Big fish eat little fish in the South Asian seas
Big fish eat little fish in the South Asian seas
Might is right as large foreign trawlers net fish off South
Asian shores, leaving little for impoverished local fisherfolk.
Mahesh Uniyal of Inter Press Service reports.
NEW DELHI: The first thing V. Vivekanandan, head of a
fishworkers federation in South India, looks up in the morning
newspapers, is the rupee exchange rate for the Japanese yen.
In recent months, the soaring yen has pushed up the cost of
small Japanese-build outboard engines popular with traditional
fish boat owners along the country's vast southern coast.
For generation, indigent fisherfolk living on India's 7,200 km
peninsular coast have gone out to sea for their food and
livelihood on catamarans small outrigger boats.
But as the foreign boats trawling the coastal water for
lucrative shrimp and prawn shrink the catch, traditional fisher
families have to go out to sea in tiny craft with small,
kerosene-powered imported engines.
Even then, they have found themselves crowded out. Many
countries in South Asia now allow giant fishing vessels into
their deep seas for a fee. Pakistan remains an exception, but
local fisherfolk allege that foreign trawlers often enter
Pakistan waters, depleting fish stocks.
The region's small-time fisherfolk complain that they are the
danger of losing their livelihood and are being driven deeper
into poverty.
Buying the engines, for example, means borrowing at high rates
from loan sharks -- often pawning the family jewelry. The
fisherfolk say though that the growing number of bigger vessels
in their midst give them little choice.
"The Indian Ocean has the lowest productivity of all oceans,"
admits Vivekanandan, who is also a member of the international
collective in support of fishworkers.
But he notes that it has now turned into a rich hunting ground
for the large out-of-work fishing fleets, mainly in Western
nations where strict bans protect stocks in the overfished
waters.
Last year, New Delhi opened the deep seas on the advice of an
expert panel to net the 1.3 million tons of fish which reportedly
remain uncaught annually.
But fishworker activists say only 164,000 tons of the uncaught
fish is commercially viable. They add that New Delhi overlooked
the work of another study done by the Rome-based Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) that found there was very little
scope for sustainable fishing in India's deep seas.
In Sri Lanka, the annual fish catch of 200,000 tons is 125,000
tons short of the estimated yearly requirement. Officials in the
fisheries ministry in Colombo say fish catch has peaked in the
coastal areas over the past eight years. They are now trying to
exploit the deep seas with foreign aid. But there are reports of
poaching off Sri Lankan waters by Korean and Japanese fishing
vessels.
In Pakistan too, more than 200,000 traditional fishworkers
inhabit the 900 km coastline, there have been many incidents of
poaching by large Japanese and Korean vessels.
Large trawlers belonging to foreign companies are catching
shrimps, prawns and crabs for the export market, but using
equipment which damages the sea bed and other marine life, says
Tahir Qureshi of the International Union of Conservation of
Nature (IUCN).
They are joined by locally owned vessels that employ migrant
labor rather than the local fisherfolk to scour seas. These
people are not bothered about sustainable fishing and totally
disregard the ban on fishing in the spawning season, IUCN
officials say. They use fine nets that catch even tiny
fingerlings before they can fully mature.
"Overfishing is a problem in all developing countries and
worries local people because their livelihood is threatened," say
Qureshi. And the battle lines seem to be firmly drawn with the
traditional fisherfolk on one side and large, mechanized, mainly
foreign-owned vessels on the other.
Indeed, Vivekanandan's groups is part of the year-old National
Fisheries Action Committee against joint ventures, representing
10 million Indian coastal fishworkers who are agitating against
the opening of the deep seas to foreign vessels.
Under pressure from the campaign, New Delhi earlier this year
announced a review of the deep sea fishing policy. But
fishworker-activists are dissatisfied because the review panel
does not give them representation.
Thomas Kochery, president of the National Fishworkers Forum
that is spearheading the anti-foreign vessel campaign, says for
the first time, traditional and small mechanized boat owner have
sunk differences to fight a common enemy.
More than half the catch is netted in less than 50 metre-deep
sea water, with 2.5 million tons caught by the 154,000
traditional boats.
But complicating matters these days is a vague definition of
'deep sea', say Vivekanandan. This could lead to clashes between
foreign and local fishing interests particularly in India.
Monitoring will be difficult as there is confusion about where
the high seas are. These were once defined as more than 200
meter-deep waters. But a recent government notification defines
the deep seas as 22 km beyond the shores.
"India inshore waters (less than 50 meters deep) are
definitely overfished, "says Vivekanandan. "I expect the tension
(with foreign vessels) to be in the offshore (between 50 and 200
meters deep) region."
He says this is still the most unexploited and the foreign
will have to work in them to make a profit.
-- IPS