Sunday Times 2
A solution to poaching crisis
Anybody can make a claim to the fish in the open sea. But, once caught, it becomes the property of one who caught it. However, the Law of the Sea 1982, provides the proprietary country the exclusive right to its natural resources, including fishery resource within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles (1 nautical mile =1.151 miles) from the shore, and legal rights in the territorial water, extending to 12 nautical miles from the shore.
As Rameshwaram and Mannar are about 15 miles apart and Indian shoreline and islands near Jaffna are about 48 miles apart, the EEZ and the territorial boundaries of India and Sri Lanka overlap. In such situations, the Law of the Sea says that both countries should come to an agreement on the line of demarcation, which is usually the median between the two countries. Sri Lanka and India have agreed on that line, including the ownership of Kachchathivu, which has not been ratified by the Indian Parliament.
During the past few months many Indian fishermen have been caught allegedly fishing in Sri Lankan waters and a number Sri Lankan fishermen have been caught allegedly fishing in Indian waters. Unfortunately they end up in jails, causing great distress to their families and children. Navy surveillance radars clearly show that Indian boats are intruding into Sri Lankan water. Mannar’s Bishop the Rt. Rev Rayappu Joseph says, “Indian boats come as close as 500 metres from the coastline and they come in their thousands. On the days these boats come our people do not go fishing because they are frightened.”
This issue can be effectively solved, if the following steps are taken:
1 Both countries must be honest, sincere, truthful and trustworthy on what they say, as the Indians have lost confidence after retracting the 13 plus Amendment assurance.
2 Both countries must agree on the boundary.
3 Demarcate this boundary with anchored buoys with visible flags and solar powered lights for all fishermen to see the boundary during day and night.
4 Educate the fishermen in both countries on their responsibilities and consequences of crossing this boundary
5 Sri Lankan and Indian Navy and border protection agencies establish a task force and conduct routine patrol.
6 Both countries should agree that those who violate the Law of the Sea would face the legal proceedings according to the laws of each country.
Fish stock assessment and management of fishery resources in the Indo-Sri Lanka basin using mathematical models and ecological data are other issues that the two countries can jointly research and implement with international cooperative funds. Unlike, non-living resources (e.g. minerals), fish and crustaceans are living-aquatic resources, and are not depleted by extraction within limits and assist to maintain healthy population. The knowledge of standing stock, recruitment, fishing mortality, migration, level of exploitation, cost of fishing etc. are necessary to introduce control measures in some situations to avoid over-fishing and replenish the stock. Indian fishermen are coming to Sri Lankan water saying that their stocks are already depleted.
In the past, typical fishing disputes have arisen in fishing provincial towns such as Chilaw.
The major fishing disputes of Chilaw were the overlap of fishing grounds by different communities (i.e. Valla, Vallavediya, Aluthwatte etc.), fishing methods that destroyed the prawn resources (i.e. boats trawling in seagrass beds) and interference in traditional prawn fishery rights (i.e. setting nets upstream when families by traditional rights have set their nets downstream to catch the sea-bound prawns). In 1950s following a court order, a tall tower was built on the shore, dividing the sea into two, so that two main communities could fish in each fishing grounds. It worked well.
Deploying anchored buoys to demarcate the maritime boundary would be an important step in resolving the current conflict in the Indo- Sri Lankan marine basin.
(The writer worked at the Fisheries Research Division, Ministry of Fisheries and taught Management of Marine Resources in several universities. He sent this letter from Australia.)
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