Consultative meeting on Indian Ocean Fisheries and Tuna:

Marine fishery contribution to economy vital

Sri Lanka has traditionally fished Tuna since medieval times and continues to depend on Tuna and related species as the backbone of our marine fishery. Around 30 years ago, the Indian Ocean fisheries were subjected to a rapid transformation. Previously unknown exploitation of our fish stocks principally Tuna were taken in enormous quantities through the use of large scale fishing vessels of high capacity and using very efficient catching gear in the form of purse’ seine nets with an increase of nearly 600 percent.

Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Dr Rajitha Senaratne addressing the Ministerial level Session on February 11-12 in Colombo

Initially our countries did not know how to respond. In 1985, following an initiative by Sri Lanka in Government in 1981, the first Indian Ocean Conference on Marine Affairs Co-operation (IOMAC-1) was held in Sri Lanka in 1985, with a ministerial increment in 1987 which established the IOMAC Secretariat in Colombo and formally launched the process.

European Union

The central issue then placed before the Conference was the fate of Indian Ocean Tuna, following from the entry of the distant water industrial scale fishing fleet representing mainly countries of the European Union. The subsequent developments are well-known to all of you, IOMAC pursued the goal of establishing the regulatory body for Tuna, which was then picked up by the FAO and led to the establishment of the IOTC - Indian Ocean Tuna Commission.

Management challenges

Sri Lanka had hosted the Indo Pacific Tuna Program (IPTP) since the early 1980’s and was sorry to lose the technical secretariat which was moved to the Seychelles following the decision to set up IOTC there. For many developing coastal stated of the Indian Ocean the IOTC has proved to be a difficult forum on account of the great disparity with the European Union influence in that organization. For instance, my country has found it difficult to participate for several years and has only recently resumed our active participation in the work of the commission.

As we had wanted, we have today, a regulatory body for Indian Ocean Tuna. But it is a body in which we do not have adequate confidence when addressing management challenges as at the present juncture. We have proposals for quotas in respect of Yellowfin Tuna - a prized resource. One proposal would have us reduce our catch to a negligible level from the present catch of approximately 42,000 tons per year, while allowing the proponent to increase catches to approximately 40,000 tons. Underline and related are the proposals of the European Union and Seychelles.

One of the most efficient and destructive tools of the present - day modern fishing fleet, is the industrial scale purse’ seine net. In Sri Lanka we no longer license purse’ seines even on the smallest scale. It is with these enormous nets that Indian Ocean Tuna has been systematically plundered for over three decade using the most advanced technology of satellites, computers, helicopters, fish finders and fishing vessels and nets of a magnitude not witnessed in these parts. This distant water fishing machine has plunged Yellowfin Tuna to levels arousing concern.

Private entrepreneurs

The nets do not discriminate between mature and young fish. They are exploited in hundreds of tons due to their tendency to gather around floating objects and particularly man-made fish aggregation devices (FADs). Today environmental lobbies have begun to raise their opposition to what is universally accepted as the destructive and indiscriminate character. It is unfortunate that a more responsible attitude is not adopted collectively by the European Union.

The EU is undoubtedly acting under the influence of a handful of private entrepreneurs driven by commercial imperatives with scant regard for the poorer countries of Africa and Asia which surround the Indian Ocean, which they have characterized as the ‘Village pond’, in IOMAC over 25 years ago.

Many Indian Ocean countries such as mine are only now turning to fish Tuna in the deep water High Seas areas of the Indian Ocean. We had feared in the 1980’s that by the time they moved to harvest the Tuna of the Indian Ocean that their stocks would have been plundered by distant water fishing fleets. We are today facing the situation that IOMAC had warned about at the time.

International conventions

This meeting has been convened by IOMAC - as the regional watchdog of the Indian Ocean, to bring together concerned and like-minded coastal countries to harmonize their policies and to strengthen their capability to face the challenge and threat posed by the dominance of distant water fishing nations. Like the bundle of sticks we will be strong together and hopefully will henceforth be able to collectively safeguard our interest in the face of this formidable threat to the livelihood, economies and food security of the region.

These are basic human needs and rights which we expect countries that we recognize as advanced and developed, when they advocate human rights protection. Eating from the poor man’s rice bowl is not defensible.

One day when this fleet has to withdraw from the Indian Ocean, those nations that have sponsored them would have to be able to come to terms with a collective conscience that they did or did not plunder the principal food source of poorer countries, as we had been plundered in colonial era.

There are international conventions - in particular the Law of the Sea and other related instruments under which distant water nation’s access the living resources of the Indian Ocean.

To be continued