Recognition and
Valuation of
Ecosystems by
Men and Women
A
case study on the coastal community of
1
Recognition and valuation of Ecosystems by
men and women
A case study on the rural coastal community of Pattinacherry,
Karaikal, India.
Written by:
E. Evers
10260129
estellee@hotmail.com
Supervisors:
Dr. L. de Klerk & Msc. J. Stephen
Student at:
Bachelor Programme Human Geography & Urban Planning
Specialisation in Human Geography
Faculty of Human and Behavioural Sciences
University of Amsterdam
2
Table of Contents
Foreword 3
Chapter 1 Introduction 4
Chapter 2 Theoretical Framework 6 2.1 The Environment Defined 6 2.2 Ecosystem Resource Dependency 7 2.3 Gender and Ecosystem Management 7
Chapter 3 Research Questions 9
3.1 Research Questions 9
3.2 Operationalization 10
Chapter 4 Research Methodology 12 4.1 Units of Analysis & Samples 12
4.2 Research Methods 13
4.3 Data Analysis 15
Chapter 5 Research Location 17
5..1 Location, History & Governance 17 5.2 Environment & Threats 20
5.3 Local Population 21
5.3.1 Housing Conditions and Possessions 23 5.3.2 Income and Expenditures 24 5.4 Impact of the Tsunami 25 Chapter 6 Local Views on Ecosystem Services & Access to It 29 6.1 Positive and Negative Aspects of the Environment 29 6.1.1 Positive Aspects of the Environment 29 6.1.2 Negative Aspects of the Environment 30 6.2 Recognition of Ecosystem Resources & Ecosystem Services 30 6.3 Gender and Access to Resources 31 6.3.1 Women’s Access to Resources 32 6.3.2 Men’s Access to Resources 35 Chapter 7 Valuation of Ecosystem Resources and Services 38 7.1 Valuations of Ecosystem Resources 38 7.2 Valuations of Ecosystem Services 40 7.3 Factors influencing Valuations 43
7.3.1 Age as a Factor 44
7.3.2 Household Size as a Factor 45 7.3.3 Household Conditions as a Factor 47 7.3.4 Income as a Factor 48
Chapter 8 Conclusion 51
8.1 Answering the Main & Sub Questions 51 Chapter 9 Discussion and Suggestions for Further Research 56 Annex 1: Valuation of livelihood and ecosystems questionnaire 58
3
Foreword
From February 2014 until right now, 6 months later at the beginning of August, I have been on an adventure. I’d like to thank the Department of Geography, Planning and International
Development Studies of the University of Amsterdam for this opportunity by letting me be a participant in their IDS bachelor thesis project to Tamil Nadu.
I would also like to thank Dr. Maarten Bavinck and Dr. Johny Stephen for their guidance and support during the trip and Dr. Leo de Klerk for investing his time discussing with me difficulties and issues along the thesis proposal and writing process.
Not only in Amsterdam, but also in India I received a lot of support, among others we have enjoyed the hospitality of Dr. R. Dhanalakshmi, we have had an interesting introduction to Chennai by Dr. K. Karunaharan and the staff members of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management at the Anna University have taken good care of us.
Another important person is Uma, besides patiently translating all my questions to the Indian respondents, she helped me to become ‘a real Indian woman’ so I could feel at home during my stay in Karaikal.
Last but not least I would like to thank Luca Parodi. Even though I don’t know him in person, and he doesn’t know me, he has been the inspiration for writing my thesis on this particular subject. In 2011 he wrote a thesis about the perspective of a Sri-Lankan community on ecosystems and wellbeing. After reading his story I knew I would like to investigate the same within another community. It helped me a lot that I could use his well set-up thesis framework to fill it in with my own findings.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
This spring I had the amazing chance to visit the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India. I lived there for one month, trying to study how a local fishing community is observing their surrounding environment and making profit of it. I wondered about questions like: ‘What kind of
environmental resources are recognized? and ‘What local environmental features are important to them, what features aren’t, and why?’
During the three years of my bachelor degree, I have always been interested in environmental subjects and discussions about inequality. For instance in urban geography I liked the lectures where we discussed why nature, even in a dense city, is important to humans. In that case we discussed the importance of parks and what nature does to people’s feelings. During the course ‘Environment and Sustainable Development’ we discussed the interconnectedness between the environment and development, why different environmental realms create different stages of development and inequalities of access to nature. The course ‘Children and International Development’ taught me how to emphasize with different stakeholders when facing a problem and how to observe a problem from different points of view. The minor ‘physical geography’ at Utrecht University have made me aware about the richness of mother nature during the course ‘The Earth’s Systems’, and ‘Historical Geography’ showed me the importance of the historical heritage of a village. After summing up all these courses that have impressed me most in my academic career, the bachelor thesis project to India seemed to contain everything to reflect the things I’ve learned and enjoyed the most. It is a great project to summarize three years of education at the University of Amsterdam.
Before going to India, I found it hard to define what I really wanted to investigate while in the
field. During the two week course ‘Ecosystems – Governance & Services’, from the 31st of March
2014 to the 12th of April 2014, at the Anna University in Chennai, we slowly got familiar with
Indian culture and the Indian way of coastal zone (ecosystem) management. That’s when it came clear to me that I wanted to investigate how an Indian coastal environment supports the lives of different people living in the coastal zone.
Before my departure I have read some reports developed by the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment, about ecosystems and how they are supporting human life, which gave me a first grip on the subject. Also there were several lectures given in the first two weeks in Chennai that have supported me in building up my framework. I have had the opportunity to collect quotes, charts, documentaries and literature references I did not have access to while in the Netherlands. All together it gave me a good framework for analysing the topic. Based on this framework I have made a selection of questions to guide my research, the main question being:
5 What ecosystem services and resources are recognized by the inhabitants of the fishing
community of Pattinacherry and (how) are these ecosystem resources and services differently valuated by men and women?
In order to conduct good research it has to be clear what is meant by ‘people’ ‘or community' and in this case ‘environment’. You have to think about the fact that maybe there’s no vast definition of these terms, you have to consider that everyone sees such terms from their own perspective. Every person living in the coastal zone might define natural features in their own way and categorize it differently from what a scientific framework does. Because I did only have 4 weeks to finish my fieldwork, I did have to delimit some of the possible perspectives that were able to be investigated. I had to make the widely used term ‘community’ a little bit more vast and my way to do this was deciding to focus on a small town called Pattinacherry, instead of Karaikal with a population little over 200.000. I also started thinking about special features that characterise Indian communities. The first things that came to mind were caste and gender. Because caste shows limited variation locally, I decided to investigate the differences between men and women and how they perceive and value surrounding nature. This also brought me on new questions to investigate, because gender is most likely an important factor that determines access to
ecosystems.
Because I had limited time, I had to keep the qualitative phase of the research brief and quick because qualitative research takes a lot of time. Leaving the phase out was also not an option because during this phase you have the discussions with villagers which you really need to quantify the research later on. After the theoretical framework discussed in chapter 2, and the research questions in chapter 3, you can read how this process of choosing a well-working
research methodology took place in chapter 4. Chapter 5 is all about presenting an overview of the research location, the history and governance, mostly from an outsider’s perspective. Chapter 6 is about a local view on life in Pattinacherry, its ecosystems and how men and women have access to it. Then there’s chapter 7; finally representing the valuations of the ecosystems and how gender influences the valuation. The answers to the research questions are presented in Chapter 8. In chapter 9 there’s room for further discussion and suggestions for further research.
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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework
This chapter encompasses scientific theories which contribute to understanding different key themes within my thesis and which reflect my understanding of the reality of the relationship between humans and ecosystems. The chapter will also briefly outline why the investigation I did is somehow relevant or contributing to present-day discussed issues and actualities with regards to the environment. In the first paragraph, the key definitions used in this thesis are being explained. The second paragraph outlines how ‘resource dependency’ should be interpreted and approached. Since resource dependency is a controversial concept, and a key theme in my research, it is important to devote some special attention to it. The third paragraph devotes attention to the relationship between gender and the environment. I will explain, based on referring literature, why I decided to make this the main topic of my thesis.
2.1 The Environment Defined
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework is of some significant importance as a base for my research. The objective of the assessment is to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and to establish a scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their contributions to well-being. This had to be established with the involvement of governments, the private sector, nongovernmental
organizations, and scientists to provide insight in possible consequences of ecosystem change for human life and to outline available options to enhance the future conservation of ecosystems and their contributions in the form of ecosystem services, to meet human needs. (MEA, 2003) The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework is not entirely the starting point of my thesis, because well-being is a contributing factor within my investigation, not a key component. But, because the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment does provide very well formulated definitions of ecosystems, ecosystem resources, ecosystem services and its related components, it somehow is the document on which my thesis is basically built.
Before diving into the core of the story, it might be useful to lay out some key definitions first. An Ecosystem (resource) can be defined as a dynamic complex of plant, animal and microorganism communities and the non-living environment interacting as functional unit. Humans are an integral part of ecosystems. Ecosystems vary enormously in size; a temporary pond in a hollow tree and a complete ocean basin can both be ecosystems. Humans can obtain benefits from ecosystems; these are called ecosystem services. These can include ‘provisioning services’, such as food and water; ‘regulation services’ such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation and disease; ‘supporting services’ such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and ‘cultural services’ such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits. (MEA, 2003) How these concepts are applied within the research, will be outlined in chapter 4, where the research methods are being discussed.
7 2.2 Ecosystem Resource Dependency
Many studies have showed that rural households in developing countries depend to a significant degree on local common-pool resources for their daily livelihood. In these studies, income plays the key role in regards to the extent in which a household is dependable of the resources. The studies tend to prove that the rural poor in developing countries remain the most directly dependent on natural resources for their food and livelihood security. The ‘rural poor’ knows many underlying types of communities considered a part of it, one of them being fishing communities in developing countries. Fishing communities are often considered ‘rural poor’ because related resources, especially the fish population they depend on, is very vulnerable to overexploitation and other (environmental) threads. (The World Bank, 2009)
Previous investigations on ecosystem resource dependency have faced the same successes; investigators were able to proof that poor rural households were dependent on their local environment. Scientists also all faced the same problems; they all did not know how to exactly quantify resource dependence. There is as yet no consensus in literature on two fundamental, and closely related issues, namely (i) how dependence should be measured and (ii) how dependence measures should be interpreted, i.e., what policy they convey.
With regard to the first issue, for example, Jodha (1986) uses as many as nine different measures of dependence. With respect to the second issue (how dependence measures should be interpreted) in a very general sense, scientists try to simply capture the “importance” of ecosystem resources in the lives of the rural poor. Along this line, again many different measures are handled, not one of them being ‘most common’. (Narain a.o., 2007) The point I would like to emphasize: when measuring resource dependency, there’s not an official manner a researcher has to abide to. It is up to the scientist to determine measuring methods and to judge whether the chosen method is sufficient.
2.3 Gender and Ecosystem Management
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, dependency on resources is generally measured through, or based on, income. The outcome of these investigations were that the rural poor are most dependable on local ecosystem resources. Since a fishing community in a developing country (such as India) is already considered as “rural poor”, it wouldn’t be very interesting to investigate what influence income has with regards to dependability on local resources within this
community: this is kind of already set.
But, the rural poor with their high rate of dependability in a developing area could form a good base for further inside investigation. In a developing country like India, natural resources are needed to sustain the needs of the growing human population and the expanding industries. These increasing consumption levels have resulted in an increasingly stressed environment. The
challenge of reversing the degradation of natural resources while meeting increasing demands for them involves significant changes in policies, institutions and practices.
Effective programming and policies require understanding and addressing the gender-specific relationships to natural resources use and management and highlighting the linkages between
8 natural resources, cultural values and local knowledge. Addressing the gender-specific aspects of natural resources will provide policy makers with information for more effective natural resource use and conservation policies and will provide guidance for equitable access to natural resources. (The World Bank, 2009)
At natural resources management interventions by The World Bank, there has been discussions about the many different gender issues related to the environment. What investigators have already observed is that rural women and men have different roles, responsibilities, and knowledge in managing natural resources. Rural women’s and men’s different tasks and
responsibilities in food production and provision result in different needs, priorities and concerns. Observers have also acknowledged that gender differences exist in rights and access to natural resources. In most societies women typically have fewer ownership rights than men. It is also noted that access to new technology, information and training related to natural resource
management remains highly gendered, with most of the related initiatives targeted to men. And, investigators are concerned that in the future, degradation of the natural resources could result in new forms of cooperation, conflict or controversy between men and women.
These issues portray why gender is currently a very important factor when it comes to ecosystem dependency and ecosystem preservation. (The World Bank, 2009)
9
Chapter 3: Research Questions
My thesis revolves around the relationship between people and their surrounding environment. Because this is a very broad field of study, I delimited my research by forming a set of questions to investigate thoroughly. The first part of this chapter is about introducing these research questions and particular key concepts. In the second paragraph I included a scheme regarding operationalization.
3.1 Research Questions
The main research question will be:
• What ecosystem services and resources are recognized by the inhabitants of the fishing community of Pattinacherry and (how) are these ecosystem resources and services differently valuated by men and women?
This as a main question encompasses two interesting investigations; what ecosystem resources and services are recognized by locals and their successive valuations, which might be dependable of gender and livelihood contexts. A few sub questions will act like puzzle pieces to solve the main question in a profound and progressive way. The first sub question being:
• What ecosystem resources and services are recognized by male and female inhabitants of Pattinacherry?
As a western European woman I experience ‘nature’ as a realm or atmosphere to enjoy and not necessarily as a tangible resource. But I do know that in some lesser developed areas, people are more dependable of their local environment. I would like to understand the perspective of
Pattinacherry residents towards their surrounding nature and the dynamics it has. Do they see their environment as an entity or as an assemblage of different resources? I want to approach the inhabitants subjectively to create a totally unbiased understanding of their view of the reality concerning the local environment.
• What positive and negative aspects of the ecosystems are outlined by male and female inhabitants of Pattinacherry?
Ecosystems are providing all sorts of benefits, but some aspects of the ecosystems might be bringing damage to- or danger for the community of Pattinacherry. Think about hazardous animals, plant overgrowth or salinization. The focus lies not only on natural hazards but also manmade negativities concerning the local environment. I want to find out if men and women experience different positive and negative aspects of the local environment, because it might influence the eventual evaluation of the ecosystem resources and services.
10 • What are the main factors influencing the access to ecosystem resources and services by male and female inhabitants of Pattinacherry?
There might be many factors influencing the extent to which people make use of an ecosystem. Not only gender itself may play a huge role determining access to the environment, I think access to ecosystems and the subsequent valuations can also be related to underlying household and individual characteristics. My aim is to analyse for both genders the relationship between the level of access and these underlying factors.
• How are the recognized ecosystem resources and services valuated by male and female inhabitants of Pattinacherry and what factors may possibly influence their valuations? Men and women might have different fields of interest on which the ecosystem resources and services contribute to. My aim is to look how men and women valuate the local environment separately and together; the overall valuation is also relevant because it represents the level of importance for families as a whole. Again, there might be many factors influencing the valuations of the ecosystem resources and services done by men and women. Influencing (possible
correlating) factors could be age, household size, housing conditions, and income level. 3.2 Operationalization
Table 1 on the next page offers an overview of the most important concepts which form the base of my research and how I would like to investigate them.
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Concept Dimension Variable Sources & Application
Wellbeing and associated local factors
Survey, Focus groups
• What are positive and negative
aspects of life in Pattinacherry? • What aspects of the local
environment are contributing to the living conditions?
Valuation Resources Survey
• How do local people value the resources?
Influence on Valuations Factors Survey, qualitative calculations
• What household/individual characteristics influence the valuations?
Focus groups, survey, observation
• What ecosystem servies are recognized by the local people?
Services Recognition
Ecosystem Household
Focus groups, survey, observation
• What ecosystem resources are recognized by the local people? • How do these resources
contribute to daily life?
Resources
Available literature on
Pattinacherry, Observations
• In what kind of (broader) environment are the housholds situated?
Location Characteristics
Survey, focus groups, observation
• What livelihoods are related to the environment? • What other activities of
inhabitants (cultural, recreational etc.) are related to the
environment?
Manner of Use Use of Ecosystems
Survey
• What are the assets held by the household? • What is the average monthly income/expenditure? • How are the household's housing conditions? Assets, Income, Expenditures, Housing Conditions Observation, panchayat
interview, Focus groups, Survey.
• What are the household activities?
Household Composition
Survey
• Of how many people does the household consist? • What are the main features of the household members?
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Chapter 4: Research methodology
This chapter will outline the various stages of my fieldwork. I will also explain the approach and methods I have used and different obstacles I faced. Chronologically I will discuss the units of analysis I selected in the first paragraph, the research methods I used will be discussed in the second paragraph, and the way I analysed my data will be presented in the third paragraph. 4.1 Units of Analysis and Samples
Pattinacherry is a small village, part of a larger rural agglomeration with Tirumalarajanpattinam (T.R. Pattinam) set as the centre of this area. The village is delimited by the river on the north side, the sea on the west, a dense formation of prickly mangrove bushes on the south and a train track on the west. Pattinacherry became the research location of my study because of the short distance to Karaikal, and especially because of the position next to a river and the sea shore. These were the two ecosystems I wanted to investigate in any case prior to the research and these ecosystems are often an indication for the presence of more ecosystems that derive from the proximity of the sea or river (such as birds, lakes or dunes).
Pattinacherry does not have a specific centre and different facilities such as shops, the school and the offices are randomly spread through the area. These facilities and houses are sometimes well hidden behind thick bushes or trees, connected with each other through small unpaved paths. The village being a small hamlet and the unpaved paths contributed to the fact that a clear map of this town does not exist. The method of random sampling seemed most obvious due to this situation. Furthermore it was not possible for me to obtain a list of all households by the local government. The application time for these lists transcended my four weeks of being in the area and the appointments with a person of the institution would take a lot of precious time. After evaluating the length of the streets, we decided to knock on every sixth door. The responding households in Pattinacherry became my units of analysis.
Because the aim of my research is to investigate how men and women use their environment differently as individuals, a household perspective of view was not going to be enough. That is why I chose to include one representative within each household based on gender. In the evaluation part of the survey questionnaire (in the last section) a man or woman within the household will represent as the unit of analysis.
Regarding the samples, I had a 100% response rate. Beforehand I did not expect real difficulties (such as women not wanting- or having the permission to talk with me) because I had female interpreter with me. However, based on research experiences I have had in the past, I did expect that there would be some hard rejections. Surprisingly every household we approached gave us a warm reception and full attention and devotion. This has been an amazing contribution to the research, it gave us courage, motivation and fun.
13 4.2 Research Methods
Although living at the location of research would have been quite efficient for gaining trust and being involved in daily patterns, the local people ensured me that it wasn’t safe for me and my translator as two young women. Luckily, I experienced that being based in Karaikal also gave me some benefits. The distance between Pattinacherry and Karaikal might only be 9 kilometres; the environmental, behavioural and cultural differences already appeared to be quite different. This helped me with creating a mental map of a broader environment and that is why I could interpret results in a broader perspective of view.
