Fishermen oppose issuing licenses to China deep-sea trawlers

The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) on Thursday criticised the backdoor negotiations between the Chinese government and Pakistani authorities over issuance of licenses to foreign deep-sea fishing trawlers under the fisheries cooperation project.

PFF Chairperson Muhammad Ali Shah in his reaction said that the fishermen community residing along 350-km long Sindh coast and depending on fishing for their livelihoods for generations would not allow foreign trawlers to operate and exploit the marine resources. He also expressed concerns over the two-side (Pakistan-China) fishery cooperation project which agreed issuing licenses to 14 trawlers. Out of these, six trawlers from China are standing at Korangi Fisheries Harbour since the last year December to receive go-ahead for operation.

The PFF leader said: “We are quite puzzled at the renewal of the process after many years of rejection by previous governments. It is imperative that this process of licenses be terminated immediately without discrimination between domestic and foreign applicants.”

He appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that “we draw your attention also to the inevitable but unacceptable universal fact of enormous waste of food and degradation of the food chain which is imposed by deep sea vessels by storing premium fish and discarding dead varieties. This awful scenario is worsened by bottom trawlers now present at Korangi Fish Harbour in considerable numbers awaiting licenses.”

Shah said due to over fishing and increasing marine pollution, the community people were already facing instability in their traditional source of income. In case of issuing licenses to foreign deep sea trawlers, they might be pushed to face hunger and joblessness, he added.

Around three million fishermen have been engaged in the marine fishing from Karachi to Thatta, Badin and Sujawal. They are crying against shrinking resources because of adapting unstable methods of fishing and seeing destruction of seafood stocks in the sea. This can be gauged from the facts that fishing boats mostly returning empty without catch or smaller amount of fish for their survival. In this situation, even thinking for issuance of licenses to deep sea trawlers may contribute further to force community people to stay idle at homes.

The China government is mounting pressure on the Pakistan’s Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) and ports and shipping wing against the delay in issuing licenses to their six trawlers which anchored at Korangi Fisheries Harbour. It is pertinent to note that Chinese firms have developed linkages with the local Pakistani partner companies to exploit the resources and take seafood to other countries. The PFF asked the Pakistani authorities to avoid allowing issuance of licenses to save natural resources which would help grow economy of the country.

He said Pakistan fishermen were taking risk of lives to move their fishing vessels to the open sea and contribute a lot to the national exchequer. He suggested that the government should announce incentives and policy cover for small-scale fishermen instead of issuing licenses to foreign vessels.

The PFF had already launched a massive campaign against the deep sea fishing trawlers earlier to save the national resources and since 2005 the government of Pakistan had declared a ban on the foreign trawlers to operate in the sea territories. The PFF leader warned the government of Pakistan to avoid issuing licenses to foreign deep sea trawlers. These huge fishing vessels have large trawling nets to sweep all the fish coming into it and sort out the commercial fish and throw all others as trash again into the sea creating further marine pollution. These trawlers have its seafood processing installations and landing it to their own countries, instead of giving any benefit to the fishing community or the national exchequer itself. On this ground, the PFF is opposing this fisheries cooperation project which may operate with partnership of Chinese and Pakistani firms.