Fishing harbour, India
Kochi and the Chinese fishing nets
The shore-operated Chinese fishing nets of Fort Kochi, a busy fishing harbour and India's main marine fisheries institute.
Along the shore of Fort Kochi stand the cheena vala, the Chinese fishing nets: great cantilevered lift nets on teak and bamboo frames, lowered into the water and raised by teams of men using stone counterweights. They are among the most photographed sights in India. Kochi is also a major fishing harbour and home of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, which tracks India's sea fish.
How the nets work
Each net hangs from a frame about 10 metres high, balanced on a pivot. A crew walks along the main beam to tip the net into the water, waits, then shifts the counterweights to lift it out with whatever has swum above it: mullets, small sardines, prawns and the odd pearlspot. The nets are thought to have come with traders from China centuries ago, though the date is uncertain. Catches have fallen, and many nets are now kept up partly for visitors.
Harbour and science
Boats from Kochi's fisheries harbour at Thoppumpady land oil sardine, mackerel, seer fish, tuna and prawns. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, founded in 1947 and based in Kochi since 1971, estimates marine fish landings across India and studies stocks such as the oil sardine, whose catches along the Kerala coast swing widely from year to year with ocean conditions. Kochi is also a centre of seafood processing and export.
Still to be written: Indian oil sardine, Indian mackerel, Narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, Green chromide, Flathead grey mullet.