From 21st June 2017 to 8th July 2017, I was worked with SDMRI ( Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute) in Tuticorin to study the health and status of coral reefs in the Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu. It all started as a guilt feeling when I realized how less I know about different ecosystems of my own country. To overcome this guilt in part, I started to look for organizations in India that are doing environmental work; this is how I learned about SDMRI. I was looking at Government of India’s website about where funding is going for coastal research and that’s when I found out about SDMRI. So one day when I was high on enthusiasm, I dial up SDMRI’s number and very randomly ask for internship positions in their institute. The director of the Institute, Dr. J.K. Patterson Edward, pick up my call saying that we do not offer any internship projects. I insist that I am very interested and I am willing to work on my own, without any compensation, my pure interests are in experiencing the ecosystem of GoM. I next send him an email sharing my interests, a research I did on coral reef resilience in the Caribbean Islands and my CV. He went through my documents and replied saying that he finds my interests honest and encourages my enthusiasm for conservation for which he would like to offer me SDMRI’s facilities for as long as I would like to study given I get permission from the Wildlife Warden to conduct research in the protected area. Now, that was a roadblock. Months later when I call Dr. Patterson once every week about the status of my permit he says, “If you really wish to do something with SDMRI, you just come down to Tuticorin and we can figure something out”. That was it, my bags were packed and next thing I did was fly to Tuticorin. Within a few days, I learned how I was not going to get permission for the time period I was there due to lots of red tapes and ignorance at the environmental department's part. Before I could even be disappointed about this facts, Dr. Patterson assured that I can do some work in the open areas where permission is not required. But there was only a little I could do so I planned to switch my goal to making observations through field visits.
We started our field activities every morning at 7 am by visiting coastal villages where I learned about the issue of bycatch in local fishing activities. There are five coastal villages in Tuticorin namely: Pudhukadarkarai, Thirespuram, Siluvaipatti, Vellapatti, and Tharuvaikulam. In Thireshpuram, the fresh bycatch of corals (both soft and hard) along with sponges could be easily seen. The fishermen were bringing bycatch on shore and piling them up in the waste heap to be burned later. Thireshpuram was different from other villages where most of the fisherfolks were not bringing bycatch onshore but they tried to clear their nets in the deep water itself. The fisherfolks from all the villages agreed to the fact that they were catching a lot of benthic substrate and fishes as bycatch but they also pointed out that it is not good for them to be planting their nets in the coral-rich areas as it would break off the net so they try not to fish in coral reef areas. Due to the lack of time, no significant data was collected but based on field observations and fisherfolks’ comments it was understood that each day about 10 kgs of hard corals is being collected as bycatch per boat, and this catch is also dependent on the current. If the current is low, bycatch is also low and vice versa. The types of nets were usually consistent among the villages with a number of boats ranging from a 100-300 among different villages.
In addition to the coastal villages, I also visited multiple coral reef habitats to study the health of reefs in GoM. In 2003 SDMRI was the first institute to start the monitoring of reefs in GoM and their studies have shown that overall, the health of coral reefs in the GoM, particularly in the Tuticorin region have been healthy. During my field visits to the reefs, I saw that the dead cover of bleached corals. Experts at SDMRI say that the reefs died out due to a massive bleaching event last year where the temperature was very high starting April but this year, they are starting to see recovery and their belief is that the reefs will recover back to normality in a few months. I was able to document some of the recovery patterns at one site where all the species common to this year could be seen easily. The bed was covered with the dead coral cover of mainly Acropora sp. and Montipora sp. and the live corals were also from the same genera along with some infrequent spotting of Porites sp. and Galaxea sp. Among the three 20m line transects I studied, there was no sign of coral bleaching or disease. There were a couple colonies of Acropora sp. with growth anomalies and one colony of Porites sp. showing pigmentation response. The dead coral cover was not dominated by algae. There were a few species of red and green algae present in the area but through observation, it did not look as if they were competing with the coral cover.
SDMRI is also involved with island erosion studies where they are deploying artificial reefs around eroding islands. Their monthly monitoring shows that the Vaan Island is faring well after the establishment of artificial reefs in its current facing side. Coral reefs are very good wave breakers and save islands from the impact of high energy waves. Vaan Island was among the 21 other inhabited islands in and around GoM which has been facing erosion like many of the islands in the area. In the event of sea level rise, this problem of erosion would be double folded and soon these islands would be submerged. The work of SMDRI to conserve and monitor these islands is laudable.
In about three weeks, my knowledge level grew from having absolutely no idea that coral reefs are present around mainland India to the nitty-gritty of everyday life of local fishermen, their impact and dependence on GoM. As a part of this internship, I got to attend the plenary meeting of Wildlife Institute of India where different institutes focusing of on different coastal institutes came together to contribute to renewing the management plan of GoM for the next decade. My takeaway from the workshop was that each institute is still at a preliminary stage of work but all in good intentions are collaborating to give back to the Gulf as much as they have taken. In return for the knowledge I gain, I conducted a small workshop to train the researchers of SDMRI on Google Earth Engine. The capacity of doing remote sensing work is huge but the resources here are very limited with researchers trying to make a very basic map with hardship. Thus, my ever favorite GEE was pitched to SDMRI and I hope they will find it helpful. The students and researchers here are as knowledgeable as you can imagine and more than anything are the fisherfolks of the region. They would probably know much more than it has ever been documented for the region. Truly, the power of traditional knowledge and experiences can’t be overtaken by a few years of research.
