was safe in the end.” The storms are dangerous for fiber boat users and trawler boat users both.

The other type of extreme weather event, heavy rainfall, occurs also mainly during the northeast monsoon. During other months in the year, there is very less rain. All the fishermen that have been interviewed told that the rainfall has become very less during the last ten years. “Compared to ten years ago the rain is very less now. Farmers in this regions have drought problems.” Many fishermen don’t see the rain as a problem. Only when the rain comes together with the wind, it is a problem for them. “Rain on itself is not a problem. There is even more fish available during rain. I will not stop with fishing when it starts to rain.” Some fishermen said that the rain is risky because it can lead to

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23 health problems. These were all fiber boat fishermen. All trawler boat fishermen told that rainfall is not a problem for fishing.

Some fishermen mentioned a storm that takes place every year in April. This is called the Chitirai storm, named to the Tamil month Chitirai. “Every year in April the Chitirai storm comes. It is unknown when it will come exactly. But it is certain that it will come some day, so we are prepared.” The director of the fisheries department is also asked about this Chitirai storm. He mentioned that this ‘Chitirai storm’ contains only rain. “The Chitirai storm is only heavy rain. Real storms only take place during the rough season, from October till December.” It seemed that the Chitirai storm is not a big problem for the fishermen. Only those who don’t like to fish during rain will see it as a problem. Although storms can be dangerous for the fishermen, the storms are not the main hazard that has threatened the people in the village. The largest natural hazard that has ever affected them was the tsunami in 2004. The people who are most affected by the tsunami are the people who were in the coastal area of the village. Fishermen who were busy with their nets at the sea bank were swept away by the water. The people who were on the sea were not affected. That is because a tsunami will get high and devastating when it comes close to the coast. On the sea the waves were not that high. But in the coastal area, many boats and houses were damaged and a large number of people died. People in the village were very shocked by this event. “The water went back and then came very fast. It was more than 20 meters high.” Some of the fishermen that have been interviewed lost family members because of the tsunami. “My father died during the tsunami. He was sitting at the ocean bank, lazy and careless. When the wave came, he did not see the danger of it and thus didn’t escape.” In total 51 people in the village died, of which 24 male and 27 female (Praxis, 2005). Still today, many people in the village have fear that such a natural hazard will ever happen again.

5.2 Avoidance of risk

Fishermen, of course, want to avoid the problems that they could face as a consequence of heavy weather. So for fishermen it is very important to know the weather forecast before they go on the sea. But also when they are already on the sea, they want to know if a extreme weather event will come up. There are different ways of getting this weather information. The communication methods play a very important role in this. This part of the analysis focuses on how fishermen are trying to avoid the risk of facing an extreme weather event regarding their work as a fisher.

It is noticeable that a lot of fishermen are still using their own observations to predict the weather. People are in the first place looking at the clouds. When the clouds look very dark or when the clouds are moving very fast, it is possible that a storm is coming. “I always look at the sky before I depart. When a storm is coming up, there are many clouds that look very dark and move fast. Then I sometimes decide not to go.” The second thing that people are looking at, is the wind speed. Before the storm comes up, the wind speed is already increasing slowly. So this also one of the indicators that a storm may come. The third thing that the people are looking at is the speed of the water waves. Sometimes it is not notable that the wind speed is increasing when you are in the village. But then you can still see that the speed of the water waves is high, because on the sea the wind is not blocked by houses. The speed of the water waves is the third indicator that fishermen are looking at to predict the weather. Besides these main indicators, there is also a more striking indicator that some fishermen were mentioning. One of the fishermen spoke about six stars that always appear in

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24 the sky on the east side. “In the evening, there appear always six stars in the sky on the east side. But before a storm comes up, these stars are erased. I this case I will not go or stay on the water.” Another fisher also mentioned this as one of the indicators.

But people are not relying on their own observations completely. Most of the people in the village have television and radio in their house. They get most of the weather information through these media on a daily basis. “I receive most of the weather information through TV and radio.” It is the weather centre in Chennai that provides this weather news for the fisheries in the West Bengal Sea through these media. Besides the news through television and radio, some fishermen are also reading newspapers to see the weather forecast. They use this information primary to make decisions about what to do. Especially during the rough season they look at these media very carefully.

The village also has a comprehensive warning system for cyclones. The director of the fisheries department has explained this: ”The fisheries department here in Karaikal creates one control room during the rough season, from October till December. We receive the weather information from the meteorological centre in Chennai. The messages pass to the fisheries department through the emergency centre. When a special cyclone is coming up, we will send this information to the fishing villages around Karaikal. Therefore we send messengers who will hand over a paper statement to the village Panchayat.” The village Panchayat then spreads this information to the fishermen in the village. They do this by using microphone and radio. There are megaphones hanging through the whole village (see figure 5.1). When the Panchayat gives a warning, all people in the village can hear this. People can also receive the warning through radio. This is especially useful for people who are on sea and carry a FM radio. They can receive the warning while they are on sea. Trawler boats who are too far away to receive the radio signals, can receive the warning through walkie talkie. “For the boats that are too far away to receive radio signals, the warning message will spread trough walkie talkie from boat to boat. In this way, every boat can receive the message.” There will also be a flag put up near to seashore to warn fishermen not to go to sea. When a cyclone warning is given, the fishermen are not allowed to go on the sea. The fisheries department will not provide diesel when a weather warning is given. If people ignore the warning, the Panchayat or the fisheries department will not be responsible for them. When the storm is over, the Panchayat gives a new message that it is safe now and that the fishermen are allowed to go fishing again. The number of warnings is only high during the rough season.

