Artificial reefs give hope to struggling fishermen

Posted: 19 December 2007

by Marie Banu Jawahar

An Oxfam partner in southern India is working to restore fish stocks and with them the incomes that so many coastal communities depend on.

For months after the tsunami, fishermen stayed away from the sea out of fear; when they returned, they found that their catch had been seriously reduced. Now, in the first initiative of its kind in India, a national environmental organization is helping communities reverse that decline with a program to create durable artificial fish habitats.

The way artificial fish habitats, or reefs, work is this: any object placed in the sea, whether it floats or sinks, will provide a surface for algae formation. Small fish come to feed on the algae, and they in turn become prey for larger fish. Traditional fishers in India have known this for a long time. They used to attach pieces of wood to their heavy wooden catamarans or to concrete blocks, but the devices only lasted three or four months and had to be replaced frequently.

With funding from Oxfam, the Center for Environmental Education (CEE) has designed a stronger version of the traditional device – a spherical concrete object that can withstand strong currents and is expected to last 50 years or more. The reef balls, as they are called, cost about $165 each and can be manufactured locally. The goal is to deploy 50 of them off the coast of Karaikal, benefiting 500 families in four villages.

The CEE project will help reduce the danger of venturing far out to sea to harvest fish, and the financial benefits could be substantial: the National Institute of Ocean Technology estimates that within two years, the reef balls could increase the local catch by 30 times.

After the hardships of the past three years, many in the communities have reason to believe that times of plenty are close at hand.