All-in-all, my few weeks of stay in Tuticorin was a great learning experience.India has such a rich diversity of not only terrestrial but also coastal natural resources. The GoM region needs a lot of work but the research of institutes like SDMRI are contributing a lot of proper management. Similarly, there is a huge scope of work yet to be done all across India. Aside from educational experience, I got to learn that South India is in fact as diverse as North/East/ West. It is just the nature of India that you can move a mere 100km or less to find a completely different language, culture, and food. As a take away from this experience and much to my guilt, I really wish and would work towards contributing to the diverse environment of India. Hopefully, I would be able to make something out of managing the coastline of India.
We started our field activities every morning at 7 am by visiting coastal villages where I learned about the issue of bycatch in local fishing activities. There are five coastal villages in Tuticorin namely: Pudhukadarkarai, Thirespuram, Siluvaipatti, Vellapatti, and Tharuvaikulam. In Thireshpuram, the fresh bycatch of corals (both soft and hard) along with sponges could be easily seen. The fishermen were bringing bycatch on shore and piling them up in the waste heap to be burned later. Thireshpuram was different from other villages where most of the fisherfolks were not bringing bycatch onshore but they tried to clear their nets in the deep water itself. The fisherfolks from all the villages agreed to the fact that they were catching a lot of benthic substrate and fishes as bycatch but they also pointed out that it is not good for them to be planting their nets in the coral-rich areas as it would break off the net so they try not to fish in coral reef areas. Due to the lack of time, no significant data was collected but based on field observations and fisherfolks’ comments it was understood that each day about 10 kgs of hard corals is being collected as bycatch per boat, and this catch is also dependent on the current. If the current is low, bycatch is also low and vice versa. The types of nets were usually consistent among the villages with a number of boats ranging from a 100-300 among different villages.
In addition to the coastal villages, I also visited multiple coral reef habitats to study the health of reefs in GoM. In 2003 SDMRI was the first institute to start the monitoring of reefs in GoM and their studies have shown that overall, the health of coral reefs in the GoM, particularly in the Tuticorin region have been healthy. During my field visits to the reefs, I saw that the dead cover of bleached corals. Experts at SDMRI say that the reefs died out due to a massive bleaching event last year where the temperature was very high starting April but this year, they are starting to see recovery and their belief is that the reefs will recover back to normality in a few months. I was able to document some of the recovery patterns at one site where all the species common to this year could be seen easily. The bed was covered with the dead coral cover of mainly Acropora sp. and Montipora sp. and the live corals were also from the same genera along with some infrequent spotting of Porites sp. and Galaxea sp. Among the three 20m line transects I studied, there was no sign of coral bleaching or disease. There were a couple colonies of Acropora sp. with growth anomalies and one colony of Porites sp. showing pigmentation response. The dead coral cover was not dominated by algae. There were a few species of red and green algae present in the area but through observation, it did not look as if they were competing with the coral cover.
SDMRI is also involved with island erosion studies where they are deploying artificial reefs around eroding islands. Their monthly monitoring shows that the Vaan Island is faring well after the establishment of artificial reefs in its current facing side. Coral reefs are very good wave breakers and save islands from the impact of high energy waves. Vaan Island was among the 21 other inhabited islands in and around GoM which has been facing erosion like many of the islands in the area. In the event of sea level rise, this problem of erosion would be double folded and soon these islands would be submerged. The work of SMDRI to conserve and monitor these islands is laudable.
In about three weeks, my knowledge level grew from having absolutely no idea that coral reefs are present around mainland India to the nitty-gritty of everyday life of local fishermen, their impact and dependence on GoM. As a part of this internship, I got to attend the plenary meeting of Wildlife Institute of India where different institutes focusing of on different coastal institutes came together to contribute to renewing the management plan of GoM for the next decade. My takeaway from the workshop was that each institute is still at a preliminary stage of work but all in good intentions are collaborating to give back to the Gulf as much as they have taken. In return for the knowledge I gain, I conducted a small workshop to train the researchers of SDMRI on Google Earth Engine. The capacity of doing remote sensing work is huge but the resources here are very limited with researchers trying to make a very basic map with hardship. Thus, my ever favorite GEE was pitched to SDMRI and I hope they will find it helpful. The students and researchers here are as knowledgeable as you can imagine and more than anything are the fisherfolks of the region. They would probably know much more than it has ever been documented for the region. Truly, the power of traditional knowledge and experiences can’t be overtaken by a few years of research.
All-in-all, my few weeks of stay in Tuticorin was a great learning experience.India has such a rich diversity of not only terrestrial but also coastal natural resources. The GoM region needs a lot of work but the research of institutes like SDMRI are contributing a lot of proper management. Similarly, there is a huge scope of work yet to be done all across India. Aside from educational experience, I got to learn that South India is in fact as diverse as North/East/ West. It is just the nature of India that you can move a mere 100km or less to find a completely different language, culture, and food. As a take away from this experience and much to my guilt, I really wish and would work towards contributing to the diverse environment of India. Hopefully, I would be able to make something out of managing the coastline of India.