Indigenous technical knowledge of the fisher folk of Kerala (South India)

Abstract

Globally there is recognition of the valuable role that traditional knowledge held by indigenous communities can play in the contemporary management of natural resources. Indigenous knowledge possessed by fisher folk is characterized by practical skills and wisdom developed at a local scale through earning livelihoods from the sea over successive generations. These can contribute place-based, fine-scale spatial and temporal information, management techniques and institutions. A number of studies have investigated the nature of customary management of small-scale tropical fisheries and the revival of traditional practices. However only very few of them have attempted to explicitly identify and integrate them with modern management systems. In the present study an attempt was made to collect indigenous knowledge possessed by the traditional fisher folk of the state of Kerala (South India). The information was collected by organizing three workshops and by holding focus group discussions (FGD) with the fishermen and people inhabiting coastal regions. The traditional knowledge so collected was analyzed in the light of modern scientific principles and are presented in the present paper.