Hunger Fast of Jaffna Leader has been called off with success

The hunger fast which was began on Tuesday, 10th December has been called off this morning, around 9.45 am on 13th December. The GA of Jaffna met and promised to take immediate action to the leader who was on hunger fast demanding immediate intervention to stop the Indian Trawler Invasion in to Sri Lankan waters, stop illegal, destructive fishing operations of Southern Fishermen, and the bottom trawling operations of Gurunagar and Pesalai fishermen in the Northern province.
The GA had ordered to the Assistant Fisheries Director Jaffna to take necessary steps to stop the illegal fishing operations by Sri Lankan fishermen who are coming from southern parts of the country as well as to stop the bottom trawling of northern fishermen in Gurunagar and Pesalai.

Mr. Rajachandran of the fishermen Sangam leader of Northern Province Fisher People's Alliance said, "We are fighting for years to get the attention of this Indian trawling issue to GOSL. We captured some of the Indian fishing trawlers last year. But, there is no any reduction of Indian fleets crossing international boundaries between India and Sri Lanka. We do not know why this powerful Navy do not take actions to prevent Indian trawlers to come in to our EEZ. We are helpless with this situation as our boats, nets and engines are damaged repeatedly with entangling the Indian trawlers. Some times our lives are in danger and we lost some of our fellow fishermen. Earlier it was only 5 days they crossed the boarder. But now they come all the days of the week and we can not go to the sea for fishing."

The leaders of the northern province fisher people's alliance are in the view that there should be a dialogue and agreement between two governments of Indian and Sri Lankan to find an amicable solution for this issue.
 The fisher people have decided to take more stronger actions on this issue unless GOSL take the issue seriously and find a solution immediately.



 

Sri Lankan fishermen in the north suffered due to brutal war last 30 years. After the war ended they were bit relaxed though they had to face some restrictions continued such as pass system to go to the sea, Indian trawling and some illegal fishing operations conducted by Southern fishers who migrate to northern sea.
However, the most serious damage caused due to the Indian trawler invasion in the SL EEZ, in particular in the Northern region. Recently Trincomalee high courts had released 37 Indian fishermen who were arrested at Pulmudai coast, which is in the eastern part of SL. Those Indian fishermen were detained for a week and released them last week.
With all these situations, a member from the northern area in Jaffna had begun a hunger strike demanding from the GOSL to stop Indian trawler invasion in to SL waters with immediate effect,
S. Sathadevam [38 Years] of Achchuweli, who is a member of War affected People's association had begun this hunger strike on 10th December, at  Gurunagar and continue it until today.
The Northern Province Fisher People's Movement Leaders, mediated and handed over a memorandum to the district secretary at Jaffna for immediate attention from GOSL.
Mr. S.Thaveratnem of chair person of Northern Province Fisher People's Movement said that?" the situation of Indian Trawling is alarming and the damage to the SL fishermen can not bear any more.
Earlier the trawlers came to SL waters only 5 days and now, they come to our waters whole of the week. We are afraid to go to the sea as we are scared to damage our equipments and to harm our lives."
NAFSO support the demands of the Northern Province Fishers issues  and urge GOSL to take immediate steps to save the life of Sathadevam and to protect the life and livelihoods of our fishermen from the invasion of Indian trawlers.

“Unite for a Better Future for Women in Sri Lanka”

The exchange program between Fisher Women in the East Coast to West Coast of Sri Lanka

Held Between Baticoloa women organizations and Sri Vimukthi Fisher women Organization, Negombo, which was held 11^th December to 14^th December, 2012.

The First Day:  The Batticoloa team arrived at NAFSO around 2.00pm which is well on the scheduled time. As they were left STA Foundation office at Kallady at Batticoloa by 5.00 in the morning they were able to reach Negombo as planned. There were 27 members[24 female and 3 male] in the group and also 3 kids were joined with the team. Mr. Kamaldhas, the coordinator of STA Foundation has sent a message to the coordination team mentioning that the women are scared to leave their small children at home as storms, cyclones, gales and also tsunamis are prevalent at Baticoloa during December.

The Negombo team which included the members from Sri Vimukthi Fisher Women Organization and also the NAFSO secretariat members warmly welcome the women group with traditional Tamil welcome custom call arathie. 

