awater covers this entire area — sometimes as deep as 15 feet at some areas. During low tide, the mud is soft but hardy enough to walk on easily, although in some places one may sink till the ankles. It is here that about 650 fishermen’s families from Bhadreshwar and Luni villages have been practising what is called “pagadiya fishing” — where boats are not used but rather fishing is done on foot — for an estimated four centuries. But the fishermen fear all this may 
disappear soon. They have been writing and protesting to local, state and Central authorities, including Union Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh, to stop industries from being set up nearby. One of the reasons is that they fear industrialisation in the vicinity would mean this ecosystem, and the livelihood it offers, will perish.
Pagadiya fishing is a simple affair. Fishermen walk far into the bander during low tide and erect nets upon sticks planted into the mud. As the high tide covers the bander, fish from the Arabian Sea swim onto the algae-rich area and feed there. As the water recedes during low tide and the fish with it, they get caught in these nets. All the fishermen have to do is walk upon the bander and collect them.
On an October afternoon, 42-year-old Osman Jamutar was planting a row of sticks on the mud to form a long and steady arch, busily tying a 400 m net to the sticks. Putting two fingers in between the weave of the nets, he explained the small fish could easily pass through it. “We make sure the small and baby fish escape so that the entire fish population does not die and it allows reproduction,” he said, adding that government agencies like Marine Product Export Development Agency were instrumental in spreading awareness about sustainable fishing.
Jamutar sets up this arching net twice every day, in the morning and afternoon. He goes home to his village and returns when the high tide has come and gone. He normally returns to a crowd of fish, caught in the nets. He wraps these up in the net itself, mounts them onto his bicycle and rides home, where his wife and the women in his family sort the catch and take them to the village market. The wives and female relatives of those pagadiya fishermen who have licenses from the Fisheries Department sell their catch in the towns nearby — Mundra, Adipur, Gandhidam and Anjar.
Pagadiya fishing is practised in villages Surajbari, Cherawadi, Navinad, Jarpara, Shekhadia, Luni, Bhadreshwar, Phirsangar, Wandhi, Lakhpat, Jakhau along the Kutch coast.
What kind of fish do they catch? Jamutar gives a long list: “Gandhia, Chhodi, Crabs, Khokri, Khagi, Khetar, Kunga, Bhufari, Serkhundra...”
As one steps onto the bander during low tide, one comes across crabs peeping from under the wet, sandy surface, tiger prawns burying themselves not far away, even several mangrove saplings.
Ibrahim Sale Manjalia, 61, bends down and runs his fingers over the mud to show a thin, green film over it — algae deposits. “The fish come and eat this,” he explains, and points to a shallow stream that runs from the land towards the ocean. “Those bring food for the fish from the land.”
Ibrahim spent a month in jail last year, as he was arrested with five others when protests against a proposed power plant near the village turned violent. He was one of the leaders of those protests, rallying villagers with songs he had composed.
The streams he shows are the lifeline of this ecosystem. Originating inland, they flow towards the Gulf and deposit minerals onto the mud of the bander, serving as feed for the fish, crabs and prawns that thrive there.
Building industries inland may result in these creeks getting blocked and cutting off this supply.
As we walk towards the Arabian Sea, we come across a V-shaped, 3 km long, 6 ft tall net being put up by three men and three women, hurrying to finish the entire length before sundown. This giant net, which the fishermen call “wall net”, will stand for eight months, unlike the shorter one that is set up and removed daily. When we ask the fishermen how much this “wall net” would catch, one of them answers reluctantly: “Maybe Rs 1,500 worth in one week.”
