Net the local bottom trawlers also
If the wheels of Government are not moving as fast as one expects, the fact that it was able to enact legislation to ban bottom trawling in fishing shows that those wheels are moving at least slowly in some quarters.
But that, that too, had to be churned out by way of a Private Member’s Bill from an Opposition TNA MP who faced some resistance from his own party tells how difficult it is to break through the institutionalised corruption in this country.
This law was still long overdue and after the issue of illegal fishing practices was long spotlighted in the media, not least by this newspaper. There was a total ban of exports imposed by the European Union and mobilised protests by northern fishermen who faced the brunt of this illegality with more than 1,400 boats coming thrice a week, every week from southern India and engaging in such bottom trawling in the waters of the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay.
Not only was the livelihood of these northern fishermen being robbed, so too was the marine life of Sri Lanka’s northern waters raped, and the economy of Sri Lanka made to face huge losses. All Sri Lanka could do in the face of these armadas of poachers was to arrest the men and their made of steel boats and then release them after a telephone call came from across the Palk Strait to do so.
This was causing inevitable tension between the fisher communities of the two countries and while many nations took tougher stands on such issues, successive Governments in Colombo opted for the coercion course, and to the credit of the incumbent Government in New Delhi at least some remedial measures have been taken to end this irritant between the two neighbours.
Bottom trawling or sweeping the ocean floor with nets as it were, is an illegal fishing practice, internationally frowned upon. The wanton damage it caused was something that has to be seen to be believed and this newspaper ran series upon series of reports on this issue. India too, has at least partially banned this practice, but for a long time turned a Nelsonian eye allowing its fishermen to do just that in Sri Lankan waters because its resources were already depleted by this fishing practice.
Sri Lanka’s new law sends a clear signal to the state of Tamil Nadu that patience is running thin on this side of the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL). However, while these laws have been enacted and the Sri Lanka Navy has successfully pushed the Indian fishermen deeper and closer to the IMBL, big time local (Sri Lankan) boat owners are seemingly smacking their chops trying to move into the vacuum created.
Studies now show that at least two hundred plus 3 ½ tonne oneday boats owned by businessmen not just in Gurunagar (Jaffna) and Pesalai (Mannar), but also in Negombo and Chilaw are sending fishermen to engage in this very same bottom trawling expeditions. They are seen right now plying up and down Pooneryn and Kilinochchi and down to Talaimannar.
For the small time fishermen in the north, it will be a case of the ‘same difference’ and something that could well trigger a future communal flare-up unlike in the case of the Indian fishermen.
And unlike when the SL Navy was responsible for protecting the territorial waters of Sri Lanka and apprehending the foreign fishermen, it will have no powers with local violators of the new law. This will be now the responsibility of the Department of Fisheries.
It will merely be a case of the Sri Lankan fish mudalalis taking over from where the Indian fish mudalalis left. No. 08, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 02. P.O. Box 1136, Colombo editor@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2331276 news@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479332, 2328889, 2331276 features@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479312, 2328889,2331276 pictures@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479323, 2479315 sports@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479311 bt@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479319 funtimes@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479337, 2331276 2479540, 2479579, 2479725 2479629, 2477628, 2459725