No easy solution to the bay of woes

The saffron wave is suggestive of one thing for Tamil Nadu. Its problems may be solved only by remaining on the right side of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The biggest of the issues still facing Tamil Nadu is that of the fishermen who are frequently taken into custody while fishing in Sri Lankan waters. There is a huge difference of perceptions in the matter as invariably it is seen as Tamil fishermen being taken to the island jails. Somehow, it is never seen as ‘Indian fishermen in a foreign jail’ as in the case of those straying from Gujarat into Pakistani waters or beyond.

To change this perception, Tamil Nadu has to do a lot more work to convince the Prime Minister that this is a national problem even if basically the TN fishermen who are at fault as they poach into Lankan waters beyond the International Maritime Boundary because the fish catch there is far better and more remunerative. It is a bit of a law of the jungle in those waters as the Indian craft with motors are more powerful than those of the poor Sri Lankan fishermen whose nets are often torn by Indians who trawl the ocean bottom dragging heavy gear in search of fish near the sea floor in a destructive practice.

The latest incident of the Sri Lankan Navy personnel riding aqua scooters and firing at Indian fishermen leading to the death of Britjo of Rameswaram may have led to the boycott of the annual festival of St Anthony’s Church on Katchatheevu Island. But the implications are far more than skipping a festival as an incident of firing is happening after almost six years in which time straying fishermen have simply been arrested and taken to the island nation. The killing of Britjo has changed the scene so far as Tamil Nadu is concerned. The problem is New Delhi has tended to see it in an entirely different light and as an issue impinging on foreign relations with China always eager to befriend Sri Lanka in its fight for dominance of the sea routes.

An even greater problem than this issue of poaching into Sri Lankan waters is the denudation of ocean resources with depleting fish stocks. So much of the Bay of Bengal basin has been exploited for fishing to feed more than 200 million people living just on its seashores the that there is very little left to drag out of the sea. The great trawler push to exploit the global demand for prawns in the 1960s has led to such depletion of stocks that, according to author Amitav Ghosh, the fisheries of the Bay of Bengal have been under pressure for decades and many species once abundant have all but disappeared. He also contends that the main catch these days consist of fish from the bottom of the marine food web.

It is also said that what is left after a trawl passes “is a drastically changed seafloor ecosystem: a flatter, less complex habitat, with fewer invertebrate organisms and fewer fish. For those fish that manage to escape the trawl, these changes can have negative consequences for their continued growth”. In a sense we may already be too late in working the idea of arming a whole community of fishermen with larger and more powerful trawlers so that they can go deep sea fishing and away from the Palk Straits where all the problems with Sri Lanka lie. It was Jaya’s idea to equip the state’s fishermen with the wherewithal to sail into the deep seas, but the scheme has worked so slowly due to lack of funding that the tactical shift may not be useful for too long.

Long term sustainability of deep sea fishing is itself in question and we may be able to do little towards alleviating the lot of our hardy fisherfolk, except in the very short term. It is said that the Bay of Bengal resources are such that about 60 percent of the fishermen who eke a living out of them live below the poverty line.

The societal problems arising from poverty of the able-bodied who are unable to make a decent living even from hard and hazardous work can only multiply in the long term. What we are sitting on is a Catch-22 situation in trying to equip our fishermen with deep sea trawlers at a time when the whole ecosystem of the Bay is under threat. The same is the case with the Sri Lankans who sometimes stray into Indian waters for the tuna catch.

To find a solution to this lies not so much in our leaders as in our scientists and technocrats devising ways to preserve the ecosystem of the seas in order to fish what is no more an infinite resource. We are talking ocean engineering here of a very large and disciplined scale with the cooperation of all the nations of the Bay of Bengal. When we are unable to sort out the issue between two nations, imagine the complexity of the task. Let us just hope that we somehow get the formula right between livelihood and resources. Otherwise, many more Britjos may pay the price even if they are not shot at as the poor guy was.