Climate Change and Its Impacts on Marine Fisheries Livelihood – A Special View on Eripurakarai Village

Abstract

Eripurakarai is a large village located in Pattukkottai Taluk of Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu with total 995 families residing. The Eripurakarai village has population of 4285 of which 2047 are males while 2238 are females as per Population Census 2011. In Eripurakarai village population of children with age 0-6 is 554 which makes up 12.93 % of total population of village. Average Sex Ratio of Eripurakarai village is 1093 which is higher than Tamil Nadu state average of 996. Child Sex Ratio for the Eripurakarai as per census is 1037, higher than Tamil Nadu average of 943. Eripurakarai village has lower literacy rate compared to Tamil Nadu. In 2011, literacy rate of Eripurakarai village was 74.51 % compared to 80.09 % of Tamil Nadu. In Eripurakarai Male literacy stands at 82.59 % while female literacy rate was 67.18. In Eripurakarai village out of total population, 1548 were engaged in work activities. 95.54 % of workers describe their work as Marine Work (Employment or Earning more than 6 Months) while 4.46 % were involved in Marginal activity providing livelihood for less than 6 months. Of 1548 workers engaged in Main Work, 12 were cultivators (owner or co-owner) while 300 were Agricultural labourers. The Marine Education Trust has produced a new education pack called Explore the Sea, which is a series of resources for young people that is intended to be very practical and hands-on while not requiring a great deal of additional equipment or materials. It’s not meant to be a course, just ideas that can be mixed, matched and adapted depending on what individual organization need at the time. Explore the Sea is a resource pack containing a series of practical activities to teach young people about the different habitats, marine life and environmental pressures affecting tropical coral reef ecosystems. It is arranged in seven topic areas that cover five particular ecosystems (reefs and lagoons, sandy beaches, rocky shores, mangroves and the open ocean) as well as introducing general ecological concepts and highlighting important conservation concerns. According to Census 2011 information the location code or village code of Eripurakarai village is 614701. Eripurakarai village is located in Pattukkottai Taluk of Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu, India. It is situated 14km away from sub-district headquarter Pattukkottai and 61km away from district headquarter Thanjavur. As per 2009 stats, Eripurakkarai is the gram panchayat of Eripurakarai village. The total geographical area of village is 829.27 hectares. Eripurakarai has a total population of 4,285 peoples. There are about 995 houses in Eripurakarai village. Adiramapattinam is nearest town to Eripurakarai. There are 105 craft owners in Eripurakarai. The craft owners comprise of two categories viz., mechanized boat owners and country boat owners. Out of 105 craft owners there are 85 mechanized boat owners and 20 country boat owners. In Eripurakarai there are 250 middlemen. The middlemen comprise two categories namely wholesaler and retailer out of 250 middlemen there are 50 wholesalers and 200 retailers. The socio-economic condition of fishermen families in the study area is analyzed in the project. 50 fishermen are chosen at random for this study. These socio-economic conditions of their families are analyzed and focused in this study.