One of Sri Lanka’s forgotten crises, and one of the island’s contemporary security challenges is the continued practice of Indian trawlers engaging in Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing in Sri Lankan waters. The ongoing issue, which increased exponentially following the end of the internal conflict in 2009, has devastated the livelihoods of Sri Lankan fisher communities in the north of the island.
The northern fishermen have been battling the colossal Indian trawler flotilla that illegally enter Sri Lankan waters and engage in the destructive practice of ‘bottom trawling’, stripping bear the vibrant and fertile fish breeding grounds of the Palk Strait, and the Northeastern coast of the island. For more than a decade, Sri Lanka has been slow to move on the matter, worried about ruffling feathers in New Delhi, which is sensitive to the wealthy, politically linked trawler owners of the South Indian states. While the poor northern fishermen struggle to ensure the food security and main source of protein of the island’s populous is protected from the poaching fleets, the issue has failed to resonate with the ‘activist class’ in Colombo’s more affluent communities, which make up the mover and shakers of Sri Lanka’s political landscape. As such, often, while Sri Lanka and India hold bilateral talks on the matter regularly, it fails to make a dent in the thousands of South Indian trawlers which flock to the island’s waters for easy pickings. It is only when there are protests in the north of the island, or more importantly in Tamil Nadu, across the pond, or when there is an election close by, do Sri Lankan policymakers wake up from their slumber to voice concern.
One wonders how India would have responded if Pakistani fishermen replicated their South Indian counterpart’s bottom trawling practices in Indian territorial waters, citing traditional ‘fishing grounds’. The Indian Coast Guard, which is one of the most powerful in the region, and the formidable Indian Navy would have kept the Pakistani boats at bay. Why the Indian maritime law enforcement agencies, who are known for their efficiency and prowess, remain unable to manage the South Indian fishing fleet from encroaching into Sri Lankan waters, is quite baffling. The Indian argument is that the waters which the South Indian fishermen poach, are ‘traditional fishing grounds’ doesn’t hold water as there wasn’t any bottom trawling historically, the practice is relatively new and extremely destructive. They are also not done by traditional fishing craft, but specially built mechanised vessels that drag a steel ringed net on the sea bottom, damaging sensitive coral formation which have taken millennia to form and is home to many fish nurseries.
Sri Lanka in 2017, became the first country in Asia to completely ban bottom trawling and the use of destructive trawl nets with the passage of an amendment to the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act. However, six months later, the Department of Fisheries proposed to weaken this ban by allowing ‘less destructive’ trawling in designated trawling zones. Despite Sri Lankan laws prohibiting bottom trawling and illegal fishing by foreign vessels, Indian fishing trawlers continue to poach in the island’s northern seas without facing legal consequences for the violation, according to fisher leaders from the island’s Northern Province. If Sri Lanka continues to backpedal on enforcing the laws which were brought in to end the destructive bottom trawling, the North, Northwestern and Northeastern communities will likely be left with dwindling fish stocks, and a food security crisis.
If President Wickremesinghe wants to find a ‘permanent solution’ to deal with IUU fishing in Sri Lanka waters, he can start today, by allowing the existing laws to be implemented as a start and remind Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour, that the ‘rules based order in the Indian ocean’ which they are fond of trumpeting, also includes big powers respecting smaller nations sovereign borders, sovereign control over resources in line with the Law of the Sea.