Tragedy of the commons: In Karnataka, small-scale fishers are losing their foothold

Karnataka is keenly implementing various Blue Economy programs, including the Sagarmala projects aimed at port-led industrialisation and infrastructure development. The Government of India has defined India’s Blue Economy in a broader context encompassing multiple sectors including energy, tourism, seaports, cargo, mining, fishing etc. The three coastal districts of Karnataka – Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Uttara Kannada –  in the process, will receive further investments. 

The stretch between Mangaluru and Surathkal in Dakshina Kannada is already a highly industrialised belt. With the Blue Economy program even Uttara Kannada, a district that has actively avoided industrialisation through civil and legal resistance, is likely to become industrialised. The latest official list of projects under Sagarmala in Karnataka shows a total of 37 projects worth about ₹15,243 crore. 

Seven projects worth ₹178.36 crore are reported to be completed. Though Coastal Community Development is a major theme (see Table 1) in the investments, only ₹7.52 crore out of ₹411.27 crore will be on “Coastal Districts Skill Development Program.” Over 98 percent of the investments will be going towards development of fishing harbours. Community and human resource development do not appear to be top priorities in Sagarmala projects.

Governance of the ocean in the Blue Economy regime could pose serious challenges for those who have traditionally depended on the ocean for livelihoods. Industrialisation over the last four decades in coastal Karnataka has already infringed upon the spaces customarily available to coastal communities in general, and fishers in particular. Space in this context refers not only to the physical or spatial dimension, but also in terms of governance, political representation, policymaking, and livelihood options.

Table 1. Summary of Sagarmala projects in Karnataka.

Important regulations such as the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) Act that helped fisher communities access coastal commons have been diluted to facilitate implementation of Blue Economy programs. For example, the amendment brought out in 2018 to the CRZ Notification shrinks the No Development Zone (NDZ) in zone CRZ-III(A) to only 50 metres landwards from the High Tide Line, which previously was 200 metres. The amendment technically allows tourism activities to be taken up in such ecologically sensitive areas that were traditionally used by fisher communities for securing their livelihood. 

It is the small-scale fishers who are most vulnerable to changes in governance of coastal commons. Given that most of the fishers of coastal Karnataka use traditional fishing boats that are operated manually or with low-powered engines (see Figure 1), they can be considered as small-scale fisheries (SSF). Small-scale fishers often lack power to take on competitors who are more powerful economically or politically. These competitors may come from various sectors such as industrial fisheries, heavy industries, infrastructure development, real-estate, tourism etc. 

Number of fishing boats in coastal Karnataka, by district and type of boat.

Ports shrinking the space for Small-Scale Fishers

In terms of physical space, implications of Blue Economy are obvious: ‘Coastal Commons’ in Karnataka would be under even more pressure from competing interests that seek privatisation of such resources. Such privatisation would dispossess the coastal communities, who have historically depended on the coastal commons for their livelihoods.

Port modernisation and new ports under Sagarmala could directly infringe upon the space available for SSF. It is already visible in Honnavara, where a commercial private port is being constructed by Honnavara Port Private Limited. In 2018, 90 acres of commons land was given to the company just next to the existing fishing harbour in Tonka village at the mouth of the Sharavati estuary, and a road connecting the port with national highway has been built (Figure 2). 

The Forest Department of the Government of Karnataka has identified this area as the Oliver Ridley turtle nesting ground. The road cuts through a stretch of land used previously by fisherwomen to dry the fish. In addition, local fishers complain that not only has the road encroached upon the land used by fishers, incessant movement of vehicles results in dust and particulate matters in the air that settle on the fish being dried thus leading to inferior quality dried fish. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has put on hold the road construction for violating CRZ provisions.

In Tonka village of Honnavara, a connection road to the commercial port has been constructed on a stretch of land that was being used by fishers for fish drying.

Fisheries policies and shrinking livelihood space

Apart from threats to physical space, small-scale fishers of coastal Karnataka have been mostly ignored in policymaking. From the time of the first five-year plan, governmental programs encouraged mechanisation of fishing to enhance fish production. Larger harbours and landing centres were built to develop the fisheries sector. There were clashes between factions favoring traditional and modern fishing that resulted in property damage. 

However, support for modernisation as a policy continued unabated. Industrial-scale harvesting of oil sardines and mackerels was achieved in Karnataka. The state government even offered assistance to encourage fishermen to shift from Rampani, a traditional beach-seine operated in Karnataka coast, to purse-seiners. It is not uncommon to find artisanal fisherfolk working as labourers in mechanised boats as their traditional livelihood options are becoming unviable due to unavailability and inaccessibility of resources.  

Despite the important role of SSF in creating livelihood for lakhs of men and women in Karnataka, their contributions often go underappreciated, weakening their livelihood options. For example, salting and drying of fish is an important traditional activity in coastal Karnataka performed by thousands of small-scale fishers, predominantly women. 