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25 There is a second way in which the Panchayat receives the cyclone warnings. The collector office in Karaikal has a signal light on top of the building which they can see from the village. When this light is shining there will also be a very loud sound which they can hear. The collector office is located 3 kilometers from the village. The Panchayat explained about this: “When we see and hear the signal form the collector office, we immediately make contact with them. We ask them what the problem is and then inform the people in the village about this. But, this happens very rare, only in real emergencies.” For example, when a big cyclone is coming very fast or when a tsunami will come. The avoiding strategies are generally the same for trawler boats users and fiber boat users. They all get the weather warnings from the fisheries department and they all use media to see the weather news. It was a little surprising that even trawler boat users make use of their own observations to see what the weather will be. But nobody fully depends on own observations for the weather information. They all use the information they receive from others.

5.3 Protection to the risk

It is clear that efforts are taken to avoid the risk of facing a storm when people are fishing on the sea. But although the weather has become more predictable with the use of satellite images, an unexpected storm can still happen. It is interesting to know if people are protecting themselves against a possible storm or heavy rainfall. So what kind of safety equipment are the fishermen taking with them on the boat? Is this different for trawler boat fishermen and fiber boat fishermen? The government has provided safety jackets for all fishermen in the village. But it seems that most of them don’t like to use these. “The safety jackets provided by the government are not comfortable and the quality is not good. They tear very easily and they absorb water. So I don’t use them.” So this measurement from the government to improve the safety of the fishermen doesn’t seem to have its effect. What else are the people taking with them to protect themselves against the weather? Table 5.1 gives an overview of the things that were mentioned by the fishermen that have been interviewed.

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26 Fiber boat fishermen don’t take a lot of equipment with them. They are no longer than a day on the sea and don’t need a lot of equipment. “I only carry some empty diesel cans with me. I can throw these in the water when somebody falls out of the boat. This person can take the empty diesel can in order to ensure he doesn’t drown.” Most of them also have a flag for identification. Some of them showed some signal lights that they carry on their boat. They bind the signal lights on a long wooden stick and put this in the air. This can be used to warn others when they are in problems, especially during night time. Most of them also have a small torch light for fishing in the dark. Some of the fiber boat fishermen are also carrying rain coats. These are not useful in a storm, but can save the health of the people when it rains. Most of them don’t carry a medical kit. “I don’t need to carry medical equipment. I am only on the sea for a few hours and only within a short distance. When someone gets sick or wounded, I just return to the shore.”

The trawler boat fishermen have a lot of general equipment on their boat. But for protection, they don’t carry many items. The big trawler boats have roofs where they can hide for the weather. So people on the trawler boats have the possibility to escape from the weather within their boat, although heavy wind will still be a problem. Signal lights are attached on the boats. The trawler boat fishermen have a lot of technical equipment on the boat. All of them are using a GPS and an echo sound system (see figure 5.2). The GPS works with satellites and shows the direction, the distance and the travel time. The echo sound system uses echo’s in the water to see where much fish is available and where the rocks are in the water.

Figure 5.2: GPS system (left) and echo sound system (right) (Source: fieldwork)

They also use a walkie talkie (see figure 5.3). “I am using a walkie talkie to make contact with other boats. I also have a cell phone, but these only work within 10 kilometer form the coast. To make contact, I have to use the same walkie talkie number as the other boat. I have list with the walkie talkie numbers and the boat numbers to see which number is needed.” The walkie talkie is a necessary communication tool for them. Through these walkie talkies, the fishermen can immediately make contact with others when they have problems. But although this equipment contributes in different ways to the safety of the people, you can’t classify this as safety equipment. They are using these technical systems because they help them catching fish more efficient and thus with catching more fish. The safety aspect is not the primary reason of using these systems. The trawler boat fishermen carry a medical kit whit them with tablets for head pain, stomach pain and fever, oils for wounds and bandage. This is to protect the health of the people, who can become ill because of undesirable weather conditions.

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27 Figure 5.3: Walkie talkie (Source: fieldwork)

It is clear that fiber boat fishermen and trawler boat fishermen have different types and amounts of equipment on their boat. But in terms of real safety equipment there are no big differences. Both have only a few things to protect themselves against extreme weather events. But the equipment of the trawler boat fishermen is more technical. It is striking that almost everybody said that they don’t like to use the safety jackets that are provided by the government. This means that almost everybody prefers comfort over safety.

