• Sea bottom damage by bottom trawling remove the organic and fertile soil for seagrass negatively impacting rejuvenation of marine life
• Sethusamudram Canal Project further aggravated situation
• This is Part 2 of a three-part series. The first part, was published in the 11 October issue of ‘The Daily Morning’

The Indian fishery management is quite efficient with decades of fishery managerial practices more especially in the State of Tamil Nadu. It is pertinent to understand that in India there is no central law for fishery and all fishery activities are governed by State laws. Very recently it was reported in Indian media that the Goa State has arrested two Karnataka State registered trawlers engaged in Goan territory, and these indicate the competition among the adjoining States for fishery resources within the Indian maritime domain itself.

Tamil Nadu Marine Fishing Regulation Act, 1983 (Tamil Nadu Act 8 of 1983) remains the applicable Government document of relevance to Sri Lanka, and in this Legislature the 'close season' is defined as the period during which fishing by any fishing vessel using any fishing gear is totally prohibited by notification under Section 5 of the Act for the purpose of conserving the propagation of fish during the breeding season. This is implemented very effectively and is an indicator of the Indian authority’s capability to stop IMBL crossing in the northern part of the Gulf of Mannar, Palk Bay, Palk Strait and in the Pedro Bank, if they really wanted it. 

It is important that Sri Lankans understand these Indian Government frameworks and also the practical happenings at sea in order to manage and address the poaching issue with the Central Government of India. Sri Lanka does not deal with the State of Tamil Nadu and at same time need to exercise tight control over the fishermen to fishermen talks on what to talk and what not to talk. There were several initiatives in the past under arrangements of a NGO to engage the fishermen across the strait, but it was a disastrous move due genuine and affected Sri Lankan fishermen were not represented in the forum as well as the Fishery officials who were sponsored to participate having had no clue of these poaching issues.

The management of marine fishery in Tamil Nadu is governed by the District Collector, the local high official of equivalence to the District Secretary of Sri Lanka. This Indian Administrative appointment is the decision-maker having empowered with legal provisions to detain, arrest, prohibit trawlers from proceeding to sea. Thus, the complaints or reports of poaching need to be reaching this official to have a decision made on ceasing the permit or prohibiting Indian poaching trawlers from venturing to sea. At present Sri Lanka follows a system of reporting poaching trawlers identified by the trawler registration number to the Indian High Commission in Colombo, Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, Sri Lankan High Commission in New Delhi. These reports which contain the registration numbers and also the repeated sighting of registered numbers need to reach the District Collector, as that is the Office that can cancel the permit issued to the offending trawler. Although Indian Naval Headquarters and the Indian Coast Guard Headquarters are kept informed of the same reports, they can hardly make any decision other than tabling these for routine dialogues between the law enforcement agencies of both countries.

The Indian Trawlers adopt several trawling techniques officially identified as (1) two-boat high-opening bottom fish trawl (TF), (2) two-boat midwater trawl (TMW), (3) one boat high-opening bottom fish trawl (OF) and (4) one-boat high-opening bottom fish-cum-shrimp trawl (OSF) as per the Bay of Bengal Programme which introduced these techniques. Earlier these techniques used natural ropes but now all has been replaced by synthetic ropes which are more robust and can endure high tension haulage. 

The damage these trawling done on the sea bottom is disastrous and with long lasting repercussions as scraped sea bottom remove the organic and fertile soil for seagrass, and other non-edible fishery life and the nutrient deposited on the seabed. This has happened in the Indian side of the IMBL in the Palk Bay and in Palk Strait and as per open-source documents available, the marine life has yet to recapitulate in these sea areas. The dredging done on the middle bank of the Palk Strait to accommodate the Sethusamudram Canal Project further aggravated the destruction and as per UNCLOS, this is a semi-enclosed sea area where Sri Lanka also get affected by the Indian activities despite its being done on Indian side of the IMBL.

Indian poaching vessels when arrested in the Sri Lankan waters are produced before the Court of Law by the Fishery Inspectors who are empowered to take legal action by the Sri Lankan Fishery Law. As generally these Indian nationals complain of harassment and intimidation during the arrest Sri Lanka Navy who make the arrests at sea is compelled to take several preventive formalities that takes time and efforts. This writer, having been exposed to these arrests as a Commanding officer of Naval vessels and as the Deputy Area Commander to the Northern Naval Area, designed several procedural formalities to address and manage the complaints. These include re-constructing entire scenarios from the boarding of the Naval personnel at sea to handing over of arrested Indian fishermen at pier side in the presence of Fishery Inspector, Sri Lanka Police and even the officials of the Indian Consulate in Jaffna. The recreated scenario involving questioning and re-questioning both Naval personnel and the arrested Indian fishermen, from where and how boarded, where were the Indian fishermen in their vessel at the time of boarding, what were the action, reaction and how the crowd handling was done onboard the arrested Indian poaching vessel, what was the crowd management steps taken by the boarding party and the what were the reactive responses of the Indian fishermen generate a clear picture of what actually has happened onboard. These are recorded by the Navy and always conducted under the supervision of the Naval Provost usually take about 3-4 hours depending on the level of allegation or the severity of the incident.

