The Hindu Business Line : Trawl ban and climate change

The annual monsoon trawl ban highlights the need for a sustainable fisheries resource management policy that will also incorporate the global effects of climate change.

Last week, along with the intensification of the southwest monsoon in Kerala, came another annual feature that arrives with the regularity of the rains - the 45-day ban on trawling in the State's waters, 12 nautical miles from the shoreline along the 590 km of its coastline.

Way back in 1988, Kerala set the trend in using an annual fishing closure as a tool in the management of fisheries resources, and several coastal States in India have subsequently followed this route.

Significantly enough, the Kerala Government itself was forced to enforce the first 45-day trawl ban in 1988 (an earlier ban in 1981 was short-lived, lasting a mere three days, before it was withdrawn due to pressure from the mechanised sector) as a result of a sustained and strategically focused campaign by the traditional sector, led by the Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federation, and representing around 1.75 lakh fishermen.

Thus, what began as a response to a bottom-up demand from the fishing communities in the State has now become engraved as a consecrated fisheries resource management tool, albeit not without its fair share of opponents.

In bottom-trawling, large nets, armed with steel weights or heavy rollers, are dragged across the seafloor by powerful mechanised boats to catch fish species in an indiscriminate manner. The technique is very effective but also destroys everything in its path, including corals and sponges from the sea-floor, and removing the habitats on which the fish and other diverse organisms depend.

IMMENSE DAMAGE

Marine scientists now believe the case for a moratorium on the use of heavy trawling gear in deep waters is overwhelming. A recent United Nations report reveals the immense damage done by trawling to the ecosystems around seamounts, or underwater mountains, especially in regions that harbour particularly sensitive corals.

"There is an urgency, first of all, to deal with regulating those fisheries and secondly to get out there and look at those habitats before they are gone," said Dr Alex Rogers, of the Zoological Society of London and a co-author of the report. "Fish hundreds of years old are being decimated as a result of this trawling," he told a news briefing. "In the case of deep-sea trawling it is, therefore, essential that the burden of proof shifts to governments and fisheries when deciding whether it is appropriate to exploit these irreplaceable ecosystems," Rogers added.

This meant the scale of the destruction was out of all proportion to the gain in terms of the value of the fishery, Dr Alex Rogers, a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London, UK, told the BBC. "It's the equivalent of clearing old-growth forest to collect squirrels. It's a practice on land that just wouldn't be acceptable," he added.

Closer home, the problem is no less acute. Fish stocks in Asia have declined by 70 per ent in the past 25 years, says Stephen Hall, head of WorldFish, a non-profit research body based in northern Malaysia. "We are taking far too many fishes out of the sea and not leaving enough there to grow and re-generate," Hall said.

Compounding the problem is climate change, which, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), is expected to result in increases in sea surface temperature, global sea level rise, decreases in sea-ice cover and changes in salinity, wave conditions, and ocean circulation. These changes in turn will have an impact on the biological productivity of marine ecosystems.

Scientists predict mean sea levels will rise by 10-90 cm (4-35 inches) over this century, with most estimates in the range of 30-50 cm (12-20 inches). Apart from damaging or destroying many coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and salt marshes, which are essential to maintaining many wild fish stocks, warming seas are changing fish migration patterns with some fish heading south and others moving north, damaging entire ecosystems and affecting reproduction and replenishment rates.

Scientists in Australia are already warning of a massive decline in fish along the country's eastern seaboard with marine life such as yellow-fin tuna and stinging jellyfish moving towards Antarctica as sea waters warm. In the Philippines, a major source of reef fish, 90 per cent of fish stocks have been depleted, conservation group WWF said.

A new study has backed up previous reports that climate change has led to a marked reduction in fish yields in East Africa's Lake Tanganyika, and provides evidence that the impact of global warming may be starting to affect local economies.

Climate change will also result in modifications of the area of distribution of marine resources. Most likely they will move towards the North or South pole, whichever is closest. Consequences for the fishing industry could be significant, says the FAO.

These effects are being felt off Kerala as well. Recently, this paper reported the findings of a study by Dr E. Vivekanandan, Head of the Demersal Fisheries Division of Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), which revealed that the oil sardines, a cheap and popular fish species consumed by many Keralites, have moved up to new geographical zones as the seas there have begun to warm up. With the Northern latitudes getting warmer, oil sardines, an essentially tropical species, have been observed in new territories along the north-west and north-east coasts of India.

The Indian mackerel species now appears to have gone down to different depths and are increasingly becoming the catch of bottom trawlers. The peak spawning months for species such as the threadfin beam seem to have shifted towards the colder months, off the coast of Chennai. The season of abundance of copepods off the coast of Mangalore has shifted to the colder months, says the study.

As fish species continue to evolve strategies for survival in the wake of climate change, it's not just the environment that is at risk. Fishermen in Asia and across the Indian Ocean in Africa - who constitute the bulk of the world's estimated 29 million fishermen - are economically vulnerable to the decline in fish stocks, which directly affect their livelihoods, local economies and diet.

Poor and often uneducated, many are unaware of the need to help marine life rejuvenate by throwing back immature fish and avoiding catching turtles and other sea creatures in nets. But teaching about sustainable fishing is an enormous task.

But that is a task that must be done, since fish remains an important source of affordable protein. The Asian Development Bank has predicted that demand for fish in Asia will continue to rise, reaching 69 million tonnes by 2010 and accounting for 60 per cent of the world demand for fish for human consumption, compared to 53 per cent in 1990.

The FAO believes that the effects of climate change on fisheries will impact a sector that is already characterised by full utilisation of resources, large overcapacity and conflicts among fishers, and others, vying for alternative uses of marine ecosystems. Thus, climate change adds a further argument for developing effective and flexible fisheries management system in an ecosystem context, says the FAO.

The Kerala Government's fisheries management efforts should thus go beyond mere fishing moratorium or holidays. Protecting livelihoods and ensuring sustainable resource management should underpin any policy regime in the State's fisheries sector.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

More Stories on : Aquaculture | Climate & Weather | Random Walk | Kerala | Agricultural Policy

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