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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Drawbacks in 'blue revolution' -PU Antony

Drawbacks in 'blue revolution' -PU Antony

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published Published on Apr 3, 2015   modified Modified on Apr 3, 2015
-Deccan Herald

There have been protests by several organisations of fishermen, including those of deep-sea artisanal fisher folk in several coastal states against the recommendations of an expert committee that reviewed India's marine fishing policy and the existing guidelines for deep-sea fishing in the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The Union agriculture ministry's Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (DAHD&F), through an order on August 1, 2013 constituted an expert committee under the chairpersonship of the B Meenkumari, Deputy Director General (Fisheries), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), for a comprehensive review of deep sea fishing policy and guidelines. The committee submitted its report in August 2014.

After declaration of the EEZ in 1976, the oceanic resources available to India are estimated at 2.02 million sq km, comprising 0.86 million sq km (42.6 per cent of the total) on the west coast, 0.56 million sq km (27.7 per cent) on the east coast and 0.60 million sq km (29.7 per cent) around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The continental shelf area amounts to 5,30,000 sq km of which 71 per cent area is available in the Arabian Sea (west coast) and the remaining 29 per cent in the Bay of Bengal (east coast). With the absolute right on the EEZ, India has also acquired the responsibility to conserve, develop and optimally exploit the marine living resources within this area.

The expert committee after considering the latest resource potential of the Indian EEZ, which is estimated at 4.41 million metric tonnes, made some crucial recommendations towards full exploitation of the catch potential. It said that production in India from the near-shore waters has plateaued and that there is very little possibility for increasing production in waters up to a depth of 200 metre. But waters beyond a depth of 500 m are not optimally exploited, and there is substantial scope of expansion in this zone, mainly for tuna and tuna-like species, which are in demand in the international market.

A most controversial recommendation is the creation of a buffer zone between the near-shore and offshore regions (waters between 200 m and 500 m in depth) along the coast and to regulate fishing there in order to augment resources in the near-shore areas as well as the deep-sea regions in the EEZ. Yet another suggestion is to throw open off-shore regions for fishing by foreign and joint venture companies (a suggestion that was rejected by an expert committee in 1996) until the domestic fishers acquired the capability and techniques for effective deep-sea fishing.

Based on the resource potential of tuna and tuna like resources and other commercial species such as squids, it was recommended that a fleet size of 1178 Deep Sea Fishing Vessels (DSFVs) may be considered for deployment in the Indian EEZ.

This includes the existing DSFVs and the additional numbers of 270 vessels (240 tuna long liners, 15 purse seiners and 15 squid jiggers). In the absence of trained domestic crew that can work on such DSFVs, engagement of foreign crew onboard DSFVs was recommended.

Changing composition

Other contentious matters are that in view of the changing fisheries composition, present modes of traditional exploitation of fishes is to be replaced by high capacity vessels and since the spawning seasons of tuna species such (yellow fin and big eye) do not coincide with the period of the ‘uniform ban on fishing' implemented by the Government of India every year; a review of this ban period for the DSFVs, exemption of such vessels from the purview of the ban and a single window clearance procedure for regulating the activities of the DSFVs.

Speaking at the 86th Foundation Day and Award Ceremony of the ICAR in New Delhi on July 29, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi voiced the need for ‘Blue Revolution' in the country. He called upon the practitioners of fisheries and aquaculture to usher in ‘Blue Revolution' by sustainable exploitation of the fisheries wealth from the marine and other aquatic resources of the country.

The Meenkumari committee report may usher in this revolution. But its implementation will adversely affect the livelihood of our poor fishermen and lead to their displacement. It is a paradox that the report which compromises on intergenerational equity and promotes large scale exploitation of our marine wealth ends by quoting Prof Arvid Pardo, the Maltese diplomat and scholar who while guiding the debate on the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea in the late 1950s had convinced the global community that the oceans are the ‘common heritage of mankind'.

(The writer teaches at Christ University, Bengaluru)

Deccan Herald, 2 April, 2015, http://www.deccanherald.com/content/469183/drawbacks-blue-revolution.html


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