An Overview Of Our Solution
Enhancement of Fishery and Biological Resources by Fabrication and Deployment of Artificial Reefs with community participation in India
Who is this solution impacting?
Ecosystem
Océanos/Costas
Community Type
Suburbano
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
Problem
Describe the problem
By introducing complex concrete structures with more spread area it enables the settlers and foulers to colonise on these structures there by increases the biodiversity of the region where the artificial reef are installed. This in turn attracts many small fishes and then the large fishes migrate into the artificial reef area. Then these fish population start breeding which lead to the increase in the population size of various fish species in the artificial reef area. This ensures an uninterrupted fish availability in the artificial reef area and the traditional coastal fishermen are assured of fish availability. Fishing is done within a short time and this ensures better quality of fish. This leads to realization of better price for better quality fish on the landing centre
Biodiversity Impact
The deployment of artificial reefs along the shallow coastal water seems to yield better results in improving not only the ecosystem and also bettering the social and economical status of the coastal community through better livelihood opportunities. Especially different types and shapes of concrete artificial reef structures have been observed not only to increase the spread area of the bottom surface of the sea but also to increase the complexity of ecological niche in the shallow waters leading to an increase in the population of various invertebrates and vertebrates in the area of artificial reef. Multifold increase in the biodiversity of the artificial reef area successively leads to an increase in the fish populations. This further leads to an increase in the fish production by the coastal fisher folk, thereby leading to a better benefit sharing of the biological resources among the different marine fisheries sectors. There is a saving on the fuel, time and human energy expenditure. . The objective of developing artificial fish habitats is basically to improve conventional commercial and recreational fishing and to sustain marine productivity. A variety of structures are sued to attract various species or marine organisms. They range from improvement to the indigenous structures spread in extensive areas to very sophisticated concrete structures. Therefore the solution of deployment of artificial reef has created sustainable fishing and conserves the marine ecology and enriching the coastal biodiversity.
Solution
After the deployment of artificial the village committee plays a very important role in protecting the artificial reef zone by doing regular monitoring. The village monitoring committee advised their community fishermen to do fishing after the maturation period of six months to one year period of time in the artificial reef zone. They also insisting to do hook and line fishing and cage fishing. Eventually, the trawler and FRP Boats using gill net cannot do fishing in the artificial reef zone as their net will get stuck in the reef structure and damaged craft and gears. The rich biodiversity of the Indian coastal waters has been devastated by prolonged mechanized trawl operation since the past five decades and this can be revitalized through the systematic establishment of the artificial reefs all along the Indian coastal waters. This excellent ecological invention called artificial reefs should be considered as one of the prime activity as this not only leads to recolonization of the coastal waters at the sites of artificial reefs, but also enhances the breeding or reproductive potential of coastal organisms many fold at the reef sites leading to the revival of the coastal fishery stocks and restoration to their original levels. Artificial reef also serve as a fence to the marginalized fishermen by protecting their fishing ground within 5 nautical miles off the shore. In this way the artificial reefs protect coastal biodiversity against local threats. // There are around two hundred artificial reef structures occupies the surface area of one hectares at the bottom of the sea and increased surface up to 3 hectares as the surface area available in the artificial reefs. Details of Different structures: Ring Ornamental fish Module Triangular Reef Fish Module Triangular Grouper Module
Replicability
How many years has your solution been applied? 5 years// Have others reproduced your solution elsewhere? No // its aims at empowering the fisher community in planning and execution of the project components, absorption of new fishing technologies and introduction of post harvest processing / handling techniques, new market avenues for the value added products in order to attain the maximum economic benefits from these intervention. The artificial reef is not required more management as the structure are safe deployed in the bottom of the sea. It is very important that this solution can be managed only by fishermen as they regularly go to the sea for fishing. By creating community ownership and when it becomes an asset of the community they themselves manage the artificial reef zone from any external threat. To study the impact of this solution we regularly collect the fishing effort data from the fisher men that how much quantum of fish they caught in the artificial reef zone and comparing with previous date to identify the fishery resource improvement.
Human Well Being and Livelihood Impact
PLANT with the support of Ford Foundation assisted the federation to start this Fishery Biological Resource Enhancement Project. Finally the fabrication and deployment of Artificial Reef project has been successfully implemented with technical guidance of CMFRI in one of the fishing village called Sattankuppam in Pulicat with the active participation of fishing community in the year 2007. The fishermen fishing in the Artificial Reef zone around 3000 tons of fish in a month. This innovative intervention is still supporting more 350 families in Sattankuppam village. Tamilnadu State Fishery Department have appreciated the federation for their effort and standardized this participatory Fabrication and Deployment module to replicate the project in other sites. As an overwhelming achievement of this project the government of Tamilnadu has sanctioned four more artificial reef projects in Tamilnadu at the cost of 40 lakhs Rupees. Out of four projects, one project has been sanctioned to Lighthousekuppam fishing village in Pulicat. Again CMFRI has sanctioned one artificial reef project to Vairavankuppam fishing village which was executed by fishermen by themselves. This project supported nearly 1200 families in Pulicat off coast. The fishing effort in all three artificial reef zone has been increased up to 10000 tons per month which is valued up to Rs.15 Lakhs income to the 1200 families. So per family fishing effort will get around Rs.12,500 which is more sufficient to take care of their livelihood. // Mostly the artificial reef project has been implemented by the community by themselves by adopting participatory approach. They are exercising the full control of managing the project. They feel that they are owner of this project. Some time they are not allowing other villages to do fishing in their artificial reef zone. In some occasion conflict had taken place among the fishermen which were solved by their association and government officials. The fishermen also are using the latest technology of using GPS - Global Positioning System to locate the artificial reef zone. They keep the GPS point confidentially without revealing to outsiders. They are having their own social control system that all the fishermen in the village abide the customary law practices to conserve the fishery resource. They are not allowed over exploitation of the fishery resources in the artificial reef zone and promoting sustainable use of fishery resources in the reef zone.