Maharashtra appoints panel to phase out unsustainable fishing

The Maharashtra government has formed a 12-member committee of experts to assess the extent of unsustainable fishing practices beyond territorial waters, control overfishing, and understand the impact of marine pollution on aquatic biodiversity.

In a government order published by the department of animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries on Monday, the names of the members of the expert committee were announced. The committee was directed to constitute guidelines based on their findings on the impact on fingerlings (juvenile fish species) to safeguard their population from fishing practices using purse seine nets—large circular nets used to catch fish in bulk—beyond 12 nautical miles along the 720km coastline of Maharashtra.

Purse seine nets can stretch from 500 metres up to a kilometre, and as much as 3km if two or three nets are attached to each other. They pull out a large proportion of fish as these nets have a mesh spanning from 25mm to 35mm, blocking juvenile fish and fish eggs from falling back into the ocean, thereby stopping them from multiplying.

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In 2014-15, a similar state-appointed expert committee, chaired by former director general of the Fishery Survey of India Dr VS Somwanshi, had submitted a report against purse seine fishing, detailing its impact along the coastal environment of Maharashtra, and suggested measures to phase out the use of purse seine nets.

In February 2016, the state government implemented the submissions by banning the use of purse seine nets within territorial waters and brought down permits from 494 to 182, stopped issuing new licenses, and allowed the use of such nets only between September and December in certain areas along the coast.

Rajendra Jadhav, joint commissioner (fisheries), said, “After a gap of five years, we have constituted another expert committee, which will now tell us how we will actually reduce the number of permits already issued for using purse seine nets, whether to continue not issuing new licenses, and the extent of boats using them in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone. There has been a major delay in constituting this committee due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but we hope its reports will be beneficial in improving fishing practices.”

Jadhav added that committee would also submit reports on how pelagic fish (fish inhabiting neither the bottom nor the shore of open oceans and lakes) were being caught and the overall impact of bulk fish capture using trawlers and mechanised boats not just by Maharashtra but other states as well (for comparison), and the extent of pelagic fish being exported.

“We are also calling for details on overfishing, level of pollution in the marine environment due to oil exploration and other factors, and detailed guidelines on sustainable fishing,” he said, adding, “The aim is to also ensure the traditional fishing community that uses much smaller nets in shallow waters benefits. The decisions will increase fish catch and protect the fish population.”

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The committee is chaired by Dr Gopal Krishna, director and vice-chancellor of the Indian Agriculture Research Council (ICAR) Central Institute of Fisheries Education (CIFE), Mumbai, and the regional deputy commissioner (fisheries), Maharashtra, as member secretary. Along with the state chief secretary (animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries) and fisheries commissioner, the expert body includes representatives from all major national institutes involved in fishery education and research such as Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Fishery Survey of India, and Central Institute of Fisheries Technology.

Ganesh Nakhawa, chairman of the National Purse Seine Fishermen Welfare Association, said it was shocking that not a single member of the fishing community or fisher leaders from Maharashtra was included in the expert committee.

“The Maharashtra government continues to focus only on purse seine fishing while there are other environmentally damaging methods which use dols, bags and trawl nets by over 9,000 boats, scraping the surface of the ocean to catch rare and protected marine species. The committee’s decisions would affect the livelihood of the fishing community, but no representative (from the fishers) has been selected by government officials to express such issues. We have been calling for uniform law along the west coast because by curtailing only Maharashtra fishers, environmentally damaging methods would still continue for other states,” said Nakhawa.

Jadhav countered that the committee was purely a government body but final decisions would not be taken without consulting the fishing community. “Suggestions and objections will be taken into account at the district level when this committee collects on-field data. At the same time, we will be studying not only purse seine but dol and other trawling practices too. The title of the order only pertains to purse seine but it will include a wide ambit of fisheries,” he said.

Maharashtra fisheries

There are 456 fishing villages in seven districts—Mumbai city, Mumbai suburban, Thane, Palghar, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg. Last year, Maharashtra witnessed its lowest annual fish catch in 45 years at 2.01 lakh tonnes with a rapid decline in all major fish species being caught, according to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI). CMFRI said that environmental factors such as extreme weather events (heavy rain and five tropical cyclones) along with juvenile overfishing led to a 36% drop in number of fishing days in 2019. According to a 2018 study by CMFRI, purse seining was introduced in India between 1954 and 1958 across Kerala and Goa on an experimental basis. However, commercial purse seining was picked up by Karnataka fishers around 1975, followed by Kerala and Goa. It was not up till the late 1980s that the practice was introduced in Maharashtra across Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts, mostly for catching oil sardines and mackerel. From 1998, a lot of trawl fishers were seen shifting to purse seining for higher profits.