Sri Lanka’s northern fishermen have reported a massive decrease in the number of Indian trawlers spotted in the island’s territorial waters amidst increased surveillance by the Navy, with daily sightings dropping from approximately 500 to 10. Speaking to The Morning yesterday (29), District Fishermen’s Co-op Society Chairman M. Johnson highlighted that the increased surveillance was a result of a protest campaign by northern fishermen. “Around 500 Indian trawlers were laying nets daily on our seas, depriving the local people of their catch. However, this has reduced after the protests we conducted, which forced the Government to take action against these trawlers, and now we only see about 10 trawlers per day.” The Government utilised the Navy to increase patrolling and surveillance in Sri Lankan waters around Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya, Mannar, and Trincomalee. However, this is believed to be unsustainable in the long run. When contacted, Minister of Fisheries Douglas Devananda told The Morning that the Indian and Sri Lankan authorities are all set to hold discussions today (30) to find a permanent solution to this issue.
“The joint working group on fisheries will conduct a virtual meeting to discuss the matter and resolve the dispute between fishermen of both countries,” Devananda said. According to the statistics of the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the total fish production in Sri Lanka in 2019 was 505,830 MT, down from 531,310 MT in 2017. Johnson said that trawlers are a source of destruction to Sri Lankan seas because of their capacity to damage wide areas of the seafloor.
“Indian trawlers have left our fishermen with depleted fish stocks and destroyed the sea bottom, dislodging all sediments of corals.” Mechanised trawlers are one of the prominent reasons for the depletion of the Indian marine ecosystem, according to a study conducted by the US Food and Agriculture Organisation of (FAO) in 2006. The United Nations (UN) General Secretary has stated that 95% of damage to seamount ecosystems worldwide is caused by deep-sea bottom trawling. Indian trawlers began crossing the maritime border in the 1980s while Sri Lanka descended into a destructive civil war between the Government and the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However, the fisheries conflict only heated up following the end of the war, when these seas became less dangerous and more accessible to fishermen.