The program began with the welcome speech delivered by Subashinee Deepa, the coordinator of SVFWO. It was very cordial welcome of Suba in which she mentioned that  the Negombo women are open their hearts and minds  to receive the sisters and their kids from Batticoloa. Pradeep Laksiri, the Youth and environmental coordinator of NAFSO, set the objectives of the program.

 The women leaders at Batticaloa to connect with women’s groups of traditional small scale fishing  communities in other parts of Sri Lanka (south)

b.      Io exchange experiences and link up struggles/ advocacy.

c.       Of enhancing reconciliation between ethnic Sinhala and ethnic Tamil communities,

d.      To get assistance in realization of a collective livelihood pilot project for women in fisheries, such as fish ponds preparations,  fish processing and marketing project.

After the objective setting, Ms. Geetha Lakmini Fernando, Admin Secretary of NAFSO intervened with the input of Introduction on SL fisheries in particular emphasis on women.

Some of the issues faced by SL fisher communities in the country were focused.

Ø  The imbalance of the input and the income from fisheries, fuel price and fisher people’s struggles,

Ø  Indian trawler issue and northern fishermen,

Ø  Market and Fish sales, fish processing and post harvest practices of women folk,

Ø  Access to sea, lagoon and inland fresh water bodies and proposed tourism plans,

are some of the points raised by Ms. Fernando.

As the response to Ms. Fernando’s input, the eastern coast women folk shared their burning issues even after 3 ½ years of ending war.

One of the main issue raised by the women are the encroachment of southern Sinhala fisher groups in to northern and eastern province waters and there is no any positive response to their grievances.

  

The work of the STA Foundation and the issues raised by Ms. Puvanendran are as follows;

Ø  Least attention or lack of proper interventions by the development agencies, government authorities of women,

Ø  Women of fishing communities face serious hardships. Many households have lost male bread winners and became female headed.

STA Foundations Work;

1.       Working with Adult:

STA has formed an association of adults and work on their rights and protection.

2.       Youth and Children

Children and youth are depressed with effects of the war and become unemployed.  There is a necessity to organize capacity building program to empower them.

3.       Children Program

A home for parentless children is being carried out by STA Foundation. There are some programs conducted by the organization for the children. Some concern people are supportive to conduct the program.

Programs are being carried out for the providing necessities and help of women headed families.

Also some replanting programs are carried out as environmental activities.  There are number of disable people living in the villages and direct various agencies to assist those families and individuals.

 

After the input and the sharing of the floor, the group had the evening tea before the next group discussion.

As the final session of the day, the group was divided in to two groups for a discussion on the expectation sharing with the southern group and spent around one hour for the same.

Following points were emerged at the group discussions as the expectations of the women’s group.

·         Alleviate the ethnic divisions and build up friendship between the ethnic groups,

·         To understand how to build up communities through organization formation,

·         To learn about the self help programs which are important to build up the economies of the women folk in those communities,

·         Some issues and solutions emerging as a result of working through an organization,

·         Understand how to work together in a common struggles,

·         To learn ways and means to work as a strong women organization on women and other developmental issues,

·         To learn how to keep proper accounts as an organization,

The first day was ended with the dinner around 7.30pm

Press Release: National Seminar on Development Displacement

A “National Seminar on Development Displacement” which demanded to Stop Land grabbing in the name of development: Ensure Life and Livelihoods, was held on Tuesday, 06th September 2011 in Colombo. Organised by the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement, Praja Abhilasha network and the Land Forum of Sri Lanka, the seminar focused on land grabbing and the displacement and loss of land faced by people due to large-scale development and tourism projects initiated by the Government of Sri Lanka.
Representatives of communities affected by different development and tourism projects all over the island gathered at the seminar to share their experiences and to highlight the adverse consequences of these projects on their homes, families and livelihoods and most importantly, their rights; from farmer groups in Panama, Balangoda, Moneragala who are losing their land to a special tourism zone to urban poor communities in Colombo to be evacuated in the name of urban development to fisher groups in Kalpitiya, Rathgama, Negombo and Polonnaruwa losing their land and access to the sea/reservoirs/lakes/lagoons to tourism projects and the spread of the seaplane project, Golf courts etc. Displaced people due to Special Economic Zone and also for proposed second coal power plant at Sampur, Trincomalee, displaced communities of Mullikulam, Mannar due to high security zones and military purposes were also joined hands with their southern counterpart in solidarity with the struggle against the land grabbing.
The seminar was an initial step towards ensuring that the voices and concerns of these people were heard in the larger public domain. It was the foundation to the building up a collective of affected groups which would connect over common issues brought on by development and tourism, threatening their very existence. Also, opposed so called Mahinda Chinthana development program which is the carbon copy of Regaining Sri Lanka, which was defeated by Sri Lankan people in 2004 which promote the Neo Liberal Economic Policies to hand over natural capital to private ownership with out considering the small scale producers, small farmers, small fishers, pastoralists who contribute the food security, provide job opportunities, and sustain the life and livelihoods and conserve the nature.
The main demands of the participants who participated were, “We need a development which protect our lives and livelihoods and we want our Land Back.”
Following the seminar, a peaceful demonstration was held outside the seminar venue with farmers, fisher folk and activists participating to further highlight issues surrounding the loss of land related rights and displacement due to development and tourism projects. It was also about mobilizing public support for communities struggling to hold on to their rights to land and livelihoods and access to resources such as water and a demand that the rights of these people and communities be respected and not be sacrificed in the name of development.

