Team from Sri Lanka meets fishermen in Nagapattinam

A 21-member delegation of fisherfolk, primarily from the war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka, held a consultative meeting with fishermen of the district at Keechankuppam on Thursday.

Use of trawler vessels and dual-filament nets by fishermen in Tamil Nadu, and their impact on the small fishermen of northern Sri Lanka figured at the two-hour long meeting.

Suryakumaran Kanthavanam of Jaffna, who led the team, said that there was community restraint on the use of trawlers, notwithstanding the government orders against their use.

Speaking about their “distress,” Siluvathasan Anandan, a researcher from Jaffna University, pointed out that the catch in Jaffna, which used to be 50,000 metric tonnes annually before the war, had now come down to 1,000 metric tonnes.

Kangesanthurai and other ports in the northern Sri Lanka had long ceased to provide for fishing logistics after being taken over for military use, the members said. With large coastal stretches in the northern part of the country being cordoned off, the Srilankan fisherfolk laid bare their grievances against the established fishing culture across the Palk Strait here in Tamil Nadu. The team members said they were here to explain the constraints under which the fishermen in Sri Lanka were earning their livelihood. The delegation had earlier visited Rameswaram, Jegadapattinam, Kottaipattinam in Pudukottai and Adhiramapattinam in Thanjavur districts.

It included representatives from the National Fisheries Solidarity (NAFSO), Socio Economic Development Education Centre (SEDEC) and Caritas, an INGO from Sri Lanka.

The dialogue was facilitated by the Alliance for Release of Innocent Fishermen, a non-government collective.