By Latif Baloch

KARACHI, Feb 26: Speakers at a seminar held here on Wednesday opposed deep-sea fishing in Pakistan's territorial waters and urged the government to revise its policy in the interest of public in general and fisheries sector in particular.

Maintaining that deep-sea fishing was being opposed globally for its decimating effects on sea-food resources, they urged the government to impose a complete ban on it immediately.

Titled: Consultation Meeting on Deep-sea Fishing Policy-1995 As Amended in 2001, the seminar was organized by a local NGO Shirkat Gah. Among the key speakers were Sindh Minister for Fisheries Sardar Manzoor Ali Panhwar, Balochistan Minister for Fisheries Asghar Ali Rind, former chairman of the Fishermen Cooperative Society (FCS) Syed Tayyab Naqvi and MPA Mr Abdullah.

Terming deep-sea fishing 'highly dangerous for seafood resources', they said foreign mechanized trawlers called 'factory ships' had been damaging Pakistan's precious seafood resources.

They said under the deep-sea fishing policy of 1995, industrial fishing had been allowed beyond 35 nautical miles from the coast with the objective of encouraging small fishermen to expand their activities within 35 miles from the coast through improvement in their fishing craft and gears. However, the government made sweeping amendments to the policy in 2001 exposing fragile coastal fisheries to new perils.

Under the amended policy of 2001, the marine area from coastline has been divided into three zones: Zone-I (between 0 and 12 nautical miles, Zone-II (between 12 and 35 nautical miles), and Zone-III (between 35 and 200 nautical miles).

The fishing rights in Zone-I have been reserved for traditional small fishermen of Sindh and Balochistan provinces who can operate their vessels in this area. Zone-11 has been reserved for fishermen with medium-size trawlers ranging from 100 to 250 GRT. Zone-III is allowed to bigger vessels with 300-500 GRT under a licence from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock.

The speakers were of the view that Zone-II, which had previously been reserved for relatively sustainable fishing by traditional fishermen, was now opened for the medium-size trawlers.

The technological and capital requirements for operating in this zone virtually closed the doors for small traditional fishermen, thus depriving them of their source of livelihood.

They argued that the situation had further worsened with the operation of foreign trawlers which often violated the territorial boundaries in search of valuable fish. They accused foreign trawler operators of destroying coastal resources of the country.

They said fishermen community of Sindh and Balochistan had repeatedly expressed reservations over their operations. They argued that the country had been paying a huge price for selling our valuable resources just for the revenue through license cost.

They were of the view that the unsustainable exploitation by these foreign and Pakistani flag-bearing vessels, under the so-called joint venture programme, resulted in a massive depletion of marine resources. They pointed out that the foreign trawlers operated in the area of traditional fishing.

The speakers highlighted the great resentment among the fishermen who had been demanding a complete ban on the operation of foreign trawlers off Pakistan coast.

Sardar Manzoor Ali Panhwar said that he had held a series of meetings with the concerned federal authorities on the issue and had apprised them of the fishermen community's concern in this regard.

Mr Asghar Ali Rind said Balochistan government had always opposed the operation of deep-sea trawlers in Mekran coast. He described it as detrimental to the interests of small fishermen.

Commodore (r) Tayyab Naqvi, in his brief speech based on facts and documents, said that it was now been established globally that deep-sea fishing was highly dangerous not only for people involved in fishing but also for the country. Earlier, participants of the seminar were addressed by Zubaida Birwani, Senior Programme Officer of the Shirkat Gah.

(DAWN)