India, Sri Lanka for better ties over fishing

http://www.zeenews.com/news696526.html
New Delhi: India and Sri Lanka have called for better relations among their fishing
communities, and agreed that there should be no use of force in the
sea dividing the two countries.

The decisions were taken at a two-day meeting of the India-Sri Lanka
Joint Working Group on Fisheries that ended here on Tuesday. The last
meeting was held in Colombo in 2006.

"To ensure the safety and security of fishermen, both sides agreed
that the use of force cannot be justified under any circumstances," an
official statement said.

At the same time, Sri Lanka underlined the need for Indian fishermen
to respect the international maritime boundary, whose breach they say
has led to clashes -- and deaths -- on the sea.

Sri Lanka said it was investigating the death of two Indian fishermen
from Tamil Nadu in the sea in January.

Both countries called for arrangements that would "further strengthen
the safety, security and livelihood of the fishermen".

They "agreed on the need to foster greater understanding between their
respective fishermen and fishermen associations".

A group of fishermen from Tamil Nadu visited Sri Lanka this month. A
Sri Lankan delegation is to pay a return visit to India.

The two countries also discussed measures to expedite the release from
jail of bonafide fishermen detained on charges of violating the
maritime border.

The rapid expansion of fisheries in the northern coast of Sri Lanka,
following the end of the Tamil Tigers two years ago, has led to
increased clashes between fishermen from both countries.

Fishermen in Sri Lanka accuse their Indian counterparts of intruding
into Sri Lankan waters with trawlers to catch sea food.

IANS

Fish Poaching to be Resolved Soon

by Lalin FERNANDOPULLE
A meeting to resolve the problem of Indian fishermen entering Sri Lankan waters will be held with Indian fisheries ministry officials soon, an official of the Ministry of Fisheries said.

He said there had been several rounds of discussions to resolve the issue amicably but upto now no consensus has been reached on the problem.

Several Indian fishermen were nabbed recently for poaching in Sri Lankan waters. As a result relations between the two countries have been unsavoury.

Around 136 fishermen from Tamil Nadu were taken into custody for crossing the Palk Strait. Sri Lankan fishermen alleged that Indian fishermen use trawlers that are detrimental to the sea bed and corals.Convenor, National Fisheries Solidarity Movement, Herman Kumara said Indian fishermen had requested for more time to give up the use of trawlers in tuna fishing.

“Bottomed trawling is harmful to marine life. The impact on corals and the sea bed from bottom trawling is enormous”, he said.

“Sri Lankan fishermen are not ready to accept the terms of Indian fishermen and have appealed to them not to stray into Sri Lankan waters”, the convenor said.The arrest of Indian fishermen sparked tension in the Southern States of India which claimed that at least two fishermen were shot dead by the Sri Lankan Navy. The Navy denied the allegations. Sea poaching has been common among fishermen of both countries and tension has been eased with the release of the fishermen. The shift from traditional fishing to capital intensive fishing has aggravated the problem. In the 1960’s as a part of a Indian -Norwegian project that focused on capital intensive fishing, the Indian government provided subsidies to encourage fishermen to use trawlers.

