Mariculture policy draft under fire from fishers

Proposals detrimental to traditional fishermen, says forum

The policy draft of the national mariculture policy has mooted demarcating special areas in the sea for different mariculture activities such as cage farming.

The national mariculture policy, the draft of which has been placed in the public domain for eliciting opinion from the stakeholders, has come under fire from fishermen who fear that the proposals would uproot fishermen from their traditional fishing grounds, leading to their further impoverishment.

The draft policy, available on the website of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), has, among other things, mooted mariculture zones by demarcating special areas in the sea for different mariculture activities such as cage farming, bivalve farming, pen culture, seaweed culture, hatcheries and nurseries based on scientific criteria.

The draft policy was formulated by an expert committee formed by the National Fisheries Development Board with A. Gopalakrishnan, director of CMFRI as chairman. The document is now available for comments from all stakeholders and interested groups.

Policy objectives

The policy aims to enhance mariculture production and increase income and employment opportunities in a sustainable way in addition to promoting entrepreneurship in mariculture by facilitating technical and financial inputs.

However, fishermen feel that the policy draft harked back to an era of Letter of Permit vessels from foreign countries depleting precious marine fish resources. The new policy would once again hand over traditional fishing grounds to either foreign or Indian monopolies, leaving traditional fishermen poorer, said Charles George of the Kerala Matsya Thozhilali Aikya Vedhi.

He said that fishermen had not been alerted about the draft policy and no discussions had taken place on the issues raised in the policy or fishermen’s concerns. The policy will be opposed and fishermen had planned to organise widespread protests against it, he said.

Despite the best of intentions of the authorities as announced through the policy, a part of the efforts to engineer a blue revolution, the policy appeared to be a way to bring back the era of giving away maritime resources to monopolies, evicting the rightful owners of these resources from their traditional grounds, he said.