Traditional fishermen in Central Kerala have closed ranks in the face of a crisis-like situation in marine fisheries to impose restrictions upon themselves, especially in relation to juvenile catch.
“The marine fisheries sector is going through one of its worst crisis and the coastal population is in penury,” said the fishermen’s leaders who met here on Saturday.
Captains of 75 traditional modified canoes (inboard boats) from Alappuzha to Thrissur met here to work out the modalities of a shore-based management system in which fishermen, their leaders, harbour workers, Fisheries Department officials and marine scientists would be involved.
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“It is difficult to impose the restrictions in the outer waters and we have decided to set up a shore-based system at the fisheries harbours to monitor the size of the catch,” said Charles George of Kerala Matsya Thozhilali Aikya Vedi, who made a brief presentation on the issues involved at the meeting.
Scientists from Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), who interacted with the fishermen, pointed out that 2014 saw a peak in catch of oil sardine juveniles. The State government had then asked the institute to make a study of the minimum legal size of different species to be implemented by the Fisheries Department. CMFRI has already submitted a list of 58 important species to the State government.
Their presentation showed that oil sardine catch, which forms about half of the marine fish landings in Kerala, had peaked in 2012 and had then started coming down. Of the total eight lakh tonnes of marine fish landings in the State during 2012, oil sardines accounted for 3.9 lakh tonnes. Marine fish landings in the State during 2014 were 5.75 lakh tonnes.
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Fishermen and boat leaders, who attended the meeting, said juvenile catch was one of the biggest banes of the marine fisheries sector and alleged that pelagic trawling accounted for most of the destruction. It was therefore decided by the fishermen to make an appeal to the State government to ban pelagic trawling totally.
Raju Ashrayam from Arthunkal described his first-hand experience in witnessing dumping of large quantities of juvenile catch into the seas by boat operators.
A scientist from CMFRI said most of the juvenile sardines were caught in the 10 mm mesh-size Choodavala , which was traditionally used to catch anchovies.
P.V. Janardhanan, fishermen’s leader from Thrissur and T.B. Unnikrishnan from Munambam were among the leaders who spoke at length about the problems facing the marine fisheries sector.