Seafood News - Industry Events - Seafood Market

Web India 123    11/04/2005 10:43:32

With much of its lagoon gone for lucrative shrimp culture, fishermen are struggling to make a living from Orissa's reputed Chilika lake though it is home to 160 species of fish and prawn.

Fishermen say the intricate nylon nets used in shrimp culture traps the small sized fish, reports Grassroots Features.

While the commercial cultivators pick up the lucrative shrimp, the small sized fish are thrown away.

Fishing has been the traditional occupation of people living around the Chilika lake for over 100 years. Dry salting of fish eggs, small fish and shrimp sold in the markets of West Bengal and Myanmar used to be the domain of the women in the family.

The Chilika lake is one of India's most fragile ecosystems, supporting hundreds of native and migrant birds.

In 1991, the Orissa government amended the fishing lease policy to allow shrimp culture and fishing by outsiders.

The Orissa High Court in 1994 acknowledged the rights of the traditional fishermen and restricted fish culture in Chilika to 40 percent of fishing activity.

But fishermen allege that the court's order is being flouted, with 80 percent of the lake taken up for shrimp culture.

Now, vast areas of brackish water can be seen barricaded on the periphery of the lake by bamboo poles and nets or mud bunds. The inlets are closed after seedlings have been allowed to flow in with the tide.

Except for the shrimp, almost 95 percent of the fish seedlings, including bhetki, mullet, hilsa and the Indian salmon, are thrown out and left to die.

Fishermen say that deep-sea fishing trawlers crowd the Bay of Bengal near Chilika, netting the shrimp before they can enter the lagoon and further reducing stocks.

"Where an acre of paddy cultivation employed eight women, a 100-acre shrimp pond needs just two people to guard it," says Kishore C. Samal of the Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies, Orissa.

Wildlife activist Biswajit Mohanty alleges that around 100 vehicles loaded with jerry cans of shrimp seedlings worth about Rs.20 million clandestinely head back every day to the aquaculture farms of West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

There used to be enough fish to support the over 100,000 fishing families in eight towns and 137 villages of Khurda, Ganjam and Puri districts but not any more.

Traditional fishermen are now taking credit from moneylenders and paying higher interest.

Samal's study in 1999 has shown that the economic condition of the Chilika fishermen has worsened since shrimp culture started booming.

The study found the per capita income of those involved in shrimp culture to be four times that of the traditional fishermen.

Of every Rs.100 earned, traditional fishing households spent a maximum of Rs.7 on education and less than Rs.6 on health.

Some say nearly 80 percent of these fishermen have loans of Rs.18,000 or more to clear.