The shift from traditional fishing to capital intensive fishing resulted in over exploitation of marine resources for exports. Trawlers use heavy bottomed nets which are dragged through the sea beds trapping marine life including fish eggs. “The catch is higher than the use of traditional boats and fishing gear but the adverse impact on the marine environment is great” Kumara said. The destruction to marine life was visible within a few years after the introduction of trawlers in South India. According to reports up to the 1970’s there had been an increase in fish landings and then a steady decline in prawn landings and fluctuations in fish catches. Sri Lankan fishermen are free today to carry out their occupation after several years of restrictions placed by the conflict. “Indian fishermen trespassing in our sea territory deprives us the opportunity of good fish catches” fisheries societies said.
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Committee on Fisheries concerns about Secure Sustainable Small Scale Fisheries

Twenty-Ninth Session of the Committee of Fisheries [COFI} a subsidiary body of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome 31st January – 4th February 2011.
The Committee presently constitutes the only intergovernmental forum where major international fisheries and aquaculture problems and issues are examined and recommendations addressed to governments, regional fishery bodies, NGO’s, fishworkers, FAO and international community, periodically on a worldwide basis. COFI is where as a forum global agreements and non-binding instruments are negotiated. Representing the world’s small-scale fish harvesters within this U.N. body, it had taken ten years of struggle, to get to this point where recognition of the rights of the Small-scale fishers were to be conferred upon. Such was the importance of this most crucial meet that being a participant carried a heavy burden on one’s shoulders not only for our own local fishers but for the fishing communities of the world. Stemming from civil society at the FAO Global Conference on Small-scale Fisheries [4SSF] in Bangkok 2008 and the subsequent regional conferences held in Maputo [Africa], Costa Rica [Americas] and Bangkok [Asia] in 2010 the call was for an international instrument on small-scale fisheries that was human rights based. All three regional conferences resolutions all brought to the fore the same message of equity, genuine democracy both participatory and representative, sustainability, recognition, non-discrimination and the protection against human rights abuses. The fisher people had spoken and it was our job to call for everything they wanted and attempt to get it implemented and not to settle for “better than nothing” or to gather the crumbs from the table. The outcome after four days of caucusing, side events, meetings with African Union and Nepad and presentations was a meritorious achievement and a triumph. Even though the committee approved the development of a new international instrument on small-scale fisheries that should draw on relevant existing instruments that compliments the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, this was not altogether an outright victory as the work to implement the guidelines and to clarify “who are we”? ranks as our next biggest challenge.

THE OUTCOME at COFI; GOOD PRACTICES IN THE GOVERNANCE OF SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES; SHARING OF EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED IN RESPONSIBLE FOSHERIES FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT [ITEM 10]

51 The committee welcomed the conclusions and recommendations stemming from an extensive process of consultation, including three regional workshops, with the effective participation.

52. The committee agreed on the important role played by the small-scale fisheries sector particularly for developing countries in the context of food security and poverty alleviation. The Committee noted that often this importance was not recognized and due attention given to the needs of small-scale fishers and their communities. The Committee further agreed that FAO should continue to give high priority to small-scale fisheries and ensure adequate visibility for them, particularly in relevant international fora which dealt directly or indirectly with these fisheries.

53. The Committee recognized the need to take account of the heterogeneity, diversity and complexity of the small-scale fisheries sector, including it’s cross-sectoral and gender dimensions, when defining policies and measures. The Committee noted the concern about the need for clarification of the term “small-scale fisheries”.

54. Consistent with the conclusions and recommendations of the regional workshops, the Committee approved the development of a new international instrument on small-scale fisheries that would draw on relevant existing instruments, complementing the Code. The Committee agreed that the new instrument should be voluntary in nature, address both inland and marine fisheries and focus on the needs of developing countries. The Committee indicated some preliminary issues to be addressed in this instrument, recommending that all stakeholders should be associated, as appropriate with this development.

55. The Committee agreed that the new instrument should take the form of international guidelines rather than an international plan of action or a new Code article.

56. The Committee noted the proposal made by some Members to establish a COFI Sub-Committee on Small-scale Fisheries, but no agreement was reached on that matter.

57. The Committee agreed on the need to strengthen the conditions of safety at sea in particular with regard to small-scale fisheries.

58. The Committee agreed to the establishment and implementation of a global assistance programme along thematic areas proposed.

Thanks to Andrew Johnston, Artisanal Fishers Association of South Africa for his contribution on COFI 2011.