The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : `Study may be used as a camouflage for lifting of ban'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

`Study may be used as a camouflage for lifting of ban'

Special Correspondent

However, fishermen forum hails appointment of panel

KOCHI: The Kerala Swathanthra Matsyathozhilali Federation has expressed the fear that the Government move to appoint a committee to study the impact of the ban on trawl fishing during the monsoon would lead to the lifting of the ban.

Lal Koyilprambil, a functionary of the federation, told a news conference on Tuesday that the federation feared that the committee's report might be used as a camouflage for the total lifting of the ban. He, however, said his organisation welcomed the appointment of an experts' committee to study trawling ban's impact. He noted that the scientific community generally agree that trawling upsets the marine ecology. He wanted the Government to study whether the fishworkers in the State have benefited from the ban, too.

Fisheries Minister S. Sarma had on Monday announced the Government's plan to appoint a committee for assessing the impact of monsoon ban on trawling.

Mr. Lal pointed out that trawling had started in Kerala's waters way back in 1958 by Norwegians. This had caused the depletion of certain key fish varieties. Successive trawling by several groups had caused the vanishing of many other varieties of fish too. In his view, a total ban on trawling was necessary to save the marine fish wealth of the State; but traditional fishermen should be allowed to fish.

Mr. Lal, however, pointed out that trawling was just one of the many maladies that have hit Kerala's fishing sector which is a very complex and sensitive one. A ban on trawling alone would not resolve the current crisis. Highlighting the importance of the fishing sector to the State's economy, he noted that it comprised 2.5 lakh fishworkers; 5,000 Kerala boats; 20,00 trawl boats from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; 27,000 mechanised canoes and 28,00 non-mechanised canoes. The internal market comprised thousands of crores worth of fish.

Mr. Lal said that to tackle the problems of such a huge sector peripheral approaches like monsoon ban would not help. A total scientific planning beginning with the assessment of the fish resources, the amount of fish that could be harvested without harming the resource base and determination of the number and size of fishing vessels, was necessary.

He also called for checking the fleecing of the fishworkers by the middlemen, who took away a quarter of the value of the fish in the form of commissions. He sought a comprehensive study of the social and economic relations in the fishing sector.

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