How the Octopus Close Season Affected Women’s Life in Rodrigues Essay

Rodrigues is a 108 square kilometre, volcanic originated island, located in the Indian Ocean at around 600 kilometres at the east of the mainland Mauritius. It is surrounded by coral reef forming a lagoon with a rich biodiversity, which as twice the size of the land It was formerly known as the tenth district of Mauritius, up to the 10th of December 2002, where it attained the status of autonomy, governed by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly. The economy is mainly based on traditional fishing, low-scale farming, handicraft and an emerging tourism sector. One of the most common means of traditional fishing, is the famous octopus catch, which is mainly done by the Rodriguan women, known here as the â€Å"piqueuse d’ourite†. This is done at low tide where the fisherman equipped with iron rods, pace up and down the coral barrier, in search of a hole where nests the mollusc. The new government elected in February this year, expressed the wish to consolidate sustainable developments and protect local resources, for food security and protection of the environment. In this connection a regulation was adopted by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly in July 2012 for the closure of octopus catch season as from August 2012 to October 2012. This program is a joint collaboration financed by Smartfish and the Rodrigues Regional assembly. Smartfish is a regional programme financed by the European Union and is implemented by the Indian Ocean Commission in collaboration with the Common Market for Eastern and southern Africa (COMESA) , the east African community (EAC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development ( IGAB). The Octopus fishers were called for a half day work in the interest of the environment against remuneration in order for them to cope with the loss of earnings. The fisherwoman at the beginning of the project found a lot of difficulties to adapt with it. They used to sell their octopus on days where they go fishing and hence handling money in small quantities, spread over several days. In the program they were paid after a week of work. They found much trouble to wait for the pay and had to adapt themselves to a new form of budgeting and a new form of saving in order to meet expenses for the coming days before next payment. For example Mrs Cupidon of Baladirou, a professional fisherwoman, who use to earn around Rs 300 each time she goes fishing, uses go to the nearby shop everyday where she buys food for the day and keeps around Rs 25 rupees to pay the electricity bill at the end of the month. Now being paid after a week forced her to seek for credit and pay after one week, it has been hard for her to persuade the shop owner to grant her such service. Locating an octopus in the sea is reserved to expert eyes and intuition. Since young age many â€Å" piqueuse d’ourite† have been initiated to the skill of locating the octopus’s next, to tackle it in order to force it out of its hiding place and to kill it in such a way as to avoid being hurt by the mollusc. When, they are called to exert a new profession such as to build stone retaining walls, many of them were in trouble and could not adapt themselves. Moreover it was the first time in their lives where they were placed below the supervision of a superior, where they had to be punctual and abide to the principles expected from a public worker. Many supervisors also xpressed the obstacles they had to overcome to make them respected and to impose laid principles. At a time during the programme cycle, there was a delay for payment, which had consequent and dramatic impulses on the lives of these fisherwomen. Being not used to keep savings, many of them found themselves without food. Formerly a part of their catch was kept for own consumption, but with this program they consumed only food bought from the shop. There were also absentees at school due to the fact that many women were penny less and could not provide for basic daily needs of their children. In this project, the one who benefitted the most were the fisherwoman themselves who after the opening of the season found their catch being multiplied, where the volume and size of octopus was highly satisfactory, to the point that actually they are keen for the government to repeat the project this year. The venture of this government to implement this program is to be greatly saluted as it goes in the direction of sustainable development. However some measures have to be tuned and re-adapted to suit the peculiarity of the way of living of the fisherwomen and decisions should be taken with their full collaboration.