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IUU fishing by TN fishermen: Burden of stopping it thrust on Lanka
This time last week the third round of bilateral talks between Sri Lanka’s Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Mahinda Amaraweera and India’s Agriculture and Fisheries Welfare Minister Radha Kohan Singh was concluded in New Delhi. Before heading to the talks Minister Amaraweera reiterated the extent of the problem, explaining that 1,500 to 2,000 Tamil Nadu trawlers continue to fish illegally in Sri Lankan waters for three days every week. That’s roughly 5,000 illegal fishing trips a month or a whopping 60,000 illegal fishing trips a year!
Researchers and experts in Sri Lanka, India and The Netherlands have estimated that the direct losses incurred by Sri Lankan fishermen, due to Tamil Nadu trawlers illegally harvesting Sri Lanka’s marine resources, range from LKR 2.3 billion to LKR 8.2 billion a year. And that’s without factoring in the devastating ecological damage caused to Sri Lanka’s broader marine environment by destructive bottom-trawl net fishing. Hard earned cash could see a driving resurgence in the economic fortunes of coastal fishing communities in the north. Seafood products could be processed by Sri Lanka’s seafood export industry if they are not being harvested illegally by Tamil Nadu trawlers and processed/exported by seafood companies in Tamil Nadu.
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is widely acknowledged as a major threat to global marine resources. The European Union’s 2010 regulation to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing affirms that “IUU fishing depletes fish stocks, destroys marine habitats, distorts competition, puts honest fishers at an unfair disadvantage, and weakens coastal communities, particularly in developing countries”.
In 2016 India exported 168 million tonnes of seafood to the US, with an import value of US$ 1.58 billion. Out of this total, 153 million tonnes was shrimp, with a value of million kilogram being US$ 1.50 billion. Tamil Nadu trawlers are fishing primarily for shrimp in Sri Lankan waters.Following last week’s meeting the Indian government was quoted in the Sri Lankan media as having “commended the initiatives taken by the Sri Lankan government with regard to this sensitive issue”.
India’s External Affairs Ministry went further. In a media statement, it said, “The Indian side was satisfied with the progress made on the release of apprehended fishermen and detained fishing vessels in the recent past, while reiterating the release of all remaining India fishing vessels in Sri Lankan custody”.
I had to read these statements twice and checked the date to make sure it wasn’t April 1st? What exactly is sensitive about thousands of Tamil Nadu trawlers fishing illegally in Sri Lankan waters? And whose sensitivities are being offended? Last week I was in Mannar, discussing with local crab fishermen and fisheries department officials the introduction of a collaborative management plan for sustainable blue swimming crab fishing in the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. The problem of persistent IUU fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in the Mannar District was one of the issues raised by crab fishermen. Fishermen asked – not unreasonably: When exactly is this going to stop?
Last month India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made a special statement in the Lok Sabha, committing the central government to a LKR 3.5 billion subsidy package for the Tamil Nadu fishery sector. The aim of the subsidy she said was to redirect bottom trawlers to other forms of income specifically deep-sea, high-seas tuna fishing. State and central government subsidies paid to Tamil Nadu trawler owners over the last twenty or thirty years were largely responsible for the current over-capitalisation of the Tamil Nadu in-shore trawler fleet (5,000 vessels). Too many vessels in the Tamil Nadu trawler fleet (due to subsidies, including fuel) and the destructive nature of trawling per se, are the principal causes of relentless IUU fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lankan waters.
In December 2016 the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission announced that Indian Ocean stocks of yellowfin tuna were both overfished and subject to overfishing. In the IOTC’s opinion, “increases in longline, gillnet, handline and purse seine fishing and associated catches in recent years have substantially increased the pressure on the Indian Ocean stock as a whole”.
The commission subsequently announced an interim plan for the rebuilding of this stock (Resolution 16/01), with catch limitations beginning January 1, 2017. The Indian government’s proposal to end IUU fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lankan waters is to convert trawlers and or subsidise the construction of new Indian high-sea fishing vessels to fish for tuna. Stocks are already overfished and subject to overfishing, where the IOTC’s recommendation is to reduce fishing effort. It’s no wonder that the Indian government is keen to commend the efforts of the Sri Lankan government to end IUU fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lankan waters, because its own efforts are clearly not going to be successful, even if they are implemented tomorrow.
The outcome of last week’s bilateral talks once again dumped the responsibility of ending IUU fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers firmly back in Sri Lanka’s court. It is a credit to Minister Amaraweera and his ministry that the Sri Lankan government is not backing away from the challenge. As the Minister explained recently, an amendment to the Fisheries (Regulation of Foreign Fishing Boats) Act of 1979 will shortly be passed in Parliament. This will allow Sri Lanka to enforce tougher penalties on Tamil Nadu trawler owners from early next year.
The Sri Lankan navy continued to arrest one or two Tamil Nadu trawlers before and after the bilateral talks. The answer to the Mannar crab fishermen’s question is not yet; but tide has turned. Tamil Nadu trawler owners and the Government of India know that IUU fishing by Indian vessels in Sri Lankan waters is unacceptable. It’s just unfortunate that no-one on the other side of the Palk Bay has shown any real commitment to making this happen now.
(Steve Creech is a freelance fishery consultant and director of Pelagikos Pvt Ltd. He can be contacted at steve@pelagikos.lk)