To press the government to curtail the destructive fishing practice of ‘pair trawling,’ a collective of non-political trade unions of traditional fish workers is observing a ‘sea hartal’ along the Kerala coast on Wednesday.
Traditional fish workers using ‘valloms’ and belonging to the unions which are not affiliated to politically controlled trade unions will not venture out into the sea.
The hartal will mainly be focussed on the central Kerala region and parts of northern Kerala and is not expected to have much of an impact in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts. Jackson Pollayil, general convener of the sea hartal initiative, told The Hindu that pair trawling, which extensively destructed the fish stock, was rising alarmingly in Kerala’s waters.
The practice, which used two boats and a long net, swept the bottom, middle and upper layers of the sea and in the process unwittingly caught huge quantities of young pelagic fish, such as oil sardines. The high-capacity Chinese engines used by these boats made them very fast and the 500-metre-long nets helped them catch large quantities of fish.
The boats, owned by large business houses mainly from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, either sold the unwanted fish to manure companies or dumped it overboard in mid-sea. One of the reasons for the sharp decline in the catch of oil sardines was the reckless fishing by pair trawling. He said in the past month alone, fish workers had handed over four such pair trawlers to the authorities.
Majeendran, State vice-president, Kerala Swathanthra Matsyathozhilali Federation, said the Kerala government should immediately call a meeting of the Fisheries Ministers and top fishing officials of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to press them to jointly battle pair trawling. He said the non-political trade unions of traditional fish workers wanted the ban on trawling during the monsoon to be raised from 45 to 90 days.
