Kerala and the World Economy by Mani Sunil

Author:Mani, Sunil [Mani, Sunil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Centre for Development Studies
Published: 2020-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 9.3: Trends in marine fish landings in Kerala: 1985-2018 Source: CMFRI Data repository

Typical of any tropical water fishery, most part of Kerala’s fish catch (62 % in 2018) was constituted by pelagic fishes such as sardine, mackerels, anchovies, and thread fin breams (Table 9.6). The trends in pelagic, demersal as well as total landings in Kerala’s coast during 1985 to 2018 are presented in Figure 9.3. The landings showed a steady trend during the 1990s and 2000s before peaking in 2012 followed by a sharp decline in the immediate ensuing years. Such a steep fall in landings from the level of 8.39 lakh tonnes in 2012 to 4.82 lakh tonnes in 2015 was mainly caused by large scale collapse of oil sardine stock. Recent studies have shown that many of the commercially important fish stocks along the coastal waters of India, particularly along the south west coast, are overfished. Mohammed et al, 2010 reported that, out of the 19 species analysed along Kerala coast, Southwest India during 2003-2005, the stocks of 9 species have been declining, 2 were depleted and 1 has collapsed. Several factors such as anthropogenic (over fishing), biological (spawning failure, competition from other fishes), and environmental (El Nino, rising SST, erratic rainfall and other climatic events) causes were shown to have elicited the resource crisis exemplified by the sardine stock decline (Rohit et al., 2018; Kripa et al., 2018).

Table 9.6: Species composition of fish landings in Kerala, 2018 Species Landings (tonnes) Share (%) Elasmobranchs 905 0.14 Oil sardines 77093 12.00 Other clupeids 16062 2.50 Stolephorus spp. 51358 7.99 Other anchovies 16105 2.51 Perches 87331 13.59 Carangids 110268 17.16 Pomfrets 6846 1.07 Indian mackerels 80568 12.54 Seer fishes 4228 0.66 Kawa kawa tuna 8565 1.33 Skip jack tuna 5932 0.92 Other tunnies 8612 1.34 Flat fishes 25717 4.00 Crustaceans 64969 10.11 Mollusks 1688 0.26 Cephalopods 50180 7.81 Miscellaneous 22794 3.55 Total 642583 100.00

Source: CMFRI Data repository

Figure 9.4: Fish landings in Kerala by major craft-gear categories: 1985-2018

Source: CMFRI Data repository

Note: MTN: Mechanized trawl net (including multi-day); MGN: Mechanized Gillnet; IBRS: Inboard Ring seine; OBBS: Outboard boat seine; OBGN: Outboard Gillnet; OBRS: Outboard Ring seine.

Trawls and ring seines are two major gears that are used to harvest most of the resources off Kerala coast. Trawlers mainly target shrimps and other demersal and benthic resources. As obvious from Figure 9.4, mechanised trawlers (including multi-day trawlers) harvested about 30-55 per cent of all marine fish and shell fish landed in Kerala during 1985 to 2018. After their introduction of outboard ring seiners in early 1980s borne out of research initiatives of CIFT, significant increase in harvests of pelagic fish, mainly sardines and mackerels were realized (Panicker, et al., 1985). From less than 10 per cent of total landings in 1985, the share of outboard ring seiners increased steadily to range between 30-50 per cent during the past two decades. Subsequently, inboard ring seiners were introduced in the late 1990s that resulted in a gradual substitution of the former by the latter. In TE 2018, 35 per cent of all landings in Kerala were realized through ring seine fishing.

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