Overfishing by international trawlers pushes Pakistani fishing communities into poverty

ActionAid

(March 22, 2007) Hundreds of local fishing communities are being pushed into poverty in Pakistan due to over fishing by international trawlers. The warning comes in an ActionAid report Taking the Fish that claims poor fishing communities in developing countries worldwide could be devastated by moves to open up fishing markets as part of the latest WTO trade talks.

Deep-sea trawlers from the far-east sit at anchor in a customs port in Karachi, Pakistan. Photo : ©Warrick Page/ActionAid

Pakistani fisher groups say trawlers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan encroach on their local waters and use giant fishing nets to scoop up and deplete fish stocks under Pakistan’s policy of opening up its waters to international fleets. Coastal communities say their right to fish is being violated. They report dramatically reduced catches of local species and now face widespread debt, hunger and deprivation.

"The people are starving," says Tahira Ali, deputy general secretary of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum in Karachi. "They don’t have bread to eat and they weep when they come home without fish at night."

Rogue trawlers are accused of using damaging nets and of indiscriminately catching and dumping huge quantities of young, unwanted, or dead fish at sea – leaving less for locals to catch. "The trawlers have nets one to three kilometers in length, and the mouth of the net is equal to three American 'Statues of Liberties'," says Mohammad Ali Shah, chair of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum. "They catch all types of fish, and when they sort them 90% is discarded." Some 90,000 tons of fish caught off the coast of Pakistan were exported to China, Japan, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Germany, the US and UK during 2004.

A Pakistani fishing boat trawls the waters off the coast of Karachi. Photo : ©Warrick Page/ActionAid

Aftab Alam Khan, head of ActionAid's trade campaign, says: "Pakistan's fisher folk go to bed hungry because of predatory trawlers moving in as a result of Pakistan’s drive for more trade and exports. "This case highlights the appalling effects on poor people of unfairly opening up fishing markets. The government must urgently protect the rights of coastal communities." 

ActionAid warns there are moves to cut fish tariffs in the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks, resulting in increased exports and further depletion of fish stocks. "Rich nations must ditch their aggressive plans on fish tariffs at the WTO, otherwise the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of poor fisher folk could be jeopardized," said Alex Wijeratna, ActionAid campaigner and author of the report.

ActionAid, an international non-governmental organization, works with local country groups as well as national and international alliances to help reduce poverty. This article was originally published by ActionAid and may be seen at  http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100811/press_release.html.

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