In the first and the second five-year plans, the government made provisions to promote fish drying by constructing drying yards in major fishing harbours and subsidising critical inputs such as salt. However, from then on, governmental programs have largely ignored the fish drying segment in the state. 

Lack of land rights prevents most small-scale fishers including dried fish processors from receiving financial support from formal institutions, forcing them to depend on informal money lenders. In post-harvest stages of the fish value chain, emphasis of policymakers has been on developing cold chains through ice-making plants, refrigerated trucks, freezing plants, and cold storages.

An indigenous, popular, accessible, nutritionally efficient, and ecologically sustainable fish preservation technology such as salting and drying has been ignored for too long on which the livelihood of most small-scale fishers, especially women, depend. The popular Kannada proverb summarises the policy apathy “Hithhala gida maddhalla” meaning “neglecting the obvious”.

An important characteristic of SSF of Karnataka is the “beach landing point” playing an important role in supplying fish to local and regional markets. A beach landing centre is a small stretch of the beach without any pavements or constructions used by fishers to dock small fishing boats after hauling. Such small boats cannot be docked in large harbours with concrete wharfs as their hull gets damaged due to collision with hard surfaces. 

Moreover, modern harbours have wharfs that are too high for docking small fishing boats (Figure 3). Even though the government spends crores of rupees every year on construction, expansion and maintenance of large fishing harbours, beach landing centres do not even appear in policy documents. The Fisheries Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) of the Government of India does not appear to support projects aiming for improvement of beach landing centres at all, concentrating instead on development of larger harbours and landing centres. Incompatibility of the fisheries policies of the state with the needs of its small-scale fishers likely resulted in no takers for many schemes of the Department of Fisheries in Uttara Kannada under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana.

A beach landing centre adjacent to the Kasarakoda fishing harbour in Honnavara: small-scale fishers dock their boats on unpaved beach with not even basic facilities.

Eco-parks and tourism shrink the space for small-scale fisheries

Even seemingly well-intentioned modern policies could subtly impact SSF. For example, beaches at Padubidri in Udupi and Kasarakoda in Honnavara have been awarded the Blue Flag Beach certificate for sustainable tourism by the Denmark-based Foundation for Environment Education (FEE). However, this has created exclusive zones in the two beaches limiting the access to the beach space (Figure 4). 

Artisanal fishers who used the beach for landing and drying have been offered no alternatives.  Similarly, the cleanliness drive conducted at the Tagore Beach in Karawara has affected the small-scale fishers, who use the beach for keeping their fishing craft/nets and for fish drying. In addition, the tourism amenities on the one side and resorts on the other have squeezed dried fish processors to a tiny patch (Figure 5).

Kasarakoda eco-beach: A barricade separates the cleaner stretch of the beach from the rest of the beach.

Cage Farming - a new enclosure undermining SSF

Promotion of farming of fish in net-cages in coastal waters is an important component of India’s Blue Economy policy. Cage farming is being popularised in coastal Karnataka through heavy subsidies by the government, and cages are being set up in estuaries in large numbers (Figure 6-A). Carnivorous fish, mainly the Asian seabass, are being farmed in those cages. The fish are fed with fishmeal and fresh fish such as mackerel (Figure 6-B). A direct consequence of cage aquaculture would be creation of private enclosures within commons, encroaching upon the customary rights of small-scale fishers to catch fish in those waters. There would be indirect impacts on local food systems and sustainability of fisheries if farming of carnivorous species goes unabated. First, the quality of waters around the cages can be expected to deteriorate due to nutrient release, organic load, and harmful substances. Studies on salmon farming in Europe have indicated such possibilities.

Second, the practice of feeding fish or fishmeal to grow carnivorous fish for human consumption is not an efficient pathway of consuming fish. Third, such a practice produces fish for richer consumers by diverting affordable forage fish that are important for low-income consumers. Barramundi is sold at ₹500-600 per kg in the retail market while fishers receive about ₹250-300 per kg. 

A kilogram of mackerel typically costs ₹60-75 at the landing centre and is sold in retail markets at ₹150-300. Food security and livelihood security in the region can be better served by promoting farming of bivalves that feed at lower levels of the aquatic food chain.

Mushrooming of cages in the Sharavati estuary for farming of the Barramundi (A), in which chunks of fresh mackerel are being used as feed (B).

Coastal grabbing, commons grabbing, and blue economy-led growth have conspicuous commonalities devoid of both ecological and livelihood concerns. Sustainable Development Goals remain cosmetic terms in policy documents unconcerned with ecological and livelihood dispossessions. Though there are some promising provisions made in the Blue Economy policy that could be utilised to promote sustainability of SSF, track-record in fisheries governance and blatant negligence for SSF do not infuse much hope that actionable policies aimed at small-scale fishers would be implemented.

(With field support from Prashanth Ramappa and Nayantara Lakshman)