Radio Monsoon redux?

[Sailor John]

Just saw a post on the FEJI (Forum of Environmental Journalists in India) a heritage email group from the glorious internet of the 90s and scrolled down to see my dear friends Max and Sajan as signatories of the email.

Ok, here are some thoughts on the current scenario vis a vis marine weather for fishermen in Kerala:

 On an online national workshop conducted by INCOIS for users of its weather and tidal data outputs, I learned that there are a few more community radio stations besides Radio Benziger here in Kollam, broadcasting marine weather now from around the Karunagappally Alappuzha belt. Can't remember the names but I'm sure they can be tracked. 

As we all know, the IMD bungled up and failed to warn fishers of the Ockhi cyclone that unfortunately went on to become the most dangerous storm of this century on the west coast that incurred the highest casualties among fishermen. They even managed to cover their tracks so well that there's no trace whatsoever on the internet and wikipedia of the fact that the IMD office was shut on the fateful weekend when the storm warning had already reached their computers unnoticed. 

Okay, that's all behind us now. Lots of lessons were learned. The coast guard did an exemplary job in the rescue efforts, probably the best rescue operations immediately after a cyclone ever in the history of the subcontinent that included the recovery of bodies even in the final stages of decomposition. 

The immediate fall-out of this was there was a gherao of the IMD Thiruvananthapuram office led by the late T Peter and members of his fishermen union. I remember hearing of it from a media report and calling him up on the phone to congratulate him for the gherao. T Peter's untimely death from the pandemic was a terrible loss to the fisheries sector of Kerala and Thiruvananthapuram in particular simply because either he did not leave a worthy successor or nobody rose to fill that vacuum yet.

Now let us get back to what's going on currently with the marine weather from the IMD post Ockhi. These heroes are now simply issuing blanket warnings even during normal monsoon rough weather periods preventing fishers from going out to sea. If someone can track the loss of fishing days post Ockhi ONLY due to weather warnings, and compare with loss of fishing days from monsoon weather warnings before Ockhi, you will know exactly what I'm trying to say. This a quandary so to speak because there's no way we can say the IMD is wrong or right about this.

But it is possible to arrive at a wind speed and wave height after which it can be deemed dangerous to go out to sea in the monsoon period. 8 to 10 feet wave height and wind 35 to 45 kmph is in my opinion a safe upper limit of sea weather during the monsoon. This can be cross checked with fishers during the monsoon when this weather prevails. This may not be the exact weather across the Kerala coast and there may be pockets where the wind and wave height may go over these figures but on the average, I feel this is tolerable weather even for small boats.

In other news, INCOIS is apparently working on a small boat warning system but around the VIzag area and specifically for the east coast. This is what I heard and during the online national workshop, I'd asked about the possibilities of this warning system extending to the west coast but it was either drowned in the noise or ignored because the east coast thingy is still in the very early stages of development.

If you use the analogy of traffic lights to depict the dangers to marine fishermen from the weather on the west coast, the lights would always be green with occasional yellows and very rarely reds. 

Best of luck to Max and Sajan. Good to hear you guys are up and about.

[Ahana Lakshmi]

Hi John,

I believe Dr John Kurien has carried out a study in Kerala about the number of 'forced holidays' due to rough seas. There was also some discussion about parametric insurance in Kerala.

regards,

ahana

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[Sailor John]

Thanks very much, Ahana. Glad to know someone as good as Dr John Kurien has tracked this. I'm not really interested (anymore) in taking a deep dive into anything concerning fisheries but will definitely get in touch with him to see if I can take a look at the study.

The thing about parametric insurance or compensation for loss of work hours and earnings is that it is not possible to realistically estimate the losses incurred due the very nature of fishing so invariably they will miss the mark and often end up under-compensating. 

We need a more secure and robust search and rescue system in place for the inshore regions (within 50 km of the coast) so that fishers will be free to go out to sea during the monsoon (not during cyclones) and be sure and confident that they will be rescued in case something bad happens. In the high seas, beyond 50 km and well into and beyond the boundaries of the EEZ, the coast guard has a good presence and can be relied on but (relatively) few fishing boats go that far.