The damages, if any, under the circumstances of resisting the arrest at sea, takes another procedural formality where state property (in this case the damages to the Naval Vessels) are photographed, documented and valued for preliminary investigation report leading to final investigation report based on the financial damages incurred into the State property. These procedures are always time consuming and cumbersome as per the Sri Lanka’s Establishment Code thus the arresting staff will be spending considerable time in filling and answering questions for subsequent investigation and damage reporting. In certain cases, when grave loss or damage to State property is reported the investigation reports are bound to take at least a year's time due Financial Regulations demanding that the Ministry of Defence representative be appointed to evaluate the damage reports. It should be noted that when the arrested for poaching Indian fishermen languishes in Sri Lankan jail, the arresting party and the Naval Provost teams also spend equal time in compiling and archiving these reports.

Indian media, more especially the Tamil Nadu-based media, highlights reports of alleged physical assault on the Indian fishermen. Following that, it is usual to receive a diplomatic Note Verbale from the Indian High Commission in Colombo through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFoA) for a report. The report is compiled at relevant Naval Area Headquarters, through a freshly appointed independent Board of Inquiry, then received at the Naval Headquarters. At Naval Headquarters, the report will be further expanded with recent developments and cautions issued to the attention of the Indian authorities and the report by this time of several pages sent to the MoFA in Colombo. These are the procedures adopted and much of these get tabled even at the routine dialogues between the Indian and Sri Lankan Law Enforcement authorities in the nature of IMBL Meeting, Navy to Navy Staff Talks and even at the Annual Defence Dialogue. It is the practice that all the complaints made by Indian fishermen or the Indian media, to trigger lengthy and time-consuming investigations where many of time no faults are found as much evidence is already with the Sri Lankan authorities. There had been several instances that the Navy had to inform the Courts of the pending inquiries thereby even extending the prison time of the Indian fishermen much to their disappointment.

The writer managed one particular incident in 2016 in the northern waters where the Indian fisherman complained that he was manhandled by the boarding party at sea which resulted breaking his arm. When the whole incident was recreated in the presence of the officials of the Indian Consulate in Jaffna, Sri Lanka Police, Fishery, and the Judicial Medical Officer, it was evident that the Indian Fisherman lost balance onboard and broke his arm due strike with the gunwale of his trawler. It was rough sea condition and in dark hours, and by recreating the entire scenario as it was, the matter was very clear for all officials present. Subsequently, the Indian fisherman was treated at Jaffna Hospital and repatriated with his fellow fishermen later. And knowing very well the matter was recorded and documented, this fisherman also refrained from making any further allegation on his return after the expatriation process. 

This case study was narrated to indicate the amount of seriousness and commitment from the Sri Lankan authorities on the arrest to repatriation. The Rules of Engagements (RoE) issued at NHQ level and more refined RoE issued at Area HQ levels basically discourage the Commanding officers from using their tactical initiative to arrest the poaching vessels in numbers. Whilst the Indian media portray a ‘devilish’ posture of the Sri Lankan Navy for the fishermen who ran into distress in the Palk Bay or Palk Strait, the same Navy comes to their rescue if the distressed party happened to be only in the Sri Lankan side of the IMBL. The pattern of Indian media as observed by the writer in his long and proven naval career is that the allegations of assault and mistreatment by Sri Lankan Naval personnel on Indian fishermen are generally released whenever there is a high-ranking meeting taking place in New Delhi or when Sri Lanka is in the international limelight.

This is why the poaching pattern needs to be studied and correlated in Colombo with bilateral relations. There is more than mere poaching in the northern part of the Gulf of Mannar, Palk Bay, Palk Strait, and in the Pedro Bank. The issues of Kachchathiv also related to the poaching despite occasional arrests being made far away from Kachchathiv islet in the Palk Bay. 

This understanding is required for all Naval personnel, the foreign service officials, law enforcement, the press, and politicians in order to grasp the essence of managing the poaching menace in Sri Lankan Waters. 

Sri Lanka has promulgated National Plan of Action to prevent, deter, and eliminate Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing in 2013 and this comprehensive document encompasses the IUU Fishing in the northern waters of the island nation. 

Despite these national action plans, the poaching continues and when one goes through the many foreign media reports alone, it appears that it is Sri Lanka who created this ‘humanitarian’ issue and even in that, the Sri Lanka Navy is the ‘villain’ in the eyes of the media narratives.

(The writer is a retired Rear Admiral and was a former Chief of Staff and the Chief Hydrographer of the Sri Lanka Navy, and the Joint Chief Hydrographer to the Government. He is an international consultant for undersea cables for the United Nations)

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication