Asian-Pacific Aquaculture 2019

June 19 - 21, 2019

Chennai Tamil Nadu - India

FISHERS’ PERCEPTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON FISHERIES IN THE SOUTHERN COASTAL DISTRICTS OF TAMIL NADU

Sai Susmitha Bhargavi Kapparapu, Nambali Valsalan Sujathkumar, Rajagopal Santhakumar and Paulraj Jawahar
 
Department of Fisheries Extension, Economics and Statistics
Fisheries College and Research Institute
Tamil Nadu Dr.J.Jayalalithaa Fisheries University
Thoothukudi - 628 008, India.
Corresponding author: kssbhargavi1995@gmail.com
 

Climate change has been recognized as the foremost environmental problem of the twenty first century and has been a subject of considerable debate and controversy. It is predicted and proved to lead adverse, irreversible impacts on the earth and the ecosystem as a whole. Although it is difficult to connect specific weather events to climate change, increase in global temperature has been predicted to cause broader changes, including glacial retreat and worldwide sea level rise. Interaction with climate by humans occurs at all levels but research has focused on industries, technological and demographic aspects. But now there is a strong prerequisite to study about the factors that influence perception and decisions making at the individual level since it has received less attention so far. The perception of the fishers will play a significant role in the development of fisheries. Therefore, a research has been undertaken to find out the perception of fishers' about the climate change on fisheries. The study was conducted in Ramnathpuram and Kanyakumari districts and from each district two fishing villages were selected for conducting the survey.  A total of 120 fishers were selected randomly from these villages proportionate to its population size. The fishers were interviewed and their responses to the climate change were collected. The data revealed that about 85% of the fishers perceived that climate change are likely to be catastrophic in the years to come. About 70% of the respondents reported from their experience that changing the current seasonal patterns, previously available fish has been affectedand many valuable seasonal fish species have declined in the recent past. Almost 65% of the fishers indicated that due to climate change the overall number of fishing days has declined and such decline has put additional pressure on crew to work hard to get more catch per fishing trip. Over 90% of them opined that investments in fishing have increased recently which is presumably leading to high level of indebtedness among the fishers. About 94% of the fishers expressed that the fishing duration has also been increased which is causing a lot of conflicts among the fishers and also with other neighbouring fishing villagers.Further, sea safety concerns, inefficient source of communication during fishing, lack of coverage of mobile signals at sea, inconsistent prices of diesel and petrol and improper marketing facilities to sell their catches are some of the constraints encountered by the fishers. This article explains the fishers' perception of climate change on fisheries, their constraints, etc.