Sea Weeds in the Gulf of Mannar

An understanding of ecology and its inter-related existing livelihood practices of the community is essential for conservation as well as livelihood promotion. However, our present ideas of conservation are bereft of the community and our ideas of livelihood are bereft of the local ecology.

Just as the physical ecosystem of the coast is immensely complex, the livelihood activities of the coastal communities are also very diverse. Apart from the plethora of fishing related livelihood activities, seaweeds are another coastal resource that have been part of the livelihood spectrum of the coastal communities. This has been thriving in this region for the last 40 years at least, ever since a viable market opened in India for Agar extracted from sea weeds. This is heavily used as raw material in the food processing and healthcare industries. Seaweed collection is by diving underwater, without any oxygen support and picking them by hand. 

In the Gulf of Mannar region near Rameswaram, natural seaweed collection of the species Sargassum is done especially by women as a livelihood activity. Men are involved in the fishing works, most of them as labourers on trawl boats, but a minority have their own small country boats. An average trawler labour can earn about Rs.10,000 per month. In this context, women earning an additional amount is invaluable for the household. However, this would only be secondary. Unlike the fishing activity, this sea weed collection is an entirely female controlled activity – from collection, to processing and sales. The money is more in the control of the woman. The seaweed collectors are a group of women sea-divers. Let it sink in again. Sea weeds play an important role in their lives.

Flawed conservation:

In 1986, the Gulf of Mannar was declared a Biosphere Reserve in view of the unique coral ecosystem. But from 2002 onwards, restrictions became strictly enforced and fishers were denied access to the corals and the 23 sea-islands. The concern of the Forest Department was that these activities were a threat to the fragile coral ecosystem. That’s when the community started feeling the heat of the forest department’s harassment, in a bid to clear them from fishing and seaweed collection. There would be physical beatings and threats against men and women alike. Their fish laid out for drying would be thrown away, nets would be confiscated or torn, several worse crimes I choose not mention as well. The actions of the department deserve strict action, focussing on human rights violations.

In a bid to de-escalate the situation and seek a permanent solution, the fishing unions came together with some NGOs and had joint meeting with the Forest Dept and the district administration. The women collectors agreed to scale down operations from 25 days to 12 days a month. The women also agreed to ban the usage of metal scrapers to collect seaweed, and instead only handpick them, like picking tea leaves. The women also decided to clean, dry and sort it manually so that the quality of the product improves. In return, the district administrators helped by negotiating with traders to give higher prices per kilo. 

Figure 1: Collected Sargassum laid out for drying

The women unions enforced these regulations quite forcefully among them. A few villages went even further. They enforced rules of what time of the day to collect seaweeds. They were to collect seaweed only during low tide timing. This was to allow fishes to feed on the weeds during high tide. These timings would keep changing by 30 minutes daily, in keeping with the moonrise times. Some women have prepared tables displaying timings when they could leave each day of the month. They also rejected the Forest Department’s core assertion that collection destroys corals, as sargassum grows in dead coral areas, and not in live corals. The women avoid the live corals. These women say that with these newer regulations in place, they have witnessed marginally higher returns. This despite collecting for 12 days instead of 25 per month, and the number of women increasing to 3 times. Basically, these rules of sustainable commons management are so intricate, displaying a very high degree of understanding of the resource ecology.

But the forest dept doesn’t recognise these extra steps the women are taking, it doesn’t understand these nuances of the resource. Instead, the dept has continued its harassments. They don’t seem to accept that weeds are collected from dead corals and not live corals. The rights of these women to collect seaweed are yet to be sanctioned. 

Flawed livelihood programmes:

In a bid to wean them away from sea weed collection, the govt promoted Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Trust as well as several NGOs in coordination with Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Mandapam came up with sea weed cultivation as an alternate livelihood. They introduced an ‘improved’ species of sea weed from the Philippines called Kappaphycus alvarezii, known for its fast growth and maturation in under 45 days. Many women groups were given extensive training on cultivation techniques. The technique used bamboo rods, attached in circular fashion. Strings were attached end to end all throughout the circle. This was called a raft. Tiny grafts of the seaweed were placed at regular intervals along these strings. This raft, would be covered on the bottom side with fishing net and placed in sea water. The net prevented fish from eating off the growing sea weeds. Heavy rocks were attached to these to act as anchors for these rafts.  25 gms of grafts would yield 20 kgs of sea weed in 45 days. A part of the harvest would be kept as the input for the next cycle. These became like seeds for a farmer.

