The western coast of India has sustained local fisheries for thousands of years. But, although the seas are full of fish, stocks are not unlimited. You cannot catch entire fish schools with a 3-kilometre wide net and expect fish stocks to keep replenishing themselves.
Large-scale purse seine fishing, which uses just such nets, along the Konkan coast is devastating fish stocks, and in turn the ocean ecosystems and the livelihoods of local fishermen, who report catches declining by 50% in just the last few years. A delegation of small fishermen from Maharashtra has asked the Union Agriculture Minister to end this overexploitation.
Tell the Indian government to end unsustainable purse seine net fishing, otherwise fishing of any sort will come to an abrupt end anyway.
We the undersigned ask that you ban, or at the very least drastically curtail, unsustainable purse seine net fishing along the Konkan coast. Far more fish are being taken by these methods than the ecosystems can support. The inevitable result will be that fish stocks disappear, local communities are economically ruined and ocean ecosystems are devastated. Some of the effects of overfishing are already being seen and it cannot continue. We ask that India take the lead in sustainable exploitation of the oceans, which does not involve taking so many fish that the industry collapses entirely or local people lose their food security.
Thank you for your attention.
