News
No more bottom trawling in Sri Lanka waters from Thursday
On Thursday, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Minister Mahinda Amaraweera will set a global precedent by proscribing one of the world’s most destructive forms of fishing — bottom trawling — in Sri Lankan waters.
In doing so, the minister will be reiterating the Government’s commitment to sustainable exploitation of the country’s vital fishery resources. Fish contributes around 65 percent of the protein intake for Sri Lanka’s 20 million people.
Bottom trawling involves dragging a weighted, cone shaped net -- fine mesh -- along the sea floor
The prohibition is also intended to buttress northern fishermen’s repeated demands for an immediate end to illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lanka waters. As many as 1,500 Tamil Nadu trawlers have been reported fishing illegally in Sri Lanka waters, using bottom trawls.
The proscription of bottom trawling is a fitting response to those European countries that have recently been highly critical of Sri Lankan fishing practices; countries whose own fishing industries rely almost exclusively on this highly destructive, indiscriminate and often controversial form of fishing.
The United States, Britain, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Indonesia and India have all introduced partial or temporary bans on bottom trawling; to mitigate the devastating impact of bottom trawling on their marine environments and resources.
But no country has taken such a decisive and enlightened measure to deal with the daily destruction inflicted on marine resources by fishing vessels equipped with bottom trawling nets.
Bottom trawling involves dragging a weighted, cone shaped net — fine mesh — along the sea floor. The boats – known as trawlers – that drag the nets are akin to sea tractors. Trawlers are built to operate at low speeds and tremendous pulling power, enabling them to to drag the net through the top layer of the sea bed, catching almost everything that lies on its path.
Coral reefs and sea grass beds are the principal ‘obstructions’ to the operation of bottom trawls in Sri Lankan waters. These critical marine habitats, the equivalent in terms of biodiversity and productivity to Sinharaja, are ripped apart or simply flattened by the impact of bottom trawling in Sri Lankan waters.
It’s not just the destructive nature of bottom trawling that has led the Government to prohibit bottom trawling. Bottom trawling is also an active, indiscriminate form of fishing. As much as 50 percent of a trawl catch will comprise juveniles and other non-target species, known as ‘bycatch’. The bycatch is simply discarded.
Prawn trawling is recognised globally as one of the least selective methods of trawling. In prawn trawls the bycatch can outweigh the prawn catch by as much as 20:1. For every one kilo of prawns caught, 20 kg of bycatch are thrown away! No other fishing method comes close to matching such a wanton wastage of marine resources as does bottom trawling for prawns in tropical waters. Using trawl nets to harvest prawns is like using a chainsaw to harvest coconuts.
Not only is bottom trawling destructive and indiscriminate, but it also causes conflicts between fishing communities.
Traditionally fishermen use passive nets to entrap or entangle fish. Fishermen set their nets in the sea and then wait to see if, and how many fish will swim into them.
Unlike trawl nets, traditional fishing methods are highly selective. The mesh size is set to target the fish a fisherman sets out to catch. A ‘Salaya net’ will catch almost exclusively Salaya; a ‘Hurulla net’ will catch almost exclusively Hurulla and a ‘Gal Malu’ net will catch largely Gal Malu.
When boats operating bottom trawl nets actively motor through the fishing grounds of fishermen using passive, traditional fishing methods, this understandably leads to conflicts between fishing communities. Put simply, boats operating bottom trawls destroy the nets of traditional fishermen.
Millions of rupees worth of fishing gear belonging to fishermen in Puttalam, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Jaffna and Mullaitivu have been destroyed since 2009 due to bottom trawling in Sri Lankan waters by Tamil Nadu prawn trawlers.
Increasing national and international awareness about the negative ecological, social and economic impacts of IUU fishing by Tamil Nadu prawn trawlers in Sri Lankan waters has resulted in a reduction, but not a cessation of IUU fishing in Sri Lankan waters by Tamil Nadu trawlers.
Some 48 Tamil Nadu fishworkers and eight Tamil Nadu prawn trawlers were arrested this month in three separate illegal fishing incidents off the coast of Delft Island, Kovilan Point and Talaimannar.
The Government’s decision to proscribe bottom trawling will send the clearest message yet to trawler owners and the authorities in Tamil Nadu that the use of one of the world’s most destructive forms of fishing will not be tolerated in Sri Lankan waters.
Bottom trawling was brought to Sri Lanka by the British in the early part of the 20th century. Trawl nets were used to harvest prawn stocks on the Wadge Bank in the Gulf of Mannar and on the Pedro Bank in the Bay of Bengal.
Sri Lanka’s trawl net fishery was developed further from the 1950s onwards under the Colombo Plan. The Government of Canada provided financial support and technical assistance to promote and develop bottom trawling, including the introduction of stern trawlers and even Canadian skippers to pilot the boats in the 1950s and 1960s.
Commercial trawl operations came to an end in Sri Lanka after the demarcation of the International Maritime Boundary Line between Sri Lanka and India in the Gulf of Mannar and Bay of Bengal in 1974 and 1976.
After 1976 the Wadge Bank and a third of Pedro Bank came under the jurisdiction of the central government of India and the state government of Tamil Nadu.
Recently a small number of Sri Lankan boat owners along the western and northern coast have begun converting 3½ ton one-day boats and multi-day boats built in the 1960s and 1970s to operate bottom trawl nets for prawns.
Conflicts between traditional fishermen and boats operating prawn trawls have already erupted around Delft Island, Talaimannar and in Kalpitiya.
Bottom trawling is incompatible with traditional fishing methods.Coral reefs and sea grass beds are being destroyed and fish stocks along the western and northern are being harvested indiscriminately. This is how bottom trawls are designed to operate. They destroy. They decimate.
The prohibition of bottom trawling in Sri Lankan waters is an iteration of the Government’s commitment to protecting Sri Lanka’s marine resources and its hugely valuable fish stock and preventing conflicts between fishing communities.
It also represents an opportunity to promote and drive a sustainable approach to the exploitation of Sri Lanka’s rich fishery resources. A sustainable approach to managing and harvesting Sri Lanka’s fishery resources makes sense not just now, but also for the future.
Not just for the 20 million Sri Lankans who depend on fish for their daily source of protein, but also for international markets for Sri Lankan seafood.
Achieving international recognition for Sri Lankan seafood as ‘sustainably sourced’ would be yet another precedent, alongside the highly commendable prohibition of bottom trawling in Sri Lankan waters.
(Steve Creech is a freelance fishery consultant and director of Pelagikos Pvt Ltd. He can be contacted at steve@pelagikos.lk)