Another advantage was the support of my translator Uma, a student zoology from Tiruchirappalli (Trichy), another city in Tamil Nadu. Her help was a real requirement for my fieldwork since only a few people in Pattinacherry can speak English. For Uma this fieldwork trip has been more than only a simple translating-job. The 25-year old Indian women had never been out of her home town Trichy and after some encouragement by her teacher and imploring her father for
permission, this was her first time ‘traveling’. Her knowledge in natural environments due to her zoology background and also the fact that she would do her own final-assignment fieldwork as soon as she would come back in Trichy, made our collaboration successful. She was very devoted and attentive. Because she was a limited English proficient student, I could not really involve her into my work when it came to discussing research theories, designs or approaches and sometimes it was hard to receive accurate and detailed information when performing the interviews with respondents.
The first stage of my research consisted of an unstructured interview during a meeting with the Panchayat. The village chief was my major link to the local community and I also needed his permission to interfere with the people. We discussed about the different ecosystems present in Pattinacherry and the results are shown below in table 2.
Table 2 – Presence and absence of ecosystems in Pattinacherry
Presence and absence of ecosytems in Pattinacherry
Mangroves X Sandy beach X Sea X Coral Upland Paddy Forest Medicinal plants Cattle X Birds X Water tanks Lagoon
14 It turned out that mangroves, sandy beach, sea, cattle and birds are the present ecosystems in Pattinacherry. These ecosystems form the base of my research. After these findings I did a pilot interview with the village chief to identify some basic acknowledgements about life in
Pattinacherry so I could use this information to construct an accurate and conformed structured interview to use with every household. I asked him about the number of inhabitants, local
government, type of houses, his aspirations for the future, problems, facilities and occupations of the community. He gave me a first local perspective on wellbeing, the environment and other relevant issues. After the interview he guided me on a tour by fiber boat through Pattinacherry’s nature to collect some spatial data and this tour confirmed the presence and absence of the aforementioned ecosystems.
I assumed the data given by the village chief was accurate and the truth. Nevertheless I wanted to have a verification of the given information by the community. That is why I organized two focus-groups with the major stakeholders in my research: a group of men and a group of women. I asked both groups if and how they use the different ecosystems the village chief claimed were present. It also became clear what kind of services the resources were providing, which gave me
the opportunity to select 12 services.1 In order to find out about specs of the resources and
services, I asked the following questions for every ecosystem (river, sea, mangrove, birds, cattle and beach):
• How many times do you approach or access it in a week or month? • When you approach, how long do you utilize it?
• What items do you collect?
• Why is it important for living a good life in Pattinacherry? • Why is it good for the natural environment in Pattinacherry? • Are there rules about the usage or treatment?
• Does it play a role in your religion? • Is it important for your culture? • Is it clean or polluted?
In this early state of research it already came forward that men and women have very different attitudes towards the ecosystems. Besides, some of the questions didn’t work or weren’t fully understood by the respondents. This helped me to adapt the formulation in the final version of the structured interviews.
In the structured and (semi) quantitative stage of my research I constructed a survey to conduct on a selection of 30 random households. At every household I took turns interviewing a male
household member and a female household member, resulting in 15 surveys filled in by women and 15 surveys filled in by men. Within every household I collected data about the general
15 household composition: names, relationships, gender, age, educational level, employment, income and marital status. Subsequent to this were some questions to collect (socio-economic) data about their well-being: appreciation of local livelihood, expenditures, housing conditions, income sources, and ownership of assets. This part of the questionnaire is not (necessarily) based on the answering individual itself: the person is in fact the spokesperson for the entire household. The final part of the survey consisted of the adapted questions I used at the focus-groups about the usage of the local ecosystems and this part also consisted of a ‘scoring analysis’ based on a list of
the 6 recognized ecosystem resources and 12 related ecosystem services.2
The scoring technique I used is based on a system previously used by master student Luca Parodi. We asked participants to give scores to the resources based on their importance to them. A limited number of points – represented by sea shells – were given to the participants and distributed on bright yellow coloured cards representing the ecosystem resources and -services. (Luca Parodi, 2011) This part of the survey does not count for the entire household: the male or female respondent expressed their personal valuation.
Table 3 – Summary of research methods
4.3 Data Analysis
Because Pattinacherry is such a small-sized town, collecting specific literature about the village is practically impossible and the literature is non-existing. This is why I did have to rely on my own collected survey-data and use this as a base. To enrich the information, I used the notes I took of informal discussions with townspeople while I was on one of my strolls through town.
As briefly mentioned before, the survey data will help me in my analysis of the composition of families, levels of prosperity and wealth, lifestyle, problems, and eventually the relationship between these factors and the access to different local ecosystems and resources. Because most of the variables are quantitative or quantifiable, IBM SPSS statistics would be a good technique for analysis.
The information collected by the focus groups will not be taken into account, because I only used this as an experimental survey and it turned out some questions did not provide desired outcomes. Because I wanted to lead my respondents into a certain direction, any forms of probing (giving respondents help with their answers) and prompting (the interviewer suggests a possible answer to
2 The questionnaire is included at the end of the thesis (Annex 1)
Method Respondents
Unstructured interview 1 respondent: village chief Focus group 13 respondents: 7 women, 6 men
Survey interviews 30 households: filled in by 15 women, 15 men Direct observations Every day for 4 weeks
16 the respondent) may have occurred. (Bryman, 2008) These can be designated as errors when conducting interviews, thus I won’t use the focus group data directly.
With every survey I made sure that only the man or the woman in dispute was answering to my questions. Uma, my translator made a friendly request to the other household members not to speak up. This went very well except for the part with the yellow cards to evaluate the ecosystem resources and services. It was not possible and kind of rude to exclude other members, so I decided that they could give their opinion but still only the male or female main-respondent was able to finally distribute the seashells.
A sample of 30 inhabitants, consisting of 15 male respondents and 15 female respondents is quite slim even though Pattinacherry is a small village. The results shown in the analysis part of this thesis are therefore providing an indication of male and female behaviour and valuations rather than it is truly generalizable on the total population. Even though this is a limitation, the results of the analysis are reflecting a pretty accurate picture of the population, in my opinion.
17
Chapter 5: Research location
Tamil Nadu is located in the extreme south of subcontinent India. Tamil Nadu represents the Tamil-speaking area of what was formerly the Madras Presidency of British India. The Tamils are especially proud of their Dravidian language and culture, and have resisted attempts by the central government to make Hindi the sole national language. While it has an industrial core in Chennai, the state is essentially agricultural. Tamil Nadu has a population of approximately 72.138.958 measured in 2011. (Aiyappan, 2014) Besides these interesting cultural statements, Tamil Nadu consist for a large amount of varietal dynamic and diverse coastal landforms. The coastal zone of Tamil Nadu has become a topic of interest due to the tsunami of 2004 and other devastating processes in this area such as overpopulation which is putting a high pressure on the landscape with its environment. (Theenadhayalan, 2012)
The first part of the chapter describes the type of governance, the location and a brief overview of the history of the area. Subsequent a part about the environmental profile and threats in
Pattinacherry, followed by a paragraph describing demographic details about the inhabitants based on information collected by the survey. The location and population have been strongly affected by a tsunami a decade ago, attention has been paid to it in a final paragraph.
