The Hindu : Severe fish famine in coastal districts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 31, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Severe fish famine in coastal districts

By M. Raghuram

MANGALORE, JAN. 30. The coastal districts of the State are facing a severe fish famine. According to the information available with the Department of Fisheries here more than 50 per cent of fishermen have not ventured into the sea for fishing.

While the Government is silent about the situation, fishermen have been left high and dry. Due to overexploitation of the seas, all varieties of fish are depleting fast. Laxity in adherence to the self-imposed discipline by fishermen and the Karnataka Marine Fisheries Regulation Act has resulted in over-fishing.

The State has registered only 50 per cent of its catch for the past two years in comparison with that of the last decade. But this year the catch has been reduced to 25 per cent of the volume of catch landed during 1996. According to statistics compiled by the Fisheries Department, Dakshina Kannada netted 34,368 tonnes of fish in 2002-03 till December 2003 against 83,330 tonnes in 2000-2001. Comparison of figures in the cut off month of December in the two years show an alarming downward trend of 8,084 tonnes in December 2000, while it is 2,377 tonnes in December 2001.

Machinisation of fishing has also had an impact on the fish stock. However, an unwritten convention of the apex body of the Mogaveera Mahajana Sabha has specified the net size to be used by various fishermen who employ country craft and gillnet and also stipulated time and season and zones for each fishermen category depending on boats and machinery they use.

But in the recent times these self-imposed norms have been discarded.

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