For two years now, a group of social scientists, physical geographers, atmospheric and marine scientists, and communications and media experts have been working closely with artisanal fishers in three coastal villages near Thiruvananthapuram to improve their safety at sea. In this episode, we speak with team member Johnson Jament to learn more about why this is an issue that deserves attention, affecting not just the survival of fishing communities but wider society as well.
This conversation is part of Ala’s special issue on the Forecasting with Fishers project. Check out their website for more articles, interviews, and features about the project.
We Discuss:
- 00:01:45 – The artisanal fishing community in Kerala.
- 00:05:00 – Artisanal fishers are a socially, geographically, and politically isolated community.
- 00:08:30 – Why choose ‘weather prediction’ as the one point of intervention?
- 00:13:45 – Where and why the existing systems have failed.
- 00:20:45 – How these trust deficits were overcome to work with the fishing communities.
- 00:24:30 – The importance of disseminating infromation in Malayalam and local dialects.
- 00:26:00 – What are the specific questions that the research answered for the fishing community?
- 00:29:15 – Government takeover and setting up the weather forecasting service.
- 00:33:00 – Interest from other states in making accessible weather forecasting available to artisanal fishers.
- 00:34:15 – Experience of sharing findings with the communities in Puthiyathura and Marianad villages.
Interview/editing: S. Harikrishnan
Producer: Zeenab Aneez
About the Guest: Johnson Jament is a Research Associate of the Forecasting with Fishers Project undertaken by School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, UK. In the previous years, he had been working with the University of Northampton for their inclusive education programmes in India. He is also one of the members of the coastal community in Kerala.
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