[Reader-list] Call to assert rights of fishing community

[T Peter]

*Law sought to protect fish workers’ interests *

*Date:13/09/2009* *URL:
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/09/13/stories/2009091353790400.htm*
Special Correspondent

   Thiruvananthapuram: Participants in a seminar organised by the Kerala
Swathantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KSMTF) have stressed the need for a
legislation to protect the interests of coastal communities in the country.

Expressing concern over the threats to the lives and livelihood of
fishworkers, the two-day seminar, which concluded at Kovalam on Saturday,
decided to voice their apprehensions at the proposed consultation between
the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the fishing community to be held
in Kochi soon.

The meeting recognised the success of the fishworkers’ struggle against
Coastal Zone Management Notification. It called for strengthening the
Coastal Regulation Zone Notification issued in 1991.
Activists said the 1991 notification did not recognize the customary rights
of the fishing community, including the right to build new houses. Pointing
to a report on 8825 CRZ violations in Goa, former Joint Fisheries Director
S. Ravindran Nair said the government had to come up with regulatory
measures to prevent such large scale offences. “Considering the large number
of people inhabiting the coastal areas, Parliament has to discuss the
regulation. It should not be issued as a notification.”
 *By Express News Service
13 Sep 2009 08:47:00 AM IST*

Call to assert rights of fishing community

The seminar organised by the CRZ-CMZ consultation which concluded here on
Saturday has expressed the need for asserting the rights of the fishermen to
participate in the emergence of a new Coastal Management Notification
recognizing all rights of the fishing community.
 The seminar held at the Animation Centre, Kovalam, dealt with a number of
issues concerning the lives and livelihood of the fishing community, to be
expressed in the consultation between the Ministry of Environment and
Forests and the fishing community to be held in Kochi soon.
 The meeting recognised the success of the fishermen’s struggle to force the
Government to withdraw the plan of Coastal Management Notification and
implement a notification which strengthens the original Coastal Regulation
Notification, 1991.
 S.Ravindran Nair, retired joint director, Fisheries, said that since there
was a large population on the Indian coasts, the debate on CRZ-CMZ
notification had to be discussed by Parliament and not as a mere
notification.  Women’s activist Nilanjana Biswas said that from the
experience of Gujarat, the move by the Government to create marine protected
areas will only facilitate industries and not the small and medium-level
fisher people.
 T. Peter, president of the Kerala Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation
(KSMTF) strongly challenged the capacity of the Government to prosecute CRZ
violators, which has become the biggest threat to the fishing community.