5.4 Coping with the risk

A very important part of adaptation is coping with the risk. What will the fishermen do when a storm comes up? What will they do when it starts to rain heavily? And are the fiber boat fishermen handling different than the trawler boat fishermen? It is the behavioral aspect that characterizes this part of the analysis. The most simple coping strategy against a heavy weather events is just not going on the water. But, most people depend on fishing for their family income. They have to catch the fish because they need to earn money for themselves and their family. So maybe it is not as simple as that. It is interesting to see what kind of coping strategies the different types of fisheries are using. Table 5.2 shows the coping strategies that were mentioned by the different types of fishermen. It became clear that the fiber boat fishermen are not able to handle a big storm. All of them told that when a storm is coming up, they will immediately leave the water. The boats are small and not stable enough to handle such extreme weather events. “When a storm comes up, I immediately go back to the shore.” Because most them are only within 10 km from the coast, they are most of the time able to escape. They can see a storm coming because dark clouds will appear and the wind speed and the water wave speed will increase. The water will also look more polluted. Sometimes, when the storm comes very fast, they have to cut their nets. In the middle of a storm they are not able to get their nets inside the boat anymore. Cutting the nets is a loss for them, but sometimes it’s the only option. “One day I had to cut my nets because I wasn’t able to pick them up anymore. After cutting the nets, I escaped as fast as I could.” While it was clear that storms are a problem for fiber boat fishermen, they gave different answers about rainfall. Some of them told that heavy rainfall is also a problem for them and that they will come out of the sea when it starts raining. They mentioned that their health

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28 cannot handle such weather circumstances. But others told that the rain is not a problem. “Rain is only a problem when it’s coming together with heavy wind. Otherwise, it is not.” They like to continue with catching fish and some of them even mentioned that there is more fish available during rain. “The fish availability is high during rain.” There were also some people who said that this depends on the heaviness of the rainfall. But at least it seems that the wind is a larger problem than the rain. The trawler boat fishermen are handling different when a storm comes up. Their situation is totally different than the situation of the fiber boat fishermen. Sometimes they are more than 200 km away from the coast and they like to stay on the sea for a whole week. They don’t like to come back earlier because this means a huge loss of money for them. “I invest a lot of money in a fishing trip. I cannot permit to return earlier, because then I lose a lot of money. I have to continue.” Another difficulty is that a trawler is so far away that it may take too much time to reach the coast. Then they are unable to escape from the storm. “Trying to escape from a storm is useless, because I am too far away. It costs too much time to reach the coast.” Still there were some trawler boat fishermen who told that they would come out of the sea when they know a storm is coming up. But they try to reach the nearest harbor in such a case. Here they will be safe and wait till the storm is over. When the storm is over they continue with fishing or they go back to their own harbor. Some fishermen told that they don’t like to go out of the water when a storm comes up. They listen carefully to their FM radio to hear where the storm will occur. Then they search the areas where the storm is not strong or even not present. Here they can fish safely. Instead of the fiber boat fishermen, the trawler boat fishermen were very clear about rainfall. They told that the rain is no problem for them. During rain they will continue with fishing. The boats are big and on the boats are places where they can hide for the rain. “Storms can be dangerous, but rain is not a problem. There are places to hide on the boat, we will continue fishing.” There is no reason to go out of the water when it starts raining.

Table 5.2: Coping strategies mentioned by fishermen

A very interesting finding was the way in which people are handling when someone on the boat gets sick or wounded. The fiber boat fishermen just go back to the coast. They are only for a short time on the water so this is no big deal. But the trawler boat fishermen use a different strategy. Within a group of boats, every day another boat goes on the sea and all for a certain time. When someone on a boat gets sick or wounded, the boat owner contacts the boat that will go back to the harbor first. That boat will take the sick or wounded person with him. “In this way we don’t have to return earlier to safe the injured or sick person. We save a lot of money in this way.” The trawler boats always sail in groups and they have contact with each other through walkie talkie. They cooperate with each other. They also help each other with things like food and mechanical problems. Also when the boat is damaged, they contact other boats. “We use the walkie talkie to contact other boats when our

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29 boat is damaged. Together we try to repair the damage. When this is not possible, we use ropes to take the boat to the nearest harbor.” Between the fiber boats, the cooperation is different. They help each other when they have problems, but they don’t fish in groups like the trawlers do. Only within their relatives they cooperate during fishing.

We can conclude that the coping strategies of the different types of fisheries to extreme weather events are different. This is not surprising, because their situation is totally different. Trawler boat fishermen invest more money, go much further away and stay much longer on sea. The losses for them when they need to return earlier are much larger than for the fiber boat fishermen, who go less far away and stay only for a short time. For them the losses are much less when they have to return earlier. These results are coming from interviews conducted with the owners of the trawler and fiber boats. There are also people who don’t own a boat but who work on the boat of someone else. They could give slightly different answers, but the answers of the boat owners are considered as most useful for this research.

Adaptation to extreme weather events : the case of fisheries in Karaikalmedu, India : adaptation to extreme weather events by two groups of fishermen in Karaikalmedu, India