Pritesh Shiyal, a 23 year old fisherman from Mumbai and the third generation involved in trawl and purse seine fishing from the family, studied hotel management and works as a senior bartender on the side. “The demand and availability for the species has changed over the last few years, and it is so high that the fishes we used to catch before are not available anymore.”
“Our current boats are over 16 years old, and my family has been buying and selling fish for more than 40 years. I have been visiting the docks since I was a kid, fishing seemed to be a lot more sustainable before, groups of fishermen would go and catch fish and there was every species available in plenty, there was no scarcity of the fishes like we see in these years”
“Nowadays fishermen go and target the species that are reproducing and the entire cycle goes wrong, we cannot find fishes now. There is so much demand for usual species like prawns, pomfrets and we cannot find good quality fishes in the ocean just because of this overfishing factor.”
Marine fishing in India supports around four million people (CMFRI-FSI-DoF, 2020) and gets foreign exchange worth US$7.76 billion through export (MPEDA, 2022), it is also a major contributor to national food security. The fishing sector in India constitutes 6.3% of the global fish production and contributes to 1.1% of the overall GDP and 5.15% of the agricultural GDP of the country.
During 2021, Maharashtra saw an estimated 1.23 lakh tonnes of fishing landings which was a 12% decrease from the 1.4 lakh tonnes the previous year. This was mainly because of loss of fishing days, scarcity of labour for fishing and allied activities associated with frequent bad weather warnings to add to factors like the pandemic. (CMFRI – CFD/RMP/13)
33 year old Govind Chavan, a fisherman from Karnataka whose family is involved in farming, now works on buying and selling in Mumbai, because job opportunities are better on these landing sites. “Anyone who is educated does not come back to the industry, they choose to find a job elsewhere that has more financial security.”
“I had to move here as soon as I was done with my primary education. Initially I lived with my elder brother and his wife who spent their whole life working in Mumbai and slowly made local influential contacts in this industry. I would have preferred to continue my education but unfortunately family debt was high and that made us have to start earning as soon as possible”
“My family did not have the resources to continue my education, and I was left with no other choice”, he added
“I shifted to Gujarat because the payment system here is different, we get a salaried amount every month despite the money that the boat is making”, Vijay Tandel from Talasari in Konkan, Maharashtra prefers this system instead of the catch dependent payment system in Mumbai or the daily wage labour back home. “Currently we are facing some weather issues when we go to the deep sea or far away from the shore. Sometimes we are not in the range of VHF (Very High Frequency) radios that the government provides so we don’t know when a storm is coming or when the seas are about to get choppy”
“The amount of good quality fish has also reduced and all we get is low quality or medium quality bycatch.”
“There is high diesel consumption in our boat, so diesel price is also high and becoming a major issue.”
The fishing community has to often look for a second source of income during the non fishing months to be able to sustain a living. With the financial security from fishing reducing even further, the younger generation finds it easier to take up an alternative livelihood altogether.
Other factors like an economic shift in the sector, has put families in debt because of reduced catch or increase in frequency of repairs needed for their nets and engines due to the currently harsh weather conditions.
“Over the last 10 years, changes in the climate have made the seas harsher, affecting fish behaviour and fishing safety. The weather conditions are simply not the same as we saw growing up. The average temperature has increased, there is rise in sea level, increase in frequency of floods, cyclones, landslides, unpredictable rain, habitat destruction and unregulated pollution.”, says Ganesh Nakhawa, a seventh generation purse seine fisherman from Mumbai.
“Fishing and allied activities have become highly unreliable and seen as a low status or rural job by most youth. Growing urbanisation with the aspiration of a better life, stable income and a higher social status directs their interests to move out of the sector.”
“Basic skills that require understanding of the industry are also lacking in the younger generation because of the reduced time they have spent on ground with their parents”
“The attitude and treatment of the general population towards the community, looking down on them as a poor or rural population has influenced the way we are looked at by society, and now we have no sense of self identity left”
“With other initiatives like the White and Green Revolution, the authorities focused on the upliftment of the indigenous communities, they provided better facilities and developed the quality of the industry, but with us there is almost a gap of two generations that has lost interest in the trade and not been on field, it is already too late to develop the community”
“Traditional knowledge is passed on from one generation to another and when this chain is broken, it leaves room for someone else to occupy this space and get involved in the trade influencing the whole ecosystem and moving the economic autonomy outside the community more than it already has.”
“An additional internal competition of access to catch between small scale and large scale fishing, has not worked in providing a stable future for the industry.”
(Views expressed are personal. References can be availed on request.)
Book 1: Marine fishing in India supports around four million people (CMFRI-FSI-DoF, 2020) and gets foreign exchange worth US$7.76 billion through export (MPEDA, 2022. The fishing sector in India constitutes 6.3% of the global fish production and contributes to 1.1% of the overall GDP and 5.15% of the agricultural GDP of the country.
Book2: “The fishing community has to often look for a second source of income during the non fishing months to be able to sustain a living. With the financial security from fishing reducing even further, the younger generation finds it easier to take up an alternative livelihood altogether”
-Akansha Tiwari, social activist and conservationist
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