5.1 Location, History and Governance
A 9 hour train ride took me to Karaikal after a completing a two-week course in Chennai. Karaikal, a significant port town is situated on the Coromandel Coast near the mouth of the Arasalar River. The city is located 132 kilometres south of Pondicherry, 300 kilometres south of Chennai and 150 kilometres east of Trichy. (Native Planet, n.d.) Compared to Chennai, Karaikal has got more the vibe of a town rather than a city.
7 km south of Karaikal (municipality) you can find the town of T.R. Pattinam.
T.R. Pattinam can be seen as a commune within the Karaikal district. The town is believed to be named after the Tirumalarajanar River, located a few kilometres to the north, draining into the Bay of Bengal. Compared to Karaikal, T.R. Pattinam portrays itself as a relatively small town whose centre is built around a main road that will extend all the way to Nagapattinam. In T.R. Pattinam a citizen can find a rich selection of various facilities, from hospitals to car mechanics. Contradicted to this, you can find the hamlet of Pattinacherry, officially part of T.R. Pattinam, located one kilometre eastern of it (figure 2). This small coastal community of Pattinacherry is connected to T.R. Pattinam with a bumpy tarred road, which is the only road giving access to the hamlet. The place has still preserved its beauty which stands out in comparison to other parts of the over-build and overpopulated area.
Along the road to Pattinacherry you will cross bone dry, empty land with some coastal vegetation consisting of brown bushes and some tall yellow grass. You can easily imagine yourself in an old western movie, especially when you cross a rickety wooden railway and a decayed train station.
18 When passing these, you can see the first square concrete structures at your horizon; you’re approaching the post-tsunami part of Pattinacherry. The first thing you notice when entering town is a large enclosed pillar, -turning out to be a tsunami memorial-, a small hotel, the large amount of stray sheep and goats and the loud twittering of many birds. The place feels quiet, peaceful and homey with children playing on the streets and the laundry drying in the sun. Pattinacherry houses approximately 1848 inhabitants divided in 524 families, with nature being the prime source of income. All of the inhabitants are Hindi and with only a few exceptions, all of the inhabitants exercise the occupation of fisherman. (CRFMI, 2011) Figure 3 shows a map of Pattinacherry which shows where the most important facilities and ecosystems are located.
19 Figure 3 – Map of Pattinacherry (Source: Google Earth, n.d.)
20
Anciently, in the 10th century, the Karaikal area was part of the Chola Empire before it was
conquered by Vijayanagar, Maratha, Muslim and French troops and became French in the late 18th
century until 1954. The territory around Karaikal became very fertile, and thus inhabited, because of the proximity of the Kaveri river delta, making the area the most important rice-growing area of Tamil Nadu. Villagers were involved in paddy farming, cattle breeding and marine fishing. (Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 2013)
The governance system is not very complex but it is quite exceptional in some ways.
T.R. Pattinam is ruled by the Karaikal district which is under the jurisdiction of a Collector. The Collector, being the official representative of the Lieutenant-Governor, has little financial power but does monitor expenditures. This person does also exercise a wide range of powers under the various provisions of law and coordinates the developmental activities done by several
departments. In turn, Pattinacherry is ruled by local monitors of T.R. Pattinam. Remarkable is that inhabitants of Pattinacherry say that it shows little sign of the power of T.R. Pattinam. In
Pattinacherry, the village elderly have much power and because of lack of conflicts, and the distance to T.R. Pattinam, there seems to be only little evidence of the influence of the
government. Seeing it from this perspective, Pattinacherry is somewhat an autonomous village but according to the law it is still a part of T.R. Pattinam. (Government of Puducherry, n.d.) The local ‘governance’ of Pattinacherry consists of a small panchayat of 11 male members. The members are selected by the inhabitants and not recognized by higher institutions.
5.2 Environment & Threats
The climate in the Karaikal area is tropical. The average rainfall is 1278 mm annually and in winter there is much more rainfall than in summer. The average temperature is 28,5 degrees Celsius. The driest month is February with only 12 mm rainfall, most precipitation falls in November with an average of 381 mm. The average temperatures vary during the year by 6.7 degrees Celsius. (climate data.org, n.d.)
The natural environment in Pattinacherry is pretty unique. The beach remained a pure natural environment without any constructions on it. The pristine white beach is about 50 metres wide at the edge of the village. Further on, the beach is becoming narrower because of a 5 kilometre stretch of mangrove forest occupies it. Most remarkable is the 3 metre high, thick concrete wall that separates the beach from the hinterland. A 6 metre wide bridge is overarching this thick wall as a gateway to the village. On top of this bridge you get a great view on the north-eastern side of the village. About 200 metres in the distance a small estuary is visible, which is formed by a small river which operates as the northern border of Pattinacherry, and the sea.
The mix of fresh and salt water in this estuary is making sure that the place has the optimal condition for the growth of certain types of fish and lobster, which creates a great source of livelihoods for the fishers. Besides the wall, the village is also depending on other infrastructure, such as a large paved square at the base of the bridge, where fish is being sold. The dike, built all
21 the way along the river is also of great importance since it protects the population against high water levels of the river. A lot of sediment is being disposed by the river within the estuary. This reduces the force and the speed of its flow, and a lack of dikes or breakwaters in this particular area, ensures that the mouth of the river is often silted up. The failure of access to the sea is one of the biggest environmental problems in Pattinacherry, since the fisherman are docking their fiber boats on the river banks.
The pre-tsunami part of the village is characterized by coconut- mango- and banana trees and by unspecified higher, thick trees, each branch completely occupied by birds when night falls. The main roads in this area have been paved in recent years but the majority is still consisting of dirt and sand. A lot of here are nothing but abandoned concrete walls in which wild growing vines find their own way.
The transition between the pre- and post-tsunami part of the village is very clear. A tree-lined setting is suddenly turning into an empty, bone dry field containing nothing more than
meticulously arranged concrete housing blocks. Here you will find no trees, just some dry bushes. Apart from the shallow and dreary appearance, the post-tsunami part of the village does contain some of the liveliness because most facilities are situated here. In this part you will find the school, playground, cricket field, primary health centre, meeting- and marriage hall.
