The catch seemed hardly worth the effort. The beautiful Chinese Fishing Nets at Fort Kochi are a great tourist attraction at sunset - a combination of strong structural lines and delicate fish netting, their immense cantilevered weight looks weightless, as they hang out over the water, with nets 20 metres wide. They are a permanent land installation, which arrived in Fort Kochi 500 years ago, according to some, introduced by the Chinese Explorer Zheng He. Others suggest that they were brought in by the Portuguese a couple of centuries ago.
Constructed from bamboo and teak, 10 metres in height, the weight of the structure is counter-balanced by heavy stones at one end and at the other, the delicate curves of the netting. The 11 remaining fishing nets at Fort Kochi (there used to be 30 between Vypeen and Fort Kochi) are lowered and raised at least 30 times a day by 5 or 6 fishermen and the small catch is sold to passers by.
The nets are expensive to maintain, but it would seem that the real urgency lies in funding the regeneration, nurture and preservation of the fish stocks, to prevent them from dying out completely ! Small fish are a sure sign of over-fishing, therefore a period set aside allowing fish to spawn and grow, would be a way of restoring the balance.
No comments:
Post a Comment