Asia Is Trawling for a Deadly Fishing War | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/16/asia-is-trawling-for-a-deadly-fishing-war
Growing tensions between Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen are just one signal of a looming conflict over the region’s depleted waters.
[…]
In the past, the calm and shallow Palk Strait waters had more than enough fish to sustain communities on both sides. Its maritime landscape, with numerous lagoons and small islets, make for excellent breeding waters; over 600 marine species can be found near its coasts. But excessive trawling on the Indian side, starting in the 1960s, severely depleted its waters and pushed boats to navigate deeper into Sri Lankan waters.
Trawlers began crossing in the 1980s, at the same time that Sri Lanka descended into a destructive civil war between the government and the militant Tamil Tigers, who fought for independence in the country’s north. But the fisheries conflict only heated up in 2009, after the Sri Lankan civil war was brought to a painful end — with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, but also the killing of tens of thousands of civilians. Fishers, who during the war had faced army restrictions, long periods of displacement, losses of family members, and the destruction of their homes and boats, were finally able to return to the sea.
“But the waters were not like before,” says A.S. Soosai, professor of geography at the University of Jaffna. “Fishers were trying to recover, but catches and earnings were nowhere near what they used to be. The main reason for that is the trawlers.”