But as experienced in several other govt promoted projects, the uptake wasn’t by these women, but by others who weren’t as involved in the seaweed collection trade. 

Figure 2 : Bamboo rafts, before tying strings in the middle

This gave good rewards for 3-4 years. Several women made quite a good amount in these years. There were quite a few who said, “this weed sent my daughter to college!”. One can imagine the number of NGO-sponsored Case Studies and Impact Assessments such stories of “Women Empowerment” would’ve given rise to.

However, after that initial success, harvests began to plummet. So much so that in less than 2-3 years, yields almost stopped. For the last 6 years, none of the women here have been cultivating this sea weed. The entire cultivating activity has come to complete halt. These empty bamboo rafts had been kept aside for a while now. What could possibly explain such a decline?

Theory 1: 

Some of the former women cultivators said that the decline wasn’t just for this species but also for the sargassum also. The waters are getting warmer, and even the composition of the water is changing. One mention of water temperature rise, and our minds immediately ponder about Global Warming. If this were true, this activity can never be revived here. And this would also mean a gradual end to the sargassum collection as well. However, that’s not what is experienced by the seaweed collectors.

Theory 2:  

A few others opined that the seeds had become old. This logic appealed to me. Good farmers replace seeds every 3-4 years, regardless of the variety – native or HYV. It’s considered good practice to use the same variety seeds, but from a different soil every 3-4 years. This theory was the marine analog of the same agrarian logic. If this were true, then if CMFRI were to get new grafts from their labs of the same variety, it would start working again. But the need for getting new ones every few years would be there.

Theory 3:  

The sea weed cultivation was done on bamboo rafts as shown in the pic. Each woman would use about 4-5 rafts. And there would around 20-25 women who were involved in each group. Hence, one would have about 100-125 rafts almost permanently stationed in one enclosed shallow section of the gulf. The seaweed would grow well spread out, with each plant occupying a fairly large volume. Women would insert next round of grafts onto the raft periodically. Meaning that their timings would so synchronised that there would always be some harvest ready raft, and some rafts ready for next round of planting. Thus, this shallow section of the gulf would always be clogged. The natural movement of the nutrients from sea in this section was affected, along with the water flow. The sand accumulated below would not get fully flushed out by the sea waves, due to this clogging. So, essentially 3-4 years of intensive cultivation had drained this section of its nutrients necessary for sea weeds. It could also be that this variety of kappaphycus was too nutrient intensive, like a marine-analog of HYVs, which require dosage of chemical fertilisers.   

This was the most appealing theory for me, as it was very detailed and nuanced in its understanding of the marine ecology. This was propounded, not by a woman who did Kappaphycus cultivation, but by one involved in natural sargassum collection. This just goes to show the extent of understanding that these women have. If this was indeed true, then we could wait for a certain period of time for that section of the gulf to regain its natural depth, for the sea to replenish the nutrients and we can resume cultivation.

I should also caution that I have written this from interacting with people from a very limited section of the gulf. In other areas, there are reports that this kappaphycus has become an invasive species and multiplying rapidly, to the detriment of native sargassum species. However, these weren’t witnessed in the section of the Gulf that I visited.

Whichever may be the correct explanation, it remains that introducing new species to an ecosystem must be done with great care and proper attention to detail. This risk is further increased, when we want to make people’s livelihoods dependant on these species. It was the foresight of the women sea weed collectors not to get into cultivation. How do we expect people to give up what they have been doing reasonably well to take-up something new, and fraught with unknown risks?

We need to gain an integrated understanding of an ecology and people’s livelihoods. It’s part of the same whole, and not two separable entities.