Some facilities have not always been there but were created in the last decade due to the tsunami which flooded the whole area in 2004. For example, the cricket field used to be a paddy field but because the soil composition changed, agricultural cultivation is no longer possible. The
construction of aforementioned buildings, like the marriage hall and the health centre are also developments of the last 10 years due to the tsunami, but I will focus on this topic in a subsequent paragraph.
5.3 Local Population
Because going to an office to collect demographic information wasn’t possible, all the information on population and households is drawn from the survey data.
During my research I confirmed all the inhabitants of Pattinacherry belong to the Most
Backward Caste (MBC), all are Hindu and all have the Indian nationality. This is why I did not include any questions about these variables in my questionnaire.
The sample of the population collected by the household survey, consists of 125 persons of which 52,8% are male. The mean age of the sampled population is 25,26 and the median age is 24.
22 Figure 4 – Age pyramid based on the inhabitants of Pattinacherry (Source: IBM SPSS Statistics)
Figure number 4 is showing that the sampled population is relatively young. With regard to the educational level in Pattinacherry; adults (population older than 18) are not very highly educated. The highest level of education is high school for 84,9 percent of the adult population. 8,2 percent is not educated at all and a mere 9,6 percent has had education on bachelor level. Education in India is free up to- and including secondary school, which most children finish at the age of 18. Up to the age of 14 education is compulsory. Development economist Abusaleh Shariff claims that there’s a huge disparity as far access to higher education is concerned – across gender, socio-economic religious groups but particularly across geographical regions. Thus, a Dalit or Muslim in south India, though from the most disadvantaged among communities, would have better access to higher education than even upper caste Hindus in many other regions. It is mostly about the proximity of infrastructure and institutions. South India offers the best opportunities for socially inclusive access to higher education including technical education and education in English medium. (Nagarajan, 2014) In Pattinacherry there is an English middle secondary school, but for higher forms of education the people are assigned on institutions in Karaikal.
23 5.3.1 Housing Conditions and Possessions
It is obvious that the pre-tsunami part of the village contains some of the oldest houses. These houses can be distinguished because of their smaller size and lack of brightness in the rooms. Because of the destruction of buildings by the tsunami, new houses have also been built in this area. Pre-tsunami houses are relatively a little more sloppy and dusty because lush nature grows directly next to the house. Post-tsunami houses are more tidy and clean; roads aren’t dusty but paved and rooms have more modern surfaces which are easier to clean, like tiles.
Most of the people couldn’t tell me the size of their houses, but the mean size must be around 50 sq. metres, based on my own observations. Most houses only have one floor, and if they have a second one it is mostly an empty, concrete roof terrace, if it concerns a post-tsunami house. Houses in Pattinacherry have 3 rooms on average and almost all of the houses have a separate kitchen area inside or outside. 60 percent of the population cooks on gas, 30 percent uses wood as fuel for cooking and 10 percent of the households makes use of both. Most of the wooden fuel-kitchens are located outside. Like you see in figure 5, people have created a small ‘oven’ in their backyard, made of clay and concrete.
Figure 5 – Small clay oven outside a resident’s house (Source: E. Evers, 2014)
Pattinacherry knows average sanitary facilities. 63,3 percent of the respondents has access to a toilet within their own house. 56,7 percent has a pit-type toilet and 6,7 percent of the respondents has an advanced flush-type toilet. After the tsunami 3 public restrooms were built as temporary buildings but are still in use by the 36,7 percent of the people who do not have an own toilet. Everyone in town has access to electricity and drinking water. A large network of water pipelines has been lain out by the government a decade ago, thus 55,2 percent of the respondents have
24 access to an end of these pipes at their home. This is the only source of water which is suitable for drinking. The 13,8 percent of the people who extract bore water only use this water for washing or cleaning; it is too salty to drink. Some people use multiple sources for getting drinking water. 13,7 percent states that they sometimes buy canned or bottled water. People who do not have a source of water at their house, are getting their drinking water at neighbours who do have access to government pipeline water. Table 4 shows the average of other main housing conditions. 90 percent of all respondents are happy with the house they live in.
Table 4 – Housing conditions in Pattinacherry (Source: IBM SPSS Statistics)
In Pattinacherry, and I think you can state this for other parts of India as well, people like to show off their possessions. The post-tsunami houses, consisting of different sizes, have been randomly designated to families who have been affected by the tsunami. This means that the size of the house does not represent the wealth of the family. Wealth is being represented by the number and size of assets. A TV, fan or DVD-Player has the head position in every living room. Another way people try to impress guests is by hanging a lot of (wedding) pictures on the wall, as well as pictures of family members and framed diplomas and certificates to represent their success in life. The television plays an important role in the household and culture, bringing Bollywood tunes and modern lifestyle ideas into the living rooms of 96,7 percent of the respondents. Every respondent has a mobile phone, 60 percent even more than one. Many households do also have other
electrical items, like a radio (76,7%), a DVD-player (33,3%), a refrigerator (53,3%) and an average of two fans.
All land in Pattinacherry is government-owned since the tsunami. Most houses are built by the government with money from charity funds and this makes the plot government-property. Agricultural land is demolished and captivated by the government to replace it with facilities beneficial for the entire community (the cricket field for example). Former farmers lost their land and were forced to become fishermen.
5.3.2 Income and Expenditures
Since almost all families are occupied as fishermen, the level of income is depending on
seasonality. The average income measured is 5844,83 rupees per month. The difference between high-season income and low-season income is enormous, respectively 12931,03 rupees and
5844,83 rupees. The high season starts in June after a ban period from the 15th of April until the
29th of May. The ban period has been set so the fish population can breed and recover itself. The
Housing conditions in Pattinacherry
Roof Walls Floor
Cadjan -13,3% Clay - 3,3% Cemented - 70%
Tile - 3,3% Cemented - 93,3 % Tile - 30% Cemented - 76,7% Brick - 3,3%
25 low season runs from October to December, also known as the storm-period; bad weather
conditions do not allow fishermen to go far out at sea. When not having access to sea, due to bad weather or as mentioned before: a silted river mouth, most fishermen fish in the river. Here they catch mostly prawn. Fish and crab are mostly caught at sea.
To catch fish, prawn or crab, one needs a boat. Boats are lend out by the local fisher company (there’s one in Pattinacherry) or fishermen own their own boat if it’s financially possible. Of all respondents, 6,7% owns a catamaran, a traditional raft made of logs, tied together by ropes. This boat type is very cheap but low in productivity and yield. 40% of fishermen owns a fiber boat, a boat made of fiberglass: plastic reinforced by glass fibers. These boats are relatively small but light in weight, sleek and fast. They can contain an average sized catchment of fish, but not as much compared to the steel boats, owned by merely 3,3% of all respondents. The largest part of the steel and fiber boats are situated in Karaikal harbour and owned by larger fishing companies instead of individuals. As an individual, it takes a long time to even out the costs of the boat with the catchment and selling of fish.
Other sources of income are generated by selling fruit and selling home-raised cattle. Of all respondents who do approach cattle sometimes, 49,2% is doing that because they generate income from selling the animals. There’s no specific percentage presentable of fruit-sales because this is more an informal transaction between neighbours instead of a real market-based sale. Only two respondents are having a different occupation than fishermen, one told she was a teacher and one told he was an engineer, but these are major exceptions.
With people under the age of 18 set aside, there is an unemployment rate of 6,5%.3 The other
parts of the adult population are housewife (29,9%), student (9,1%) or employed (54,5%). Among the employed respondents, 16,7% is female.
For several categories, respondents have indicated the amounts of rupees spent on monthly expenditures. Analysing expenditures gives the opportunity to identify ones poverty level. In 2013, the poverty line based on consumption was fixed at 7854 rupees expenditures per capita per month. (World Bank, 2014) In Pattinacherry, the mean expenditures are 4572 rupees per capita per month; most inhabitants are below the national poverty line.
5.4 Impact of the Tsunami in Pattinacherry
The 26th December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated coastal regions of the Indian
subcontinent. (Jaya Kumar, 2007) In the State of Puducherry, Pattinacherry was the worst-hit village. (The Hindu, 2007) 505 families and their houses got affected and 108 people didn’t survive the wave. (Unicef, 2013), (Government of Puducherry, 2005) Also boats, nets, fishing
3 This percentage is based on the data of the broader household survey (125 inhabitants) to get a better
26 gear and many trees and roads got destroyed. Pattinacherry never had any dunes and in 2004 there were only a few mangrove-type bushes to absorb the strength of the wave for protection.
However, these bushes only made the consequences of the tsunami worse. Families fled away of their fragile houses to avoid the risk of collapse, into this hinterland. When the wave hit, it turned out that the bushes didn’t absorb the strength at all and people got smashed into it like they were in a blender. Especially women with their long hair and children got tangled in the branches and drowned.
Right after the tsunami, the government gave each family 2000 rupees as interim relief and 10000 rupees a little later. The government also compensated for the loss of their boats. Besides the government, numerous NGO’s made them cope with the many losses. For example, a
Nagapattinam-based NGO, Sneha, compensated each family 10000-30000 rupees for damage to their houses. On government donated land a total of 454 houses were built, out of which 230 have been financed by the Mittal Steel Company, The Netherlands.
Pattinacherry had been susceptible to the sea washing in often, so there had been a wall on the border of the village and the beach. The tsunami completely broke this wall into pieces and some of the deaths had been causes by concrete slabs from the wall flying around due to the impact of the waves. A new wall, 3 meters high and designed by ITT, Chennai, will hopefully offer better protection. (The Hindu, 2007) Another new form of protection is the planted mangrove forest, 5 kilometres long and 50 metres wide.
The terrible event and the loss of many lives will always be remembered by a statue donated by the Mittal Steel company. (figure 6)
27 Figure 6 – Tsunami Memorial donated by The Mittal Steel Company, The Netherlands
(Source: E. Evers, 2014)
28 Figure 8 - The remains of a house that was destroyed by the tsunami (Source: E. Evers, 2014)
29
Chapter 6: Local Views on Ecosystems and Access to It
In this chapter, local views on ecosystems and the environment will be described. The first section of this chapter will outline how the (natural) environment contributes to good or bad living
conditions in Pattinacherry according to the residents. The second paragraph focuses on
recognition of different ecosystem resources and services by the local inhabitants. The last part of the chapter will describe how inhabitants have a certain degree of access to the recognized ecosystem resources and services, where the focus will be on the relationship between access and gender. The information given in these paragraphs are derived from the survey questionnaire. 6.1 Positive and Negative Aspects of the Environment
To figure out which components of life in Pattinacherry were experienced as positive or negative by the local community, I used a method of free interpretation. I let the respondents brainstorm, because then they answer what first comes to mind, instead of giving answers they think I desire to hear in pre-set categories. My plan was to categorize answers anyway later on, in case I did get too many diversified answers. It turned out that wasn’t even necessary. Because I’m interested in different experiences of men and women, I analysed answers of both gender dimensions to detect differences and similarities.
6.1.1 Positive Aspects of the Environment
Both men and women indicate a same positive aspect of life in Pattinacherry as most important, namely the presence of a cool environment. This is quite reasonable, in a warm country as India, a cool sea breeze is a gift and it’s beneficial for the working environment of men and during
household tasks for women. In addition to the cool environment, most frequently given answers by men to the question ‘Which things makes pattinacherry a good place?’, are a peaceful life, a
life without violence or protests, fishing, enough resting places, and a good water facility.4 Most
frequently given answers by women in addition to the cool environment are: fishing, good water facility, good electricity facility and peaceful life. 3 ‘Good water facility’ and ‘fishing’ are both
mentioned by men and women as one of the most important contributors to a good life, this shows that it is one of most important environmental factors for the community of Pattinacherry as a whole.
There were also some unique answers; only distinctively given by men or women. Things men mentioned, but women didn’t, are: no air pollution, clean sea, cheap fish and enough houses. With logical reasoning these things are probably important because they contribute to a healthy working environment in fishery. Unique answers given by women are: presence of primary school, clean environment, health centre, no traffic and birds. With logical reasoning these things can be related to taking care of kids and other family members, and a nice, clean living
environment when staying at home.
30 6.1.2 Negative Aspects of the Environment
Men experience the presence of only a small harbour as most negative aspect of life in Pattinacherry. The harbour cannot be any bigger because the government refuses to give
(financial) aid for construction. The authorities think expansion will be at the expense of nearby Karaikal port and Karaikal harbour. The second most negative aspect is the fact that the local ice plant is closed. The local fishery in Pattinacherry have built their own ice plant to preserve a larger fish catchment. The government does not give permission to open the plant for the same reason they won’t expand the harbour: it will allow for competition to other ports in the region. Other most mentioned negative aspects are that there’s only a small amount of water coming out of the government pipelines, approximately 1 hour per day. Also, the absence of a bus facility; the amount of passengers wouldn’t recover costs. And finally, equally mentioned, the fact that the gap between river and sea is frequently closed and the fact that in Pattinacherry there are no governmental jobs. The only profession possible is the profession of being a fisher. Just as with the positive aspects, most negative aspects can be related to the working environment of men. Women experience the small amount of water coming out of the government pipelines as most prominent negative aspect of the living environment in Pattinacherry. Other most frequently mentioned negative aspects are the absence of a bus facility, absence of street lighting, low income and the absence of a train station. Putting these issues into a logical frame, most of these aspects can be related being a housewife and the tasks associated with it. The absence of street lighting can bring safety of outside playing children at risk. And the absence of public transport facilities can be bothersome for women because they have to do errands in other towns. Answers uniquely given by men and not by women are: small fish population, absence of a library and the fact that some roads are still unpaved. Answers distinctively given by women are the facts that Pattinacherry does not have a Xerox place, the fact that they are suffering from mosquitos, and experiencing blackouts at home.
6.2 Recognition of Ecosystem Resources and Services
In the previous paragraph we found out which factors do and do not contribute to a good daily life in Pattinacherry. The human-made environment as well as the natural environment were taken into account. What I’m really interested in, is what villagers recognize as nature’s contribution to a good livelihood, so particularly the natural environment. I listed the ecosystem resources and services identified by the panchayat and the focus groups. I used the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to see if there were any conformities and to check if the communities’ answers did or did not deviate from scientific findings. It turned out there were quite some similarities, but not all of the named services were consistent. This is why I decided not to focus on the distinction between types of services provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, such as
regulating-, provisioning-, supporting- and cultural services. Besides, the division between these groups wouldn’t also be even. The associations between the ecosystems and certain services are
31 presented in table 5.
Table 5 – Recognized ecosystems and recognized services in Pattinacherry
Why men and women associate different services with the ecosystem services, has to do with different levels of access, mostly based on gender, this will be discussed in the next paragraph. 6.3 Gender and Access to Resources
Gender influences access to environmental resources in rural India in different ways. Gender inequality is embedded in a society’s kinship structure and cultural context. Nowhere is this relationship more obvious than in India. Culture in India exhibits a distinct regional pattern. Areas in the North are culturally less favourable to female autonomy than areas in the South and East. An important feature embedded in the society’s kinship is Patriarchy. Patriarchy refers to a set of social institutions that deny women the opportunity to be self-supporting, thereby making them dependent on male relatives for survival, and that otherwise favour men in the interfamilial allocation of resources and power. (Malholtra a.o., 1995) This phenomenon does also come forward when observing relationships between men and women in Pattinacherry. Even though it is located in the South-Eastern part of India; women have more difficulties in accessing assets and activities.
Recognized ecosytems
Men
Women
River
Jobs , Food, Income, Pl a ce of Lei s ure, Bea utiful Envi ronment
Wa ter, Income, Food, Bea utiful Envi ronment, Rel i gi ous Importance
Sea
Jobs , Food, Income, Cool Envi ronmentIncome, Food, Bea utiful Envi ronment, Rel i gi ous Importance
Sandy Beach
Jobs , Protection, Pl a ce of Lei s ure, Cool Envi ronment., Cl ea n Envi ronment,
Bea utiful Envi ronment
Jobs , Income, Protection, Pl a ce of Lei s ure, Rel i gi ous Importance, Cl ea n
Envi ronment
Mangroves
Wood, Protection, Bea utiful Envi ronment, Cl ea n Envi ronment, Ha bi tat for Ani ma l s
Wood, Protection, Bea utiful Envi ronment, Cl ea n Envi ronment, Ha bi tat for Ani ma l s
Cattle
Income, food, Cl ea n Envi ronmentJobs , Income, Food, Pl a ce of Lei s ure, Cl ea n Envi ronment
Birds
Food, Bea utiful Envi ronment, Rel i gi ous Importance
Food, Pl a ce of Lei s ure, Bea utiful Envi ronment, Rel i gi ous Importance
32 The next paragraphs illustrate how women and men have different levels and types of access to the six present ecosystems in Pattinacherry. In the survey all men and women were asked to answer the following questions concerning access to each of the ecosystems; River, Beach, Sea, Mangroves, Cattle and Birds.
• Do you visit/approach the ecosystem sometimes? – Why? Why not? • How many times do you visit the ecosystem on average per week?
• When you visit the ecosystem, how long is your visit on average? (minutes) • What items do you collect?
• Do you think the ecosystem is clean/polluted (or healthy/unhealthy) 6.3.1 Women’s Access to Resources
River
In Pattinacherry, it is socially uncommon and unaccepted for women to execute fishing activities. Except for selling or carrying the fish after catchment as can be seen at figure 9, only men can go fishing in the river and sea, operating the boats and nets. When analysing the answers given by women at the question ‘do you visit the river sometimes?’, 53% said ‘Yes’ and 47% said ‘No’. Reasons given for visiting the river are that the river is a nice, beautiful resting place often visited when also a visit to the adjoining temple is being made. Another reason is the Aadi Perukku
Festival.5 Women who do not visit the river are saying that this is because it is a place for men,
there’s no work for them or they are afraid of water, for example because they’ve lost relatives who drowned during the tsunami. The women who do visit the river, visit the river 2,73 times per week and they stay for almost 2 hours per visit on average. These women do not collect any items. When asking all women, also the women who do not visit the river, 53,3 of them thinks the river is polluted.
Figure 9 – Women carrying crates filled with fish. (Source: E. Evers, 2014)
5 Aadi Perukku is a unique South Indian, and especially a Tamil state festival, celebrated on the 18th day of the
Tamil month Aadi (august). Women in particular celebrate rising water levels due to the monsoon season by offering flowers and rice to Goddess Parvathi Devi in the river.
33 Sea
100% of all female respondents does not visit the sea. Reasons given; no work for women at sea, no permission from husband to go there, it is a men’s place and some women have fear of water. 80% of all women thinks the sea is clean.
Beach
Remarkably, the beach is generously visited by all female respondents. The main reason for
visiting the beach is the Masi Magam festival6, followed by the selling of fish, relaxation, and
playing with children. On average, women visit the beach 1,34 times a week and per visit they stay for approximately one hour and a half (95,33 minutes). Even though the beach is littered with all sorts of unused and useless items, as can be seen at figure 10, 80% of all women say the beach is a clean place. Women use the beach as a resource because they collect sand for drawing powder
to make Kolams7, they collect shells and they collect income from selling fish at the place.
Figure 10 – Waste on Pattinacherry beach (Source: E. Evers, 2014)
6 The Masi Magam festival is a bathing festival where a ceremonial bath in sea is given to the temple idols. 7 A kolam is a geometrical drawing consisting of lines, made of colored